kitten bites my nose!

[pagey3]

I have a 3 month old kitten, he is very affectionate and playful, and most mornings comes to wake me up with a nuzzle of his face into mine, and he also likes to lick my eyes and chin (gross, but sweet too!)

The thing is, this nuzzling now has an added part of him biting my nose - not hard, and he purrs whilst he does it - he alternately licks and bites it - but its still not very comfortable and even when I hide my head under the covers he burrows down to find my nose and bite it!

I have told him off, chucked him off the bed, even shut him out the bedroom one morning, but nothing seems to deter him from this new game! Any ideas why he does it, or how to stop him doing it?! He's not being at all vicious, and hasn't made any scratches at all on my face, but its annoying all the same!

[logman]

Not wishing to be unkind, but he may consider anything bulbous may issue milk. Cats often pad their "owners" laps for the same reason, to stimulate milk production.

I think we have to remember that cats see us as living in their world, rather than them in our world. Next time you could try hissing or blowing a raspberry in his face, it may just startle him enough to think twice about it if he thinks of doing it again..

[pagey3]

ha ha that's a good idea - I'm always so sleepy when he does it my brain doesn't work quick enough to think how to react! Will give it a go tomorrow - fingers crossed my nose might be safe!!

[snook]

Sound like a kitten looking for it�s mama�s nipple and getting a bit excited at whatever it finds. We�ve had kittens that do that (cats too, they do it as adults), and all you can do is move them away, and do it a bit sharply so they know the biting isn�t welcomed. It�s common for them to �paddy� into your shirt or coat, alternately extending and retracting their claws and purring contentedly, and occasionally doing the biting thing, if the opportunity arises. I�m sure there�s a proper name for it but we�ve always called it paddying, not sure why (�cos of their little pads, I suppose).
We treat cats like babies, stroking them (like the mummy does with her tongue when she�s washing them), feeding them, cleaning after them, etc., so they tend to treat us as parents. Like I said, you just have to let them know it�s �wrong� and they�ll stop� eventually!
We have a beautiful cat that we rescued from a situation of neglect, and it started to see me as its daddy, paddying on me and biting my chin, and I let him �cos he was generally so quiet and withdrawn. It just didn�t seem right to push him away when he was so content. But due to his poor health and awful diet, his breath was absolutely rank � it practically made me gag! He still snuggles up and thinks I�m his daddy, but he doesn�t bite anymore, and he hasn�t got bad breath now anyway!

(I see logman has posted a similar suggestion. I typed mine in and pressed 'submit' and lost the lot... had to remember what I'd written and type it again. Hate it when it does that! Usually type an answer in Word, then copy and paste, but slipped up that time.)

[pagey3]

yeah he nibbles my chin and ears too, and does the 'paddying' thing a lot, but its just the biting of the nose that is new and unusual! He wants it so much that if I hide my nose in anyway he'll force his way to it - its so funny, and not painful at all, just bless him, like you said snook, his breath doesn't exactly smell of roses!

[snook]

Not sure why it should, pagey3, but your question 'headline' just reminded me of something that happened years ago.

I came in and saw a scribbled note left by mrs snook, which read: Be careful. killer in back bedroom. Not at all sure what to make of this, I crept upstairs with a chair leg, or something, in my hand and slowly and carefully opened the back bedroom door. No one there! Well, I thought, I hadn't really expected to find a killer, but you can't be too careful...

Looked around a bit and was just about to go, thinking she's definitely lost it this time, when I heard a tiny, faint meow... and a tiny kitten crept out from behind some boxes.

It took me a minute or two to realise mrs snook's lousy writing was meant to say 'kitten', not killer (she hadn't crossed her t's), and she wanted to make sure I didn't step on the kitten before I'd even seen it was there. I should point out, I suppose, that this was a rescued kitten which she'd just taken home (and I knew nothing about) and then had to leave alone while she went out for some reason, so she'd put it upstairs and left me a (weird) note.

[Coobeastie]

Another reason could be that cats when getting into the swing of cleaning can nip as this is a more thorough way of cleaning their fur.

Ours does it if shes having a particularly agreeable stroking session.

[Bella2619]

Okay, I don't really have an answer for this, but my 11 year old cat does the same thing. He's been doing it since he was a kitten too. But it's only my nose he bites, he won't bite anyone else's.