Hello all,

I am cat-mom to Oz, a beautiful, very vocal, 13-year-old Champagne
Burmese.  My boyfriend inherited Oz about a year ago, from a friend's
aunt who was going into a nursing home and could no longer take care of
him.  As a lifelong "kitty whore" who has never had the opportunity to
have my own kitty, I am thrilled to finally have a velcro-kitty of my
own.  My only complaint is that my boyfriend does not let Oz sleep with
us, apparently he has bad experiences with kitty-litter-in-the-bed, and
therefore Ozzie is permanently banned from the bedroom.

Oz's front paws are declawed (by his previous owners, so please no
complaints about this!), but he is intact on his back paws.  Here is
the question/problem:  As a true lap-fungus, Oz is always trying to
climb on top of one of us.  He will do a bit of kneading/biscuit-making
on whatever squishy body-part is available (lots of those around here),
and then right before settling in, he will kick/scratch several times
with his back paws before settling down.  This is less of a problem for
me, all-accepting kitty-whore that I am, but my boyfriend gets very
annoyed when Oz does this to him (especially since those
scratching/clawing back paws are often poised above said boyfriend's
family jewels).  When he does this, he always gets a firm "NO" and a
push on the tush to get him to settle down, but occasionally when those
back paws hit a testicle or two poor Oz gets an unintended flying
lesson.

So, for the rest of you kitty-whores out there (sorry, I meant
cat-slaves... too many years living out of the country has made me very
un-PC):

1. Why is Oz doing this?  In all my years of petting any pussycat who
would let me within reach, I have never experienced this before.

and,

2. Is there anything we can do to stop this, or channel the energy into
another vein?

I would appreciate any replies on this matter, even if it's just to
tell me that this is normal cat behavior and we just need to deal with
it.  Never having had the opportunity to be a full cat-slave before, I
am very willing to put up with all kinds of feline insanity, but it
would be nice if we could understand and properly deal with his
back-paw kicking/scratching behavior.

Cheers,

Adilah