I’ve never really had a lot of the common behavioral problems most cat owners have, and I think it’s because I understand animal training in a few different forms and now how and what to reinforce and more importantly, what NOT to.

But recently my cousin Ashley asked me to do a post on why the heck her cat keeps chasing her feet around. At first, I thought she was just joking around and maybe the cat was dodging her feet every once in a while…

But then she told me her cat actually attacks her feet and even to the point where she can easily make her bleed. Wow, this really surprised me so I dug a little deeper on the issue.

I found an article somewhat on the topic called Why Cats May Bite and Scratch.

So to keep this short and simple, I will list the possible things YOU are dong as an owner to make your cat go after your feet, and what you can do to stop it (unless you like it!)

Possible causes making your cat go after your feet:

• You taught it at a young age that feet are play-things by playing with your cat using your feet.
• You drug socks hanging half way off your feet around for your cat to play and chase around.
• Your cat doesn’t have enough other toys to play with.
• Your cat is being playful and/or bored from lack of stimulation else where and needs more time with you.
• Your cat tried it one time and you made it super duper fun so it learned that it does it now to get your attention and/or a reaction from you.

Somewhere along the lines, all pet owners accidentally reward behavior they don’t actually want. I once had a bird who made baby bird sounds for attention and I reinforced it from day one by just LOOKING at the bird when it did it because I thought something might be wrong. We all do it, sometimes we can’t help it, but the sooner we catch onto that, the sooner we can work on fixing it.

What you can do:

• Invest in some more toys that fit the same criteria your playful feet do.
• Don’t react when your cat goes after your feet, make them as “non fun” as possible so your cat is no longer interested in them. This includes NOT yelling, screaming, making eye contact, or anything that could be exciting and reinforcing to your cat.
• Cue an incompatible behavior… meaning, a behavior your cat knows on command that makes it so that it can’t attack your feet and do the behavior you are asking at the same time so it has to leave your feet alone.
• Wear shoes that might discourage your cat from playing with your feet. Nothing that will hurt the cat, but something harder that isn’t as easy and soft to bite into.
• Don’t use your feet to encourage your cat to play.