When my partner and I are walking around my cat will sometimes start hunting us and biting our legs very hard
We’ve had our cat for about a year, and he has always done this. He is very smart and knows several tricks (sit, high five, spin, going to his carrier, jumping through hoops) that the shelter taught him because he took to them very well. Most of the time he is calm and doesn’t do much, likes to sleep on our bed and be around us. However, what will happen is we will be walking around the house and I think the movement back and forth triggers some kind of instinctual hunting mode because he just goes berserk and starts hunting us. Like chasing after us, biting our legs and feet very hard, scratching, pouncing, etc. We thought perhaps he just didn’t really understand how to play because maybe he is just bored and trying to play fight with us but doesn’t understand that it hurts. A few times we cat sit for our friend, and he and that cat would chase each other around a lot and he seemed to behave better when he had another cat to play with. It seems like he may behave a bit better when we play with him a lot during the day, but it isn’t a sure thing. We recently got a second cat, hoping that if he had a friend to play with maybe that cat could help him get his energy out and also show him how to play more gently. We kept them separated to get acclimated for about a week and a half, but the new cat would not stop meowing because she was in our office the whole time, so we introduced them a bit sooner than we probably should have. They get along for the most part pretty well, but there have been some fights, and now our first cat has several scratches on his nose from our new cat. I’m not sure who starts the fights most of the time, but I think it may be a mix of both of them. Usually I don’t see who starts it and just hear the awful cat fight sounds and come running to separate them. I’ll usually put one of them in a different room to calm down for a bit before letting them out again.
I’m not really sure what to do. he got along better with our friend’s cat, and seeing the scratches on his nose makes me really sad, even if they seem fairly superficial. I know he is probably super bored since he seems like he is a very intelligent cat since he takes to tricks so well, and its just coming out as aggression, but I was hoping our new cat would help him play and get his energy out. it just seems like they arent getting along very well and I’m not sure what to do. my girlfriend and i are both full time students and work, so we don’t have a lot of time to dedicate to playing with him enough to get all his energy out, but we could and should make more time. I’ve seen those cat wrestling gloves online and thought about getting one of those to play with him but I’m worried it may encourage the behavior. Any thoughts or suggestions would be very welcomed