miss_yt | Where to start?

Well, it's been an eventful couple of days. I successfully saw through the Yom Kippur fast on Thursday, I took Roo to her second vet appointment on Friday (the rain, and my lack of a proper carrier on the way back, made that very complicated), and today

ironroot and I designed my D&D character. I have to ask one of the other players if our two characters can be related. It's complicated - I'll explain it if it works out. My friend Martine, now a senior at Bryn Mawr, is flying home from Atlanta tonight. She's going to spend the night here and meet Roo.

Speaking of Roo, I got a little spray bottle that I hope I can use to train her not to bite. The vet says she needs to be trained now, or she will not get out of the habit when she grows up. I'm hoping I can do that without making Roo hate me or something.

Oh, and I also made a discovery. I was wrapping the yarn around the needle the wrong way when I knitted. Now I've corrected the mistake. It takes some getting used to, but I can see that it's working - my stitches aren't too tight anymore and the yarn I'm working with doesn't get twisted. Yay!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yay! I stand in respect of you crafty people. I'm not crafty at all.

The best and most effective way to discourage biting - because you can't have a spray bottle 24/7 - is to do what you'd do with any child. If you're petting her, and she goes to bite you, withdraw your attentions and say NO, firmly. They'll learn to associate that tone with the withdrawal of affection. Don't pet her or pay attention to her again for several seconds or until you think she's calmed down.

Also you can do what (her) Mom would do: grab her by the scruff and give her a shake while saying "No!" (or growling, in Mom's case). I guess you could growl too, if it'd be more fun.

I would adjunct it with Bitter Apple. You can find it in pet stores.

Same idea as coating a child's fingers with pepper to discourage them from thumb sucking or biting nails only a lot less cruel, safe for animals, and not painful. It's just got a nasty bitter taste (that, I repeat, is safe for animals).

They have bitter lime gel to spread on furniture and electrical wires for pets that chew on those.

Bitter Apple has been in our standard ferret care bag of tricks for many years.

Apparently swatting and hissing also works - that's what cat moms do when their kids misbehave. Roo just hasn't gotten over biting yet because she was orphaned, and her mother would normally teach her to behave. So, well, I have to do it.

*eyes previous poster* Gods above, you DON'T need to shake them. Physical violence *really* isn't appropriate and you can hurt them more than you realise.

Well, I've been using your strategy. If she bites, I hiss, swat her a bit (not too hard!) and/or put her down and then ignore her for a while. She's already biting much less.

That's because you're speaking to her in a way she can understand.

I haven't tried the Bitter Apple bit, but I fear that what she would learn from that is "Fingers taste funny, so I better bite the wrist instead." Whereas what she's learning from your approach is, "If I bite, people get mad at me and won't want to play anymore and I get scolded. So I better not bite."

Good to hear! They're fast learners - much faster than some people give them credit for.

What do you think Mama Cat does when Kitten acts up? She growls and SWATS it, or growls, grabs it by the scruff and SHAKES it. I assumed Miss YT had the common sense not to shake a 10-ounce kitten as hard as she would an 80-pound German shepherd, and I think that's a pretty safe assumption. She's a smart young lady. Whacking a kid is very rarely appropriate because you can talk to and reason with a kid (you'd be surprised how much even a 1-year-old can understand), but animals very often "reason" with each other physically, and so it's an excellent way to get the point across. People who Dr. Spock their pets are a big part of why animal shelters are full of intrinsically good pets that their owners found uncontrollable, because the owners tried to treat the pet like it was a child. PETS ARE NOT PEOPLE. You do them no favors by treating them as such. "Speak" to the pet on a level, and in a way, that he can understand. You owe him that much basic courtesy, and everyone will be happier.

If you're wondering why you got lectured, it's because when you've volunteered at an animal shelter and seen a parade of people bringing in dogs, and sometimes cats, that would be perfectly nice with a little common-sense training, and listened to said people whining "I just can't control him!", you get to where you want to employ a little physical violence against these people who don't know how to handle an animal, are too stupid or lazy to learn, and end up costing the poor critter his life when the shelter has to put him down.

This was supposed to come out under Alyssa's comment, she's the person I was sternly lecturing. (She pushed one of my buttons. Needless death really upsets me.) But for some reason it looked like I was lecturing everybody. Which I frequently do, it's a privilege of being old and crotchety, but I wasn't this time.

I'm not going to shake her at all, though.

That's good. I don't think Alryssa's offense merits shaking.

As for Roo, just carry on with what you're doing. (Grin.) And submit some more pictures when you have time.

I HAVE worked at animal shelters, so don't presume to lecture me, dear. I've seen firsthand, repeatedly, at what people - both ignorant *and* willingly - have done to animals.

I have not, nor have I ever implied, she would do anything of the sort. However, I WAS saying that shaking was not the ideal method of disciplining a kitten.

My cats are perfectly well behaved and I've never had to resort to physical violence to teach them appropriate behaviour. Both of them are shelter rescues, one of whom I rehabilitated myself.

So please to think first before assuming you know squat about someone you've never met, hmm?

I wasn't assuming you were self-righteous and sheltered. It came through loud & clear.

Okay, that's enough. This has gotten unneccessarily vicious and I won't have you two getting into a raging argument on my journal. If you can't say anything nice to each other, then ignore each other or take it somewhere else, please.

Wow, everybody knits. Bring your work along to the DnD game! I like fellow knitters. :)

Sure. I have a hat I'm working on.

By the way, do you know how to do an SSK (slip slip knit)? I need to learn it for this scarf I'm going to make.

By the way, do you know how to do an SSK (slip slip knit)? I need to learn it for this scarf I'm going to make.

Yep, I learned how from stitchguide.com. The basic idea is that you're reversing the way the stitches sit on the needle in order to make the decrease tilt the other way. You might not want to watch me, though, because I knit backwards and have never learned how to knit "normally". :)

Thanks! The video guide really helped.

That would be the very same video I mentioned to you no less than three times...

*meep*

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