Cat battles

We have two cat condos. One tall one, a two story "town house" with a platform on top which I bought for Sam last year. He mostly ignored it. And the second, about half the height, is just a bottom cubby hole with a sisal wrapped stand above it and a flat platform on it.

I am redecorating and moved the smaller condo over beside the large one. Now, when Sam is sleeping on a bed somewhere, Bailey sleeps on the top level of the nice townhouse condo. Sam sits there sometimes, but not nearly as much. The other evening, I saw him up there, looking really agitated, hanging half his body off the side, and watching Bailey on the floor, occasionally swatting at her, but she was on the floor way out of reach. I thought that was odd, he usually doesn't bother her a lot. She came over and started scratching on the post, and he wacked at her with his paw, finally jumped down and she leapt up to the top level.

Tonight I saw the full game, that was just a small part of it. Sam lies on the top platform. Bailey is on the lower platform, sitting up on her haunches like a gopher. Then they box each other, both paws going like Kangaroo boxing. Once in a while, she puts one paw on the edge of his higher platform for balance, but mainly she is just balanced there on her rear end. They whack at each other's heads, try biting, and mostly just hit each others paws - a real boxing match.

Its the funniest thing I have ever seen. And obviously a regular routine. I think I need a video camera.

they are just like kids, they have their games, this is so funny

Ahhh.....

You mean one of these battles ?

Ohhh....and here is round two....

Yoda is the fat grey tiger. Futch is the black & white..

Ahh sounds like a leadership change might be occurring soon. Sam who is your alpha cat takes the highest spot to show Bailey who is boss. Bailey doesn't care for that arrangement and is showing Sam that quite soon, Bails will be the top cat and Sam will be underneath.

Hmm. Leadership change. You are probably right. Just from their personalities, I think that Sam is more laid back, and Bailey is the one first in line for everything. But she is also much more easily spooked by unusual sounds and stuff, probably because she was a stray rescue, and Sam, although he was at a kennel for a few months, was never fending for himself outside, so is not as threatened by unknown stuff.

And lately, she has been grooming him. At first he wouldn't let her, he would always groom her, and if she tried to return the favour, he would turn it into a wrestling session. But now, I have seen her holding him down with a paw and grooming him.

I am absolutely fascinated by the daily changes in their relationship!