Playing or Fighting?

This may sound silly, but I have having problems telling whether or not my cats are playing or fighting. They are male and female and both are fixed. The behavior involves one pouncing on the other and then they roll around for a while. I have seen them both biting each other but have never drawn blood. I can't tell whether claws are drawn or not. When the wrestling begins, there is no hissing or growling. Very rarely is there any noise at all. One of the cats is prone to hissing at the other when she wants to be left alone, so I am encouraged by the fact that she doesn't hiss during their wrestling matches. However, it looks like they wrestle so roughly that I am always afraid when they do it.
Is this playing or fighting? Should I be breaking this up? (make loud noise, etc)

Sometimes hard to tell. I am pretty convinced you would hear hissing and growling if they were hurting one another. My cats will play hard and a quick hiss or growl will let the other know if they are getting to rough.

If you are still concerned you might try getting out a feather toy you can distract them with or a laser pointer. I don't see fights to often, and usually its just play that turns a bit rough, but I always will end up seeing one of the cats sulking afterward if it was a real fight.

If you ever see injury or blood then thats another matter. Cats can play really rough without drawing blood so it would certainly be an ill-spirited fight and cause for conern if you ever saw blood.

Sounds like paly to me. My 2 boys really go at it sometimes...and they muct use claws cause I do find tiny scabs....but they never draw blood...and half of the time after tusseling they end up grooming one another.
Cats play can look a lot like what we think of as fighting.
Linda

Yah thats a good way to tell to. After the tussle are they on good terms with one another? Grooming is a good sign. Usually they won't want anything to do with the other or anywhere near the other if they were fighting. But it does sound like play.

I have 3 girls, 3 boys; all fixed.

They get bored (believe it or not!) from time to time and will pick fights with each other.

The boys pick fights with the boys; the girls walk by the boys and just the way they strut by, causes some time of fight.

I do have to separate them on occasion, but I don't forcibly remove one cat from the other; all I do is stand between them and yell NO really loud. No hitting or carrying one of as punishment, etc. They are just actin' out the animal instincts to one-up each other!

The only time they get *really* peeved with each other is when our outdoor friends visit. My neighbor has a few outdoor cats who visit us quite often, because I'm one of those people who leaves cat food on my deck for the neighborhood outsiders. There's a few girlcats & boycats who visit often, and when they DO, my indoor-only cats get so riled up, they attack each other!

My cats play-fight all the time, so anyways, I think it's just them getting the lead out & having fun. The one thing I look for is the big-bushy tail... I call it "The Angry Tail" because if they are truly ticked off & angry, the tail gets real big & they make a battle cry!

I have a male and female also who love to playfight it normally begins by them chaseing eachother into a room, one of them jumps onto somthing high, the other one slinks down into a defensive position. The one with the high ground proceeds to jump onto the lower one and they grab eachother's head roll around kicking eachother until the Smaller of the 2 Sibohan decides enough is enough takes a defencive position and hisses like you wouldn't believe. The thing is that she's normally the instigator of the entire episode. Strange!

The bushy tail is soooo cute! My cats do it sometimes when they are playing and racing through the house. I took care of a cat once temporarily and I could only let her otu of my room occasionally because of a roommate sitaution. She would bush up her tail and run around for a while. Then she was ready to get back to her kittens. Just some pent up energy. Well I have one of her kittens and she does the same thing!

i've never noticed a bushy tail - both of my kitties are short haired. I will look for this though. I have never seen them groom one another. We introduced them about a month ago. They sleep in the same chair a lot, but I'm not sure they are the best of friends. Sometimes, when one cat insigates and the other isn't the mood, she will hide until the instigator quits. Other times, they will wrestle and then lie down about a foot away from one another as if nothing happened. Thanks for the advice. I've never had 2 cats before, so cats' interaction is new to me.