Hello everyone!
I'm looking for some advice on an issue we are having with our two kittens, Zeke and Snowden who are both 11 weeks old.
We got Zeke one week ago at 10 weeks (a little young, I know), but he is in great health, and he's happy, playful, caring, and active. A lack of knowledge on our parts was to let Zeke bite our fingers when playing with us. We realize now this can develop bad behaviors (pouncing on fingers/toes at inappropriate times), we only did this for about 5 days and have since stopped by ignoring him.
After 1 week of having Zeke we made a game-time decision to go back to the breeder and pick up his (now 11 week-old) litter mate Snowden. We figured the introduction process didn't have to be SUPER-gradual since Zeke has only been setting up his home base for 6 days and Snowden is his brother, we thought they would remember each other. The first introduction was a little rough; Zeke was territorial and growled and hissed. We immediately split them up and over the course of the last two days did a more gradual approach. Now, they roam the apartment freely, happily, coexisting amongst each other.
HOWEVER, Zeke and Snowden often play fight (wrestling, chasing, preying, light biting, jumping, etc.) with no hissing or growls. The problem here is that Zeke is the dominant one about 85% of the time. Zeke often takes things too far. For example, we will carefully supervise them while play fighting, this can go on successfully and playfully for about 5 minutes (which is long if you are counting the time!), then eventually Zeke starts to bite too hard, causing Snowden to meow loudly in pain. We sometimes let it go to see if Zeke backs off, however he doesn't, so we resort to startling them and breaking it up, putting Zeke in a time out for a little while until things cool down then reintroducing them. For the record, Snowden always plays nice, never bites or plays to rough, he's always the victim.
My question to you guys is, is this normal? What can we do to facilitate and teach Zeke appropriate behavior? Is Zeke young enough so this can be corrected and how long might it take? Will Snowden eventually get turned off by this and not want to play with Zeke anymore if he keeps hurting him? A big question for us too is: when is it appropriate to leave both of them alone together?
Thanks for all the help!
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