MSI Press Blog

  When a Cat Bites Hard: Helping Tissou Learn Another Way Tissou is a beautiful tortoiseshell cat with a complicated past. Once a loved housecat, she was abandoned to a horse stall for two years after her owner died. She wasn’t properly fed, she wasn’t shown kindness, and she was occasionally mistreated. She survived by shutting down, protecting herself, and fighting when she needed to. Now, at ten years old, she has a home again. She’s warm, safe, and fed. But she bites. And not just warning nips. She bites hard—hard enough to break skin. It’s not constant. She can be affectionate and calm. But if she’s touched in a way she doesn’t expect, or feels cornered, startled, or overstimulated, she reacts with teeth. There’s no time to stop her once she’s decided—it’s lightning-fast and deeply ingrained. We love her. But we also need to be safe. So how do you help a cat like Tissou learn not to bite? Step One: Take It Seriously Many people excuse biting with phrases like “She’s jus...

  THE CULPRIIT, TISSOU, SLEEPING PEACEFULLY WTIH MY SON This was a question I had not thought about much, if at all, through decades of rescuing cats. I would get scratches, sure. And occasionally a light leave-me -alone bite, but never a deep, frightened one, like the one I got this week from Tissou, a rescued cat with a spina deformity that must have been the source of some sharp pain when I picked her up (though she likes to cuddle, her limping indicates that she probably does have pain from movement). It was an instinctive reaction on her part, and her sharp teeth hit near a nerve, sending an electric shock through my body, casing me to instantly drop her. Realizing what had happened, I held up by hand. There were four distinct puncture wounds and a longer wound, like a gash, perhaps a couple of teeth together...just a guess. It did not bleed much. Good, I thought  It is just a cat bite. Good, I thought. Those happen all the time You never hear a lot on the news about them...