Why Hand Wrestling Cats isn’t a Good Idea

Do you ever hand wrestle with your cat? Rub her belly until she curls around your hand, for instance, or tickle her hind legs until she playfully nips at you? Do you run your hand over the carpet like it’s a toy, and then play until she gets too feisty? Hand wrestling cats is fun, and nearly impossible to stop doing, even if you know it’s not the wisest idea on the planet.

My own sordid history with hand wrestling cats

I love hand wrestling with Chase and Kali. When they were tiny kittens, they had tiny needle claws and teeth, but they weren’t big enough to really do much more than scratch the top two layers of skin. I hand wrestled with them all the time because they were too cute not to.

As they grew, and as with every other instance of hand wrestling cats in my life, I found that they could actually injure me. Their teeth got bigger, their jaws got stronger, their claws got thicker and sharper, their paws got stronger. All the usual things that happen when kittens grow up.

Fortunately, they don’t bite very hard. Kali has only broken my skin once with a bite, and that was when I was trying to give her a pill and she was just not having it (we use pill pockets for medication now). Usually, though, she barely puts any pressure behind her bite.

Chase is even gentler; his teeth barely touch me. When I hand wrestle him, he goes to nip, and he goes to bite, but his teeth barely ever touch me. He almost “bites” with his lips only. It’s like he knows he’d be biting the hand that feeds him if he actually bit me.

Their claws, though? Those are another story. I do trim them sometimes, but there’s no stopping cats from using their claws. Even when you’re playfully hand wrestling cats, the claws will come out. It’s just how they are. If those claws are in any way sharp, they’ll cut you.

This is why hand wrestling cats is not a good idea

If you’re like me, you’re very familiar with dealing with cat scratches, but they can cause problems. So can bites that break the skin. Even when they’re indoor-only, hand wrestling cats is a bad idea for these two reasons.

Cat scratch fever

Cat scratch fever is a real bacterial infection that you can get when your cat scratches you hard enough to break skin, or when she licks an open wound.

Fortunately, this bacteria doesn’t spread very easily. Your cat has to fight with an infected cat, or get the bacteria through fleas. If your cats are indoor-only and don’t have fleas, then your risk of contracting cat scratch fever is low. It’s not gone, but it’s lower than it would be if your cats went outside. However, because scratches are open wounds, hand wrestling cats can make you more susceptible to other infections, too.

Cat bites

Cat bites, on the other hand, can be much, much worse. Cats carry a lot of bacteria in their mouths, and when they bite hard enough to break your skin, it’s like they’re just injecting all that bacteria right into you. Furthermore, these are small puncture wounds that tend to be much deeper than typical scratches, and they seal quickly, which traps that bacteria inside.

Both cat bites and cat scratches can cause cellulitis, which is a painful, deep-tissue infection that can spread quickly throughout your body. Symptoms include redness that spreads, pain, tenderness, swelling, warmth, fever, red spots, and skin dimpling. It’s important that you see your doctor, or go to the ER, as soon as possible if you ever experience any of these symptoms following a scratch or a bite.

I really need to take my own advice regarding hand wrestling cats, because honestly, I’ve been lucky so far. Even the one time Kali bit me hard enough to break my skin, while I was trying to give her a pill, only caused a very minor, localized infection that was easily treated. That situation could have been much worse.

If you’re like me and you like hand wrestling cats, try your best to stop. I know that I’m working to stop. It’s best to use toys to play, because then you don’t have to worry about how rough and feisty they get.