Love bite. Kittens bite during play to learn battle and hunting skills. Mama cats wrap their jaws around babies’ necks to carry them places. They don’t break the skin unless they feel threatened enough.
Biting is something cats do with their family. You are in your cat’s family basically.
Edit: Thank you all those who reminded me that cats will bite their own and other cats’ fur while grooming to separate any clumped hairs and loosen debris! Maybe OPs kitty was ensuring OPs cleanliness while grooming her cheek.
Depends. She may have never learned if she was removed from mom and siblings too young, in which case it is you that teaches her control. To do this (usually when they are young), I just hiss or “OW!” And remove my attention from them as soon as it happens. Eventually they understand.
Alternatively, you may be over stimulating her and she bites to say stop.
My cats never reacted to me making pain noises (hissing worked but scared them so I do not like) but I found a soft, quiet, "geeentle" calmed them down. They are well enough trained now I can say gentle as a pseudo-command to break up a fight if play wrestling gets too rough or stop a jump one of them is planning on the other lol
That’s how my dog is. He plays very rough with me (super gentle with everyone else though) but the second I say “we’re done” he stops and expects pets.
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u/BreathingGirl000 1d ago edited 2h ago
Love bite. Kittens bite during play to learn battle and hunting skills. Mama cats wrap their jaws around babies’ necks to carry them places. They don’t break the skin unless they feel threatened enough. Biting is something cats do with their family. You are in your cat’s family basically.
Edit: Thank you all those who reminded me that cats will bite their own and other cats’ fur while grooming to separate any clumped hairs and loosen debris! Maybe OPs kitty was ensuring OPs cleanliness while grooming her cheek.