Brother needs to lay off the whiskers

Q:We have a problem with 6-month-old male and female feline littermates. They were rescued quite young and hand fed and the male has groomed his sister from the start, but has started biting off her whiskers.

Dr. Nichol: Mutual grooming is a natural feline social behavior. Excessive sucking and chewing, while abnormal, is common in kittens who were weaned too young. Depending on your personal hair style you may be lucky; some cats are obsessed with human whiskers.

Oral misbehavior is often of no significance but cats actually needs their whiskers.

Your two could abandon this foolishness and fling themselves into healthier alternative activities like stalk-and-pounce games, climbing, perching and hiding out.

Go to my website, drjeffnichol.com, for the full list of Feline Environmental Enrichments.

Your boy kitty, in particular, needs appropriate oral stimulation.

Instead of feeding from a bowl, you can awaken the inner beast in both young savages by loading their nutrition into food toys and puzzles. You can also offer beef bones with tags of meat still attached (never poultry bones, thank you).

Rawhide chews intended for dogs (U.S. made only) may have the perfect texture if they’re soaked in water.

Young cats need to be challenged mentally as well as physically. Hide some of their loaded food toys beneath cushions, rugs or furniture so they have to work for them.

On the other hand, you could thrust your kittens into the Wild Kingdom by importing a colony of rodents into your house. There’s nothing like hunting in a well-stocked game preserve to turn a young cat’s attention away from his sister’s whiskers.

Actually, rather than a feeding frenzy on hapless and freaked-out lab mice (I was joking) your two youngsters could explore, climb and chase bugs outside.

The Nichol family cats stay in their yard thanks to an Invisible Fence (505-715-4032).

To keep out the undesirables, Tony and Whitey have a stout fence and a faithful border collie on, well, border patrol.

If your girl kitty’s mustache stubble shows no sign of recovery I would encourage you to call my office for a behavior consultation. She needs to get her feelers back.

Avoid punishment and verbal reprimands. Aversives like these would increase the stress.