Kitten Playing A Lot Less

ArtNJ

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So its kind of weird...my now 6 month old kitten used to play with the 4 year old like 30 minutes a day in 3-4 sessions. The kitten was fearless, and the 4 y.o. while vigorous, maybe respected her tiny size. He rarely made her squeal. I am not sure if now that kitten is around 6 months the 4 y.o. is playing harder, or if the kitten's tolerance for rough play has changed -- there is still a very big size difference. But for whatever reason, the kitten is much less enthused about wrestling the much larger 4 y.o. Relations are still totally fine -- these cats have zero hostility to each other and still play in shorter less frequent stretches. The little girl has just lost her taste for getting beat, or getting beat harder.

Its kind of sad. Hoping that when she puts on another pound or two she will be back into it. She seemed to be growing more than average when she was young, but now seems to be on track to be an 8 pound cat compared to 10.5 for the 4 y.o.
 

FeebysOwner

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Hi. It might just be that the 4yo is playing rougher now that the kitten is a bit older. Let her grow some more and see if that changes the dynamics - it probably will! At least - or, so it sounds like - the 4yo is still respecting her in the sense that he stops when she is ready to stop?
 
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ArtNJ

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Hi. It might just be that the 4yo is playing rougher now that the kitten is a bit older. Let her grow some more and see if that changes the dynamics - it probably will! At least - or, so it sounds like - the 4yo is still respecting her in the sense that he stops when she is ready to stop?
Yep. No serious problems. Just that 30 minutes a day are now more like 10, and its kitten disengaging now.
 

She's a witch

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Sort of similar thing happened with our cats. My girl stopped enjoying wrestling with my boy after 6 months of being together and such playing. Some would say male cats play rougher and it’s the problem for females, that seem to be the case with my girl. It took some time for them to work on their new play routine, they still like to chase each other and now they mainly do that with short sessions of wrestling that often end with my girl hissing, but then chasing again. My boy does prefer wrestling and he would often initiate it but my girl is not having it, so we try to wrestle with the boy using the kickaroos and soft toys to get this energy out of him and it seems to be somewhat working. I think they simply have different playing preferences but they found a compromise - both are similar age though, although different energy levels, my girl is hyper and boy lazish, but with crazy, crazy zoomies few times a day.
 

rubysmama

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I've never had 2 cats at the same time, so can't offer any comments from purr-sonal experience, so I'll just post my usual "any new pictures you can share?" comment. ;)
 

Mamanyt1953

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Quick question...is she spayed yet? If not, she may be getting a bit hormonal, and have "other things" on her mind, and your boy just doesn't get that, so she walks away. I've seen female kittens get a bit antsy like that, even before their first actual heat.
 
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