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Since the early days my cat, which is about 3 years old, likes to play with me by gently scratching and biting my hand without really giving any damage, but recently she's become more aggressive and attacks with force, leaving multiple scratch marks and tries to bite "for real".

If I try to stop her she sees it as "prey trying to resist" and attacks even more aggressively, and if I ignore her and walk away, she'll run behind and try to catch my legs to continue the "hunt". Are there any ways to make her understand that what she's doing hurts and she should take the game less seriously?

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Make sure you give her lots of fun toys to play with and lots of other places to scratch. This should distract her from scratching you instead of other things. cats need to scratch and that's a fact. They just don't need to scratch you. If she starts being aggressive to you or giving you that infamous "look" go to a different room and don't let her in. Stay there for about 5-10 seconds and she will very quickly realize that being aggressive is not OK. When playing, try not to offer your hand as prey or she will quickly be convinced that your hand is what she is playing with, and will play with your hand like she would a cat toy. Make sure you play with your cat often so that she can let off her energy on things other than you. Keep on playing.

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I had the same problem with my leg, we found out what my cat loves though which changed it all which are toy mice and catnip.

Try and buy some fun toys and play with her, but it is best to find out how she is with catnip first because it can have different kinds of impact. For example, my cat loves catnip so much that when we give her a toy with catnip she goes absolutely crazy and her eyes widen up!

I would say buy one toy that your cat may/will love, as your cat is getting older her bites and scratches wont seem as cute. You think as she gets older the more they will hurt, so it is best to switch your hand to a toy.

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  • There have also been past answers here about how to communicate to a car that they are going too far.
    – keshlam
    Apr 1, 2016 at 0:45
  • My cat already has some toys she likes to play with, but none of them seem to entertain her as much as "hunting" my hand. I tried to distract her with her toys when she becomes overly aggressive but it doesn't really work - I think she just got too used to biting my hand and this is her favorite game now. So I guess I need to stop letting her bite me and switch her hunting instincts to smth else, but how do I do it - just ignore her and throw a ball hoping that eventually she'll forget me and start chasing it?
    – AngrySquid
    Apr 1, 2016 at 12:22
  • This doesn't really answer the question.
    – GoldNugget8
    Apr 5, 2016 at 2:47

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