are they playing or fighting?

[caity_bean]

my kitten rudy and my cat tofu had a rocky start with tofu hissing at rudy whenever he would pounce to play with her. now it’s not so much hissing BUT when they do “play” together sometimes either tofu has rudy in a lock or vice versa and either will make these kinda shrilling sounds like “hey stop” but neither of them do and when they swat at each other their ears are airplane.

rudy seems to be an aggressive player where he’ll lunge at u and wrap his arms around u and bite down hard and keep coming back even tho u say stop (we’ve been working on this) also when he chases tofu she’ll meow while she’s running but like in a im scared meow way. and what’s confusing is they seem fine after the fact. they’ll lay next to each other and she’ll groom infront of him.

just sometimes their play fights get to much. and i’m curious to see if this is ok behavior? are we sorting out boundaries?

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi! This actually sounds pretty normal .
Maybe this will help;
Are My Cats Fighting Or Playing? – TheCatSite Articles

 

[susanm9006]

It all sounds like play to me. It can get both rough and loud, but it’s just them having fun. They wouldn’t be taking turns pinning the other if they were fighting or didnt like the way they play.

 

[Neko-chan's mama]

A friend who has two cats described their play time as being similar to a couple of 7 year old boys rolling around wrestling. There's grunts and yelps, but both kids are having fun. Cats just can't giggle like little boys.