Well, actually I'm pretty much inured to Shadow-bites; the initial hurdle was not panicking at the sight of his rather scary-looking ears-back eyes-narrowed snapping motion. He doesn't really clamp down his teeth that hard, and hasn't actually broken my skin in ages. But still, I feel oddly wounded by the fact that he gets bitey at all.

Which can sometimes lead to comical situations; at some point when he and Spot were puddled together and I started to scritch Shadow, his body language gradually shifted into annoyance until he got to the point of biting. However, since he was feeling too lazy to actually turn his head and bite me, he merely leaned forward a few millimeters and bit Spot's tail instead. Hijinks ensued.