“Why is my cat so mean?” This was a question posed on a message board regarding a cat that would repeatedly bite her owner despite the fact that the owner loved the cat dearly and constantly petted, fawned over and otherwise treated the cat nicely. Well, the short answer to the question is that the cat is not being mean. It is simply being a cat and cats may bite for a number of reasons. For example, did you know sometimes when a cat bites it may be trying to convey it loves its owner? Yes, biting cat behavior can be relatively complex and in order to understand this behavior one need to examine it closely.

If there was one common biting cat behavior that is annoying (and frightening) to people it is when a cat mildly bites your hand when you pet it. Usually, this type of behavior is not so much aggressive as much as it is the cat’s only way of saying “Enough! Stop petting me!” When the cat does this it would be best to just leave the cat alone. Similarly, all cats – 100% of them – will wrap their front and rear paws around your arm and chomp (lightly) into it if you rub their mid-section. This is a primal protection behavioral reaction that is instinctive and not really a sign of over aggression. Again, not all biting is about aggression; however, there are instances where the biting does become benignly aggressive.

Probably the most common instance of benign cat biting behavior is when cat thinks it can play with your hands as in the same way it can with toys. (Cats bite their toys, remember) You must let your cat know that hands are not toys and they are not for biting! If you cat tries to bite your hands when you pet it in a playful manner PULL YOU HAND AWAY and stop petting it. Whatever you do, do not encourage cat biting behavior as this will ingrain a really bad habit that will become very difficult to break down the road.

The second most common instance of benign biting cat behavior occurs when a cat is petted in areas where it is overly sensitive. There is a way to break the cat out of this habit, but it takes a little patience. Now, a cat will never bite you when you pet it on top of its head because this is not a generally sensitive area so you use this to your advantage by slowly moving your hand beyond the cat’s head to its torso region by about a half an inch. Over an extended period of time, you increase your petting area by an additional half an inch. This will gradually wean the cat out of being oversensitive and, hopefully, will break him out of the habit of biting.

As such, biting cat behavior is not because the cat is mean as much as it is because the cat picked up some bad habits, but fear not – these habits can be easily broken if you have the patience!