I know the game we’re playing, I know how it ends, and yet I still play it.
It goes like this: I start petting my cat, Cairo, and he is receptive, purring and rolling around for the attention. A few minutes in the purring is louder and faster, and he is more aggressively seeking attention. If I catch his eye, his pupils have fully expanded like glossy laser discs. He rams his little head into my arm repeatedly and firmly.
And then it happens. He wraps his little paws around my arm and… rubs his teeth on me. I call it "Cairo Bitey-Hands."
He doesn’t really bite me, at least, he’s not actually trying to bite me. He’s playing with a mouthful of tiny toys and doesn’t seem to realize he has his adult teeth, even though he’s a little over eight years old.
My own internet research suggests cats nibble on hands during playtime because they’re either overstimulated, feeling “play aggression,” or because that’s what they would do among their littermates, and may have been taken from mom and siblings a little too early. Mama Cat would have eventually nipped (ha) this situation in the bud as milk teeth fell out and adult teeth came in.
Apparently that was not Cairo’s experience. I feel like this is true because he literally rubs his chompers on my arm. He’s not actually clamping or squeezing his jaw, it’s slack. He just kind of lays his teeth on my skin, and they drag around as he uses his paws to wrangle my arm. I do think he might be overstimulated some, since he gets the big pupils and everything, but I don’t know about him feeling play aggression, as Cairo doesn’t really like to play with anything or anyone at any time. And then, when it’s all done with, he immediately asks me for more petting with headbutts, lap climbing, and meows, so I’m using some context clues that he doesn’t have qualms with this playtime event.
I probably taught him this behavior somehow. I probably laughed or used a nice tone of voice the first time he did it and he was like, “Golden. Operation: Teeth Rubbing is a go for the rest of my life.” And now I still let him get away with Operation: Teeth Rubbing because I don’t want to stop petting my precious baby.
He got me this morning. I saw the warning signs but bypassed them and kept petting that fluffy belly. The look on his face is almost gleeful. It’s kind of like he sees something incredible directly behind me that I could never see. His eyes glisten and the corners of his mouth almost creep into a smile. And that purring! It sounds like a monster truck flying over a stack of junked cars.
Eh, a scratch or two is a small price to pay.
