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Has anyone ever tried time outs with a cat? Bobbles is still biting me. Nobody else. She doesn't respond to the high pitched eek. If I pick her up and set her down, she comes back at me. If I disengage and walk away, she comes after me. This evening, I picked her up and closed her in her cage. She didn't protest. I'm about to let her back out. Just wondering what type of cat I'll encounter when I do.
Hard to say. Except, as a rule, negative reinforcement doesn't much work with cats, and that would include the time out concept. I suspect that doesn't 100% mean that there is no point in trying this. It's more like don't be surprised if it changes nothing. I don't think you'll do any irreparable damage so if you can get a break by putting her in the cage, I suppose why not. But I think calling it a time out is expecting more of it than it really is. She can't relate the being put in the cage to the behavior right before then that made you want to put her in there.
I have since found articles on it. They advocate time out via closing them in another room for a half hour if nothing else works. One says not to do it because you risk getting bitten when picking up and carrying to the other room.
But I have a way of carrying Bobbles without one hand that somehow makes her docile. Her entire underbody rests on my arm, my thumb and little finger are under each shoulder, and my index finger and my middle finger on either side of her jaw. That's the best way I can describe it. I hold her out like that. She likes it.
I didn't keep her in the cage for 30 minutes. I just waited until she settled down. (She wasn't upset but she was milling around and such.) It was about 10 minutes total in the cage. When I opened it, she was sweet as could be. We'll see how long it takes her to bite me again.
Gee, Bobbles, lighten up! I've done time outs with kittens. I'd put them in a room for 10 or 15 minutes, saying "time out" as I carried them in. They'd learn the word, and then saying time out would make them stop what they were doing and scoot away. It's worth a try. And she should grow out of it eventually.
Spray bottle with water in it and spritz her when she does it. Every once in a while Chewy gets testy and will bat at me if I try to get him off the coffee table, so I tap him firmly on the nose and then point to the floor and he will jump down.
It didn't make her hate her cage. She's sleeping in there with the door open. She watched me take my bath and everything else like usual. She just doesn't know how to treat me.
Maybe I'll try to give her a time out room instead of her cage. Saying time out each time might help.
At the very least it keeps her away from you until she calms down, and maybe she'll learn to calm herself down faster so she can get out. I don't know if it'll do anything in the way of stopping the behavior but it's certainly worth trying.
I did read the previous posts. I don't have a spray bottle on hand. Her bites are so random.
I've tried being firm and telling her "no." She just gets crazy eyes and comes back at me.
She hasn't broken skin but she's intense and seems serious.
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