My tabby cat Milo has been quite interesting so far! He is not like any cat we have owned. For one thing he was extremely aggressive and would constantly bite us. I know what you are thinking, “what’s so unique about that? All kittens do that.” This is true but not to the degree of Milo. Let me explain.
Tabby Cat Milo, Bites, Bites, Bites!
One thing was becoming apparent in the days after we brought Milo home was that he was extremely afraid of people. We saw it a bit when we got him from his previous home but now we realized why he only lasted a week there. Because of this he attacked us constantly. He would claw and bite us if we got near him. The bites were not playful bites but instead full out bites that drew blood. My poor wife’s hands were full of bite marks!
Another thing we noticed is that Milo had extreme fear of certain sounds and objects. For example whenever he heard a motorcycle go buy, he tensed up, his tail wagged quickly and his eyes started to glaze over and he ran away. Even sadder is that whenever we would pick up a glass or mug, he would immediately jump back and get in his aggressive stance with fear in his eyes. We both realized that something bad happened to Milo in his past that has made him this way which broke our hearts.
Patience, Squirt and Time out
My wife did a lot of research on tabby kittens who were like Milo. Most of the advice she found said that you needed to be patient and keep showing them love and eventually they will mellow out. This wasn’t hard for us to do as we loved our little guy despite his aggression. We knew that there was a gentleman in our Milo! Another thing we discovered was that if Milo was getting aggressive was that we would give him a little squirt of water get him out of his aggressive state. It usually worked. When he was extremely aggressive, we would put Milo into time out in our office room for 10-15 mins. We were doing this constantly with him.
Progress and Bonding!
We were not really seeing progress with Milo and were not sure what we were doing was going to help him. But then we get a few wonderful surprises! First, I was sitting on my couch with my feet on the coffee table reading on tablet. Milo comes up beside me on the couch and proceeds to walk on my stretched legs and then just lays on my legs. We are shocked as he has never done any like this before. Yay, progress!
A little while later I was in my lounge chair reading my tablet and Milo jumped on to the chair. He then proceeded to walk behind me and to lay on my shoulder looking at my tablet. So here is me and Milo looking at the tablet together. Cool! Finally, my wife put her hand down towards Milo’s face and he leaned his head into her hand to caress it. We were shocked as previously he would attack her hand.
Our Tabby Cat Milo Getting Better and Better!
With time, patience and love, Milo has become a sweet kitty. He rarely bites. He is showing us affection and he is not afraid. We are both thrilled as we both love the little guy a lot. Our boy kitty is becoming a gentleman and we both look forward to further adventures with him!
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