This is a repost. The original was posted in r/CatAdvice by User MoonAndStarsTarot. I'm not the original poster.

Status: Pretty much concluded, just an old priest and a young priest is still needed.

Mood: Cat is happier

Original

February 8, 2025

My husband and I adopted a cat back in the beginning of January. She is the first cat either of us have owned, but I did enough research to be comfortable in my knowledge of cat care/needs. The shelter said she was a year but my vet is doubtful that she’s more than 10-11 months so still a kitten.

She is very playful and sweet. She loves to cuddle before bed with purring and biscuits. She likes to wake me up in the same way. When I get home from work, it’s 20mins of petting and cuddles because she is so affectionate. I spend time brushing her when this happens so it’s actually more like 30-40mins.

She gets at least 30-45mins of worm toy (wand toy with a fuzzy worm attachment) and is often panting like a dog at the end of a play session. This is when I end things because she will absolutely keep going and is full of beans. She will randomly come and attack our feet by “hunting”. It’s totally playful and she’s not trying to hurt us but those little fangs are sharp!

Saying “No!” or shaking her off doesn’t work as she will attack the other foot instead. This behaviour happens randomly throughout the day when she is playful and will be purring while she is doing this. I need to typically remove myself from the area or else she will keep going. This most often happens during her midnight zoomie sessions where she runs around the room making Murloc noises. When she’s doing that it’s dangerous to put feet on the ground.

How do I get her to stop attacking?

Notable Comments:

She's a cat. They do that. You can't make them stop. In 10 years she'll calm down. Electronic_Elk2029

Your only option here is to amputate your feet. No feet no attack hoodieinjuly

When she attacks your feet, redirect with a toy.

Right now you’re playing the “mom likes it when I fight her feet” game (and she’s winning). 50Bullseye

The play sessions may be too long, even though it seems like she still has energy. She could be frustrated at that point, and frustration can cause problems on its own. She may even be ready to stop, but she's wound up enough that she can't stop. This is common in human toddlers, too, where they often act out because they are tired and frustrated, and they aren't mature enough to understand how to control their behavior.

She will likely calm down as she gets older, but in the meantime, you might try cutting down the play time and maybe do 2-3 separate, shorter sessions. Afterwards, encourage cuddling. Get out the brush and give lots of pets to calm her down. It can also be helpful to establish a bedtime routine to help the cat understand the transition to (human) sleep time. We usually give our cats a few treats about an hour before we go to bed, and they get a little playtime followed by laptime in the living room. We start turning out lights in rooms we aren't using as well. By the time we go to bed, they are settled down for bed themselves. kiminyme

I have had a few cats who love this. I wear thicker socks and play with them back. If they hunt my bare feet I gently reprimand them. They seem to learn this difference better than just not being able to hunt you at all. brokensyntax

Update

March 15, 2025

A month ago, I made a post about my small entity attacking our feet. I now have an update after my husband tried out an... interesting solution: Oven mitts.

My husband joked that he was going to bring home some welding gloves so we can wear them on our feet when we go into the bedroom, which was the only room she would attack in. Randomly, that same day, we found a pair of oven mitts we never used and didn't plan on doing anything with. My husband put them in the bedroom on his night stand and when she started getting zoomy, he put them on and got on the floor. She instantly charged him and latched onto the oven mitt, bunny kicking his mitted hand into submission, purring up a storm the whole time while her ears were ready for liftoff.

Turns out her favourite game is WWE and the oven mitts have helped reduce her desire to attack our feet. When we see her getting playful, we put them on and she can go to town. For something that weighs 7lbs and is the size of a slipper, she is surprisingly strong! She is a lot less murderous towards feet as well, which has been a huge plus. She still has her moments but for the most part the behaviour has largely been curbed. Now if only we could get her to stop scaling the walls like a spider... but that's a project for another time.

Comments by OOP:

I have always had dogs and wrestling with a giant rottweiler is quite fun. I never expected to be able to do it with my cat but I am so happy that I can since it's a ton of fun to play with her and she loves it.

We only wrestle with the oven mitts and not actual hands so she doesn't seem to associate them with toys, only the mitts. She also doesn't seem to have interest in other oven mitts so she seems to have realized that these ones are for playing and others are not. It has also reduced the undesirable behaviour, which I am very happy about.

The wall climbing is more like something out of the exorcist and is quite creepy when she spins her head around and looks like a strange owl while chittering. It’s quite something to wake up to in the middle of the night.

I’m not sure the lack of playtime is an issue. She gets an hour per day broken up into 5-10min segments and it’s extremely active where she’s running, jumping, and doing flips. I think she just likes wrestling because the attacks have reduced significantly since starting to use the oven mitt.

Cat Tax

I'm not the original poster.