Am I the only person with a cat that is super careful with their teeth and claws, such that they don't pierce skin? He'll lightly place his claws on skin or take a finger between his teeth and apply very light pressure when he doesn't want to be touched.

The "scream in pretend pain whenever you feel anything sharp" method has trained him to be very aware of his killing tools.

The only time I have claws viciously dug into me is when he kneads me in relaxation, and that's an instinctual behaviour I don't think he can resist.

[–] ZeroCool@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Same here. My cat's only about 9 months old (adopted at 4mo) but so far he's been good about keeping the rough housing down to light nipping and grabbing me without claws. Accidents happen of course, but every cat I've had in my life has had a similar temperament during playtime.

[–] MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz 2 points 2 years ago

Yup. As long as you actually give off a consistent indication of when you feel more claw than you'd like, cats seem to learn where the line is. They don't actually want to hurt you, until they do, and at that point the behavior is a completely different level of aggressive.

It's just that fellow cats are protected by a coat of fur, so the "intuitive" amount of claw that a cat will use is a bit more than what we furless humans can deal with. The cute part is that given time, a cat will even learn to tell clothing apart from skin. My boy uses plenty of claw sitting on my shoulders when I wear a hoodie, and basically none at all, even falling off rather than put claws in me, when I'm in just a t-shirt.

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