Why is my cat grooming me
Why Do Cats Lick You? Is it Obsession or Affection?
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okay so our next question comes from
Hunter and her incredibly cute orange
tabby spud hello everyone this is spud
and he has a little bit of an obsession
with licking fingers every night he'll
get into the bed and just get on top of
me and just lick my fingers is there
something that this means why does he do
this he does it all the time well hunter
as adorable as that is I could tell you
I know that it can be really annoying
now there's a couple of things that
could be going on here the first thing I
always want to do is make sure that I'm
covering the physical basis on this
thing there could be something about
hunter where he is not getting either an
assault and a hydration something like
that where his body is calling out for
something and he's getting it by licking
always when you've got an annoying habit
like that the first thing to do is find
that if your cat is actually raising a
red flag of sorts and just saying hey
something's not right here
like we see a lot of times with dogs who
eat excessive amounts of grass and dirt
because they don't have enough iron in
their system past their the one guest
that I have is this is actually a left
over pre weaning behavior that we have
gone into and cat-daddy dictionary you
see the link right here to smuggling yes
it's like a smeargle or like a BLAP
sometimes where it's just a leftover
behavior that is something that a cat
will do that they did when they were
hidden so smuggling doing this is
something that they would do when they
were kittens to get milk out of mom they
do it now to our shirts or our bodies
because it's very peaceful and and
serene so it's a complement of sorts
that seems like what spud is doing to
your hand it's a routine it's a ritual
that you guys go to every night so it's
as if he was curling up next to mom
and doing this on her belly but he's
doing that to your hands if you really
don't want spud to lick your hands take
your hands away and don't let him do it
give him yes for the No yes is you have
something where you could give a nice
little substitute and that substitute
you wanted to be able to have scent to
it so it smells like you and smells like
him you want
be what I call a sense Soaker a good
example of a scent Soaker is a kicker so
this is a kicker right here it is a
scent Soaker this one is made of canvas
and so if you keep it near you if you
just do this kind of thing to it you're
getting your scent into it if you put
some catnip on it bill at least sniff it
they'll put their hands on it or
whatever the idea is you want to be able
to hand him something like this when you
take your hand away even if he just
wraps his body around it and kicks on it
a little bit at least that's a ritual
that you can replace your hand with
Hunter do you really want this to stop
because if you really do then there's
one easy way to do it stop him don't let
it happen don't hold your hand out
don't talk cute to him while he's doing
it you basically just remove him you
don't have to scold or anything just
remove him if he stops getting the
satisfaction that he gets from the
situation he'll stop doing it now you
have to be very consistent about it
every time he starts to go in not while
he's licking but when his head goes down
you remove him from the situation and
that's it now you can redirect him you
can give him a stuffed animal you can
give him something to smuggle on but you
have to be consistent every single time
he does this you have to remove the
satisfaction that he gets from this we
do something when we know we're going to
get a result from it and if we don't get
that result predictably we stop doing it
usually hopefully hunter that helps but
remember it all starts with saying no to
the hand these are seven
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you
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