Are My Cats Fighting Or Playing?

[catthecatlover]

We have two cats: Niko, male, and about a year and a half old, and Diego, male, and about seven years.

Sometimes I’ll see Niko run up and pounce on Diego, and he will swat back at him. Diego was declawed when we adopted him, so I don’t know if he means harm or not, but he will also occasionally initiate the “fights” which don’t usually last very long. Over the months of being together their fights have escalated a bit, with them wrestling for a short while, and sometimes there’s yowling.

I think Niko is trying to play but I can’t tell if Diego is playing along or trying to defend himself. He’s pretty slow nowadays and doesn’t play much anymore.

I’ve tried to get a video but they seem to have a third sense for being recorded and always stop...

Anyways can anyone tell me if they are fighting or playing?

 

[ArtNJ]

You can look at two things. One, are there ever signs of fighting like fur ripped out, hissing, growling or screaming? Two, how does Diego act outside of play? Does Diego avoid Niko even outside of play? Even hiss at Niko? Attack or run merely because Niko is close? If all of these are "no" then its mutual play. Well, if Diego runs or defensively swats *during* play, then "mutual" could be a stretch, but it is normal for one cat to like to play much less. If none of the other signs are present outside of play, Diego isn't too upset about things.

Basically, what I'm saying is it isn't necessarily all or nothing. Diego can find it distasteful or mostly distasteful in anything but small occasional doses, but not overly stressed by it and not willing to actually fight over it. It kind of sounds to me like that is where your at and the yowling is just a protest noise. But I can't be sure just from the description.

 

[catlover73]

What happens when Diego starts yowling? Is he continuing to play or running away from Niko to try to hide? If he is continuing to play or leaves for a short amount of time and comes back to play this is most likely play. Two of my boys play a lot. They can be very vocal when they are playing. I sometimes hear yowling and hissing but they continue to engage each other so it is definitely play. If one of them gets sick of playing they simply walk away. My two are one year apart so they are much closer in age. I have a 12 year old female that is much smaller than my other three cats. She plays but it is with the laser pointer or a small toy she does not play with my other cats. If they try to engage her to play she hisses and runs away. I re-direct my other cats when they try to force her to play because it scares her. If this happens when we are home she runs to us and jumps in our laps. She does have places she can hide that the bigger cats do not fit into when we are not home.

 

[catthecatlover]

You can look at two things. One, are there ever signs of fighting like fur ripped out, hissing, growling or screaming? Two, how does Diego act outside of play? Does Diego avoid Niko even outside of play? Even hiss at Niko? Attack or run merely because Niko is close? If all of these are "no" then its mutual play. Well, if Diego runs or defensively swats *during* play, then "mutual" could be a stretch, but it is normal for one cat to like to play much less. If none of the other signs are present outside of play, Diego isn't too upset about things.

Basically, what I'm saying is it isn't necessarily all or nothing. Diego can find it distasteful or mostly distasteful in anything but small occasional doses, but not overly stressed by it and not willing to actually fight over it. It kind of sounds to me like that is where your at and the yowling is just a protest noise. But I can't be sure just from the description.

Yes, I’ve never heard any hissing and Niko never uses claws so I don’t think it’s actual fighting, I’m mostly worried that Diego doesn’t want to participate when Niko plays but sometimes diego will “attack” first so maybe it is just mutual? Usually when Diego yowls he’ll either attack back or Niko will back off. Usually they’re totally fine being near each other, sometimes I think Niko just gets a bit too energetic.

 

[catlover73]

I think Diego may be trying to teach Niko boundaries then. I have been through this with my cats and it can be a very noisy process. When my senior Starbuck was adopted as a 6 week old baby kitten she had no concept of kitty manners. She used to try to communicate she wanted to play by walking up to my full grown adult males and chomping on their heads. It freaked one of them out and he would runaway to jump up somewhere Starbuck could not get to. One of my boys Tegato decided to teach her that that was not acceptable. When she chomped on him he would roll her over on to her back and pin her to the floor with one paw until she calmed down. Once she was calm and stopped trying to bite him he would play with her. He even let her be on top of him during play as long as she behaved. She would scream her head off when he pinned her to the floor. I realized quickly that he was not hurting her. He was using one paw without his claws being exposed to tell her to stop being a brat. Once she learned how to ask for play in an acceptable way my other adult cat Claude would play with her too.

 

[ArtNJ]

Yeah that sounds fine. Diego's appetite for it is just lower, and sometimes he needs to communicate that he wants to be left alone. That is actually better than if he was getting scared, which is also common.