[Daisy87]

I have an 11 month old neutered male named Chip. He's very much an "alpha male" and can get kind of aggressive at times. To help him learn to be gentle a few days ago we got a six week old kitten named Potato (we call him "Tater"). It's only been a few days so they're not best friends yet, but they're getting along OK. We're continuing to keep our eyes on them and separate them if Chip gets to aggressive when they're playing.

For a while Chip would just follow Tater around sniffing his tail and bum. Eventually he started kind of tackling him an he'll start licking Tater's "private areas". At first I figured Chip was just checking out the strongest source of the new scent in his house. But he just KEPT doing it. Then I read that it just means that Chip likes Tater, but it seems to be getting ridiculous. Chip just goes up to him knocks him over, smells him once or twice and then starts the licking. He seems to kind of nibble sometimes, but it's like he's trying to clean it. He usually keeps going for a long time until I distract him with a toy or something or Tater runs away. Tater doesn't seem to mind it too much he just kind of sits there, but I don't get the feeling he especially enjoys it either.

Is this normal behavior for my older cat? Is it loving behavior? Curious? Should I be worried or just ignore it? How can I stop Chip from licking Tater? I guess my most crazy fear (which is probably completely ridiculous) is that Chip has some sort of penis envy and is going to get aggressive and hurt Tater or something.

Any and all advice is welcome and helpful!

[hheath541]

I have six 10 week old kittens. That behavior is quite common with them. I wouldn't worry about it too much, if chip isn't hurting him. Eventually, tater will be big enough to knock him off and run away when he doesn't want the attention.

One thing to keep in mind. That behavior is how the momma cat stimulates her babies to get them to pee and poop. To tater, chip may just be taking the place of an overprotective mother.

In the future, try not to adopt a kitten so young. The 6-12 week range is when kittens learn most of their social skills, become fully weaned, and learn to control how hard they bite and claw by hearing their siblings cry when it hurts. A kitten taken from his mother so young may have minor social problems, and will probably suckle on anything soft, for the rest of his life.

[Daisy87]

Ok, thanks. I'm actually hoping they'll both learn some good social skills from one another. I got Chip really little, and I never actually knew how old he was, but another customer at a pet store said he only looked about four weeks old, which I later learned is very very young to be separated from mom. I'm not too worried about the suckling because Chip used to try to find nipples to suck on by sticking licking the inside of my nose, earlobes, etc but he grew out of it and he was younger than Tater is now.

I think Chip is aware that he probably shouldn't be licking Tater. All I have to do is make a little "Tst!" noise or even just touch him and he bolts across the room. He does this with a lot of "unfriendly" behavior. I hope this means he's just learning and will soon stop. I just have to watch out for Tater until he's big enough to fight back, right? Thanks so much for your info.