Ah but threatening isn’t the opposite of spanking. That’s just bad parenting. Rule 1: Never threaten, always carry through.
In any case, no one should be hitting an animal or human. It causes negative effects, not positive.
Back to the kitten. You friend says the kittens eyes get huge, then it attacks. Is it possible the cat is having a seizure? Not all seizures result in convulsions. My cocker spaniel had partial complex seizures and would attack when coming out of it. They were very difficult to recognize, you could only tell that she froze, didn’t blink and the position of her ears.
The tick and flea meds seemed to make it worse, as well as lawn chemicals. Once we moved to the farm (no lawn chemicals), used only Frontline (not the plus) at the vets recommendation, the seizures stopped.
It sounds to me like a fairly typical kitten who is learning the boundaries of what is “okay” play and what isn’t. My 8 month old is going through the same process right now - she’s never bitten enough to draw blood, but she will bite sometimes hard enough that it hurts. I can always tell it’s coming because her pupils will dilate and it’s usually if she’s been getting petted for too long - they get overstimulated.
I’m not a believer in physical punishment in general, and definitely not for behaviors like this, where it’s a young animal learning proper socialization.
With my girl, I do either of the following: if she is playing too rough and it’s consistent, I leave her in her room (she’s special needs and is in a relatively smaller area unless I can supervise her, for now) and just walk away and ignore her. When she’s nice, she gets all the attention and affection in the world. She figured out pretty quickly that being ignored was way less fun.
Now, as I’m training her to be a lap cat, I’ve set boundaries that I stick to. If she’s licking and nibbling at my arm a little bit, fine. If she bites-bites, I either ignore her or I hiss a little at her. No physical punishment. Just a hiss, and then praise when she’s nice. And I NEVER use my hands/feet/other body parts as toys for her. If she’s really wanting to play, I give her a toy that she can bite and bunny-kick to her heart’s content.
IMO, your friend shouldn’t let the kitten sleep with him for now. But he should set it up for success by understanding cat behavior… it’s really easy to overstimulate a kitten, and one that hasn’t been socialized needs those boundaries to be set and adhered to without them being scary. Tire the kitten out with a toy that doesn’t need to be close to the body - I’m a big fan of the wand toys before petting it. Watch the tail for angry lashing when petting. And be consistent with corrections.
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