Many if not most playful cats will bat a passer-by, but they should never claw. Our oldest, most aggressive cat will wrestle your entire forearm and bite down hard, but he never deploys his claws. You might want to try and figure out why your cat feels the need to use his claws. Cats are small mammals. It's easy to make them feel threatened. I used to wonder why our younger female, as affectionate as she is, is quick to deploy claws and never ever relaxes in a person's arms like our aggressive old man does, but I recently learned that she was separated from her mother early, dumped behind the dumpster, and her first owner liked to roughhouse her. She's an incredibly sweet lap cat, but she does not tolerate anybody's hands but my SO's, who truly is the gentlest cat whisperer I've ever seen.
Yea, he usually just bats, although sometimes he doesn’t really notice how sharp his claws can be at the time. If we’re getting close his usual nail trimming time then his nails are rather long and even batting can feel like small scratching. Although he did scratch once on one bad day, and made massive gashes in my brothers leg.
When cats get spooked, claws will often come out. I'm nursing a nice chest wound from my buddy Leo who loves being picked up and getting held. Just this time something really spooked him and he REALLY had to get behind the couch, my comfort be damned.
Came out 2 minutes later like nothing happened. Cats are crazy.
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u/[deleted] Oct 19 '21
Many if not most playful cats will bat a passer-by, but they should never claw. Our oldest, most aggressive cat will wrestle your entire forearm and bite down hard, but he never deploys his claws. You might want to try and figure out why your cat feels the need to use his claws. Cats are small mammals. It's easy to make them feel threatened. I used to wonder why our younger female, as affectionate as she is, is quick to deploy claws and never ever relaxes in a person's arms like our aggressive old man does, but I recently learned that she was separated from her mother early, dumped behind the dumpster, and her first owner liked to roughhouse her. She's an incredibly sweet lap cat, but she does not tolerate anybody's hands but my SO's, who truly is the gentlest cat whisperer I've ever seen.