Our current brace o’ cats do play chasing, but they pounce very violently and not playfully. When I have littermates or more congenial cats, sure, but I must acknowledge that this set is mean.
We have three cats, which makes the social dynamics kind of tricky. Socks, the oldest, will occasionally deign to play with Cisco, our 13-pound “kitten”. Unfortunately, he sometimes gets a little too intense, which scares Cisco away. Nico, the Siamese and also the only female, loves to play with Cisco, but she and Socks almost never interact except to fight. Cisco loves to play with everyone, including Weaver, who is at least four times his size and, technically, not a cat.
And before I got distracted looking for my own pet pictures, I meant to post my very favorite cat fight video from YouTube. So the answer to the OP is yes, I think it’s fun to watch them.
Our new kitten, Hestia, attacks anything and everything. Having played with her enough, I know that she’s not “serious” – she reigns in her claws, and doesn’t bite hard – but she’s constantly at it.
She most frequently fights Clarence, our big Maine Coon dumb-jock cat. It’s interesting payback, because Clarenmce used to attack the other cats, and now he has an opponent even more instiable than him. But it’s interesting to watch the two of them going at it.
Hestia ties to attack the other cats, too, but Lotta (Clarence’s previous sparring partner) won’t fight her, for some reason. And our old arthritic cat, Midnight, ofcourse refusees to have anything to do with this – she hisses at the kitten and swwats her, so that now the kitten immediately goes into Submissive Posture when Midnight’s around.
Internet Legend that is also my favorite cat fight video.
My kitties are brothers from the same litter so they have been playing since they came out of their mom. I originally only owned the orange one, Professor Moriarty but his little runt brother was sick and then was the only one without a home, so Elliot came over to my house too.
Best decision I ever made. Those cats love each other.
Many of the cat tussles actually start with them being all snuggly and one starts licking the other on the head or ears. Before you can finish saying “awwww” the tide turns to grabbing the other in a headlock and biting the ears.
I’m like a slack jawed yokel when my dogs start fighting.
Well, when I had dogS, plural.
I could sit there with a can of beer and go, “lookee at them there tactics, maw,” all day long. Great entertainment.
My two cats play fight. They have “play” versions of fighting noises. The smaller one has a phony hiss that sounds more like breathing “haaaaaaaa!” and the larger one has a quiet high-pitched version of the growling you hear with a real fight. But it’s barely audible.
Once in awhile, someone chomps too hard, someone plays dirty, or one will take offense at a sucker punch, then you’ll hear a more genuine “HISSSS” hissing or grumbling that sounds genuinely miffed. Then it’s time to break it up because it’s getting out of hand.
If the little one, Squiggy, vocalizes during play, it means the larger one turned into a sore loser and is biting really hard. Then it’s time to separate them and Squiggy will snort in disgust at being rescued. Most of the time it’s just a good natured slap-fight with pouncing.
I have two sister cats and an unrelated younger male. Before introducing the male, the sisters would do a little playfighting, nothing special. Now that the younger male is here, there’s a lot of shit stirred up constantly. Butch (male) and Lisa HATE each other. they sniff each other, then Lisa growls and hisses - EVERY time the meet. They fight a little, but Lisa won’t stand for it in general. Butch and Trudy get along, but have a LOT of playfights - banging around the room, leaping on each other’s back, etc. I love watching it. There’s always a standoff, then an attack - it’s FASCINATING!
Joe
Harley and Shadow are in love. They will lick each other’s heads, then start putting their paws on each other’s faces. Then it turns into the WWF (World Wrestling Felines), with boxing, kangaroo kicks, rolling around, somersaults, and chasing. Neither of them ever gets mad, hisses, or growls. I love watching them because they seem to really have fun, and often stop in the middle just to lick each other’s faces.
Shadow will also wrestle around with Maceo. Maceo is about 8 years younger, so he gets a little more riled up and makes that high-pitched whine sometimes. He’s more into flipping around and tackling than the older guy, and sometimes Shadow hisses. Maceo is more into it than Shadow is, because I think Shadow is used to Harley’s more gentle ways. Maceo really wants to mix it up. But none of them ever really get angry or hurt each other.
All of these boy cats also mount each other, but they never mount either of my two girl cats. It’s very homosocial for felines in La Maison Rubystreak, probably because neither of the girls want any part of the WWF.
Dolphie doesn’t get into the mix?
Mmmmyeh. It’s like the big cat’s going, “Little kitty, why are you such a spaz??!!”
Dolphie hates all other kittens. First she makes that “baby in a blender” sound. Then she will deploy the Floating Paw of Doom. Usually that’s enough to make the boys tuck their sacks in and run. If not, she will unleash the Lily White Paw of Bitch Slapping, complete with Slicing Claws of Gin-Su. The boys don’t find it fun.
But Dolphie is glad that someone asked about her. She is disgruntled about all the alleged fun being had with all this wrassling. She thinks it’s gay, and she’s literally correct.
This caught my eye on mouse-over. It’s “mischievous” (only one i) and it’s pronounced “MISS che VUS”, not “miss CHEE vee ous”. Think “mischief” with an “us” on the end of it. Just FYI.
Sure, enough people mispronounce it that it probably qualifies as an acceptable alternate, much like “nucular.” But unlike spoken language, spelling is prescriptivist.
Mine play-fight, and it’s fun to watch. There are occasional hisses and growls, but there haven’t been any injuries beyond a few cuts for one of them. They showed up as small bald spots (once on her face, once on her shoulder), and went away once the hair grew back in a couple of weeks. I took her to the vet both times, and the vet said it was nothing to worry about.
I figure, if they wanted to hurt each other, they would. But they don’t.
My vet says it is. I’ve seen one of my cats scruffing the other. The last time I took one of them to the vet, she had a little bald spot on her shoulder. The vet said it was probably from a bite, because it was in the right place to be from an overenthusiastic scruffing. I asked the vet why they do that, and she said it’s a dominance thing. I said, “So she’s not a butch lesbian?” (I had seen her scruffing the other cat), and the vet said no, it’s just dominance.
My beagle Nordberg and cat Boris fight for hours everyday. When they started I watched carefully because Nord has killed groundhogs and mice in the past. They seem to have rules. Although when someone gets a little hurt ,it is the dog. The cat is front declawed but apparently doesn’t care.
I wish my 3 cats would fight/play with each other; mostly, they just ignore each other. Except for her highness the bitchqueen, who hisses at the other 2 for no apparent reason.
But the big stupid orange male likes to fight with me. His idea of fighting is to bump into my legs and flop over on his back. Then I put a foot on his tummy, and he starts kicking my leg and gnawing on my ankle.
Saturn doesn’t play or anything, she just tarts around for love. Phoenix and Alvin will play all day and night, she gets right up on his face and they ‘swordfight’, he with his open mouth and she with her paws. Or she’ll irritate him by attacking his leg and flopping over in which case he flicks his leg and away she goes.
