How well do cats associate behaviour with a consequence?
I have a lovely six year old grey domestic shorthair that I adopted three years ago. He’s usually a cuddly, loveable guy. At night, he’ll sleep curled up next to me and purring.
Some time ago, he started randomly attacking me on some nights. I don’t even know when it started because it’s so infrequent. It’s appears random to me, but I would guess it’s on busy days where I didn’t have time to play with him enough to tire him out, or I didn’t give him enough attention overall. Either way, I’ll usually be getting ready for bed or in bed, and he’ll suddenly grab onto my arm and bite down and bunny kick. His bites rarely draw blood, but his scratches do - I’ve had a running theory for a while that he doesn’t really understand how sharp his nails can be, even after being trimmed. He’ll be in attack/zoomies mode for a while before finally calming down.
Recently, I’ve started kicking him out of my room, hoping that he’ll associate an attack on my arm with being kicked out for the night. But it’s more like I’ll throw a toy out into the hallway for him to chase and then shut the bedroom door before he can come back in, and less of an explicit toss-out. I don’t know if those events happen frequently enough for him to make the correlation, or if it’s even a concrete enough concept. He does meow and complain for a while at my door to be let in before he gives up and sleeps on the couch. My bedroom is on a floor separate from the couch and cat tree, so once he’s out he’s pretty good about being quiet until the morning.
My question is in two parts.
Is the attacking behaviour concerning? His bites are gentle enough that I know he doesn’t mean to harm me. The scratches do bleed, but it’ll hurt even when he taps my leg for attention (maybe he accidentally unsheathes them here, or they just poke out a bit) or suddenly jumps off my stomach sometimes. He just has pointy nails and strong paws. He was the vet in October for routine bloodwork and some tooth extraction, and they didn’t mention anything else. My theory is that I just need to play with him a bit more before bed.
Will he ever learn to associate attacking me with being banned from my bedroom to the night?