I'm probably going to have to rehome my Zacky...😭😭

[Alldara]

Remember too, ears back is fine during play. They are protecting their ears from accidental play damage. Just like how in wrestling people where ear guards.

 

[arr]

That video looks very similar to my two, Fizzbin and Chloe. In fact, I didn’t hear much noise from your two. If it had been my cats, Chloe would have been hissing, howling and growling. Mine will also have pinned back ears and stare at each other. Mine will have fur flying, I didn’t see that from yours. But mine are still friends, despite this. She seeks him out to play, they groom each other, sleep near each other. Cat play just looks kind of violent.

 

[Kflowers]

Remember two or more boys fighting for a ladies attention can wake people up when all the windows are closed and the a/c on. As A Alldara said, it's serious noise.

 

[Alldara]

I added some.more videos to Playtime

They are of Magnus and our cat Ghost who we've only had for about 6 weeks.

note how Magnus always keeps his ears pinned during play. The pop up during breaks.

 

[Valerian]

Seems pretty normal to me.

Edit to add: if she was biting for serious, he would squeek and/or there would be fur. Even if the playbite was too hard, he would squeek.

They may never sleep together. Magnus doesn't like curling up with other cats to sleep. He will play with them and groom them, or sit next to them, but doesn't like to sleep or cuddle really.

Hi, it's been a while.
I have a question regarding the edited part you added.
So what if one cat squeeks/meows when the other one bites them?
Once again it was Baby seemingly being annoyed by Zackys...presence?..
Anyway, the video is shorter and there was some more lunging happening before (all from Babys side).
In the video Zacky meows the second time she jumps and clings to him.
He never jumps at her this strongly and is mostly very gentle with her.
Only times he plays more roughly is when he really feels like hunting and jumps onto Babys back and tackles her down on her side and starts biting her from behind while clinging to her. She hates that and will usually meow and hiss and escape, run away and hide under a bench amd he will run after her and continue to try and bite her hind legs or swat at her. They occasionally exchange a few swats (sometimes you hear claws being used) but I don't see a lot of resentment from either afterwards.
Zack maybe sometimes looks sad/frustrated after she grooms and bites/lunges at him until he leaves his sleeping spot.

She will often just come up to him and either start forcefully grooming him and then biting him and lunging at him until he goes away, or just straight off start lunging at him until he leaves the spot.
I'm a bit worried, I don't want either of them to get hurt either physically or emotionally from the other one.

Are the occurrences like the one in the videos I posted worrisome if there is also squeeking/meowing?
Why is she being so rough with him?
The two videos of her lunge-biting him do seem like she wanted to bite him enough for it to hurt him. Maybe it doesn't come across like it in the video - in real you can hear how much speed/force is put into her lunges towards him.....
Any ideas what to do to stop this?
She still comes to groom/bite him every night until he leaves his sleeping spot...

Edit: byw, this was the forst video

 

[Hellenww]

She was slightly annoyed in both videos and had no problem letting him know it. If he were hurting her you would see fur and maybe blood. Baby looks confident so if there were a real fight he'd be bloody too.

It lloks like all she wants to do is chew on her stick but he wants to play. Is that silvervine? Just like catnip it affects cats differently. Zacky probably gets excited and playful but Baby just enjoys chewing.

 

[Valerian]

She was slightly annoyed in both videos and had no problem letting him know it. If he were hurting her you would see fur and maybe blood. Baby looks confident so if there were a real fight he'd be bloody too.

It lloks like all she wants to do is chew on her stick but he wants to play. Is that silvervine? Just like catnip it affects cats differently. Zacky probably gets excited and playful but Baby just enjoys chewing.

Thanks for replying Hellenww

Zacky is the one chewing on the stick in both videos and Baby is the one jumping on him.
Yes, it is, I think (matatabi stick). He loves them, chews, pills, and eats them xD

Baby doesn't get as excited about eother catnip or the matatabi/silvervine.

The thing is, she's always had this attitude towards him - if he's ever close to her, she is annoyed by him and will "attack" him. He did meow this time so I think she did bit him too hard, the little b** ..

She will also go up to him and start grooming him forcefully and then bite him and jump at him like in these videos.
Just happened again right now - Zack was taking a nap on the couch and Baby jumped to him, started grooming him and biting him. He rolled a bit and tried to get her of of him - he managed to push her away so she sit there and looked at him, and then he ran away and continued to nap on the floor, while she layed on his spot
Why is she being such a little b*

See - this was taken straigth after - Baby is noe on the couch where Zack was napping, and he is on the floor.... this always upsets me

Do any of your cats behave this way? They never interact positively with eachother

 

[Valerian]

I should intervene, shouldn't I?

So far I never have because a lot of people advised me to let them handle stuff on their own unless there is meowing or actual full on fighting going on...
Is there anything I can do? This is really upsetting me ( the only interactions with each other they have 90% look like this. Nothing positive

Edit: btw, do your cats also do "lipsmacking" when they're playfighting? Somehow that looks to me like Baby os really angry - she always licks her lips while looking at zack with her ears back :/ before lunging into him..

 

[Hellenww]

I misunderstood. It doesn't look aggressive to me. I saw it as her trying to get him to play and he's just too interested in his stick to be bothered. It ends peacefully. Will she play with you after he says no?

 

[Valerian]

I misunderstood. It doesn't look aggressive to me. I saw it as her trying to get him to play and he's just too interested in his stick to be bothered. It ends peacefully. Will she play with you after he says no?

P.s.:
She - the stripy one
He - the one with white tux and paws

I really don't think it's her wanting to play because whenever he initiates play, she will run away or hiss back at him and doesn't seem like she wants any part of it. Whenever she starts biting him and he moves away, she will just lay on his spot and looks happy when he moves away - not like she wants "to play more".
She will often bite him whenever he gets close to her to get him to move away.

Do you really think the first video (the one with the pill xD) looks like she only wants to play??? Because to me it looks more like she is annoyed by him and just wants to let him know that she doesn't particularly like him

No, she rarely wants to play - isn't interested in wand toys, strings, feathers, anything but a laser - and even that she will nostly follow woth eyes and chase if it's near her - not actively chase.
I try to het her to chase the laser as much as I can - but she loves chasing mosquitoes or flies that wander into the apartment.

While he is the one who always wants to play - loves wand toys - especially feathered ones, mice, balls, interactive toys (cardboard box with balls with bells inside for him to pull out of holes), he LOVES to chase the laser - he won't stop even when starts panting,so I have to I stop before he gets too tored tho - the panting only happened the forst time.

 

[DeesCats]

I think the behavior is normal. My cats do the exact same thing. It sounds like they are killing each other but it's just semi-rough play. When they break it off there is some tail slapping the floor action and then they start back up again.

My Binks is the smaller and newest cat and he's very vocal when they are playing and 9 times out of 10, Binks is the instigator. Binks squeals as if he's hurt but then goes right back in to wrestling and chasing.

 

[Valerian]

Here's an exapmle of the behaviour I'm describing when Zack lays on my bed, and Baby comes over to wrestle him - usually it doesn't go as gently and is more ful on lunging at him + swatting him. This time she only took a few strong smacks at him and then he ran away.
Please someone tell me is she just so annoyed with him?
(The smack and Zack running away happenes at cca 1 min into the video - I just postet it whole so you can see how it starts and finishes).
And this happenes very often - she will make him go away from places and then lay there herself

 

[susanm9006]

Totally 100% playing going on between two friends. If they are getting too loud I would shop them out of the room and shut your door.

 

[Valerian]

Someone please watch at this video


Something happened that has never happened before - Zacky started to make really confrontational poses, puffed all up and doing the neck twisting thing - he's NEVERdone this in the 4 months that they've been together - it really looked like he wanted to start a fight ...
The posing starts at 0:38, please someone watch and give me some feedback - what was this?
this can't also be play, can it? He never puffed up to his head before, ever O.O
Is it safe to leave them alone together?

Please someone that has experience give me some feedback!

Edit: I know it ends well and he starts to calm down soon after I call his name, but there was a moment there that really scared me, I really wasn't sure if he will jump at her or not..

 

[Furballsmom]

Hi, they're fine.

If she starts to look like she needs a break, you can always separate them for a bit.

Is it is safe to leave them alone? That one is a little more challenging to answer, as it may depend on the length of time. They'll play and play, but again, she may need a break. Or not.

Have you had a chance to watch this? Hopefully it helps, because you seem to be rather stressed by their behavior...

Are My Cats Fighting Or Playing? [Answered] - TheCatSite

 

[Alldara]

I'm not seeing anything out of the ordinary. Looks like they communicated well and respected one another.

You said yourself that they both stood down.

Why would you separate cats who are communicating well Valerian ? Try not to let your previous trauma of two cats seep in to your home.

 

[Valerian]

Thank you both Furballsmom and A Alldara for your thoughts!

I might have over-frraked out yesterday..and felt a bit silly after posting since they both looked normal afterwards.

It's just that at times, someone does something that looks like it could escalate into something else and I worry. I don't have friends with cats that playfight so forcefully. Theirs usually roll around like 2 little panda bears and looks quite adorable and nothing like when my 2 are wrestling x) + all my friends cats are siblings, mine aren't so maybe that makes me a bit more cautious.

This was the first time I ever saw Zacky puff up - he neeveer puffed up at Baby before (although she puffs up quite often, usually when he surprises her).
So when he went from this

To this

In a couple of seconds and started moving slowly and tilting his head, I really was confused.
Maybe it's not as visible since Zackys fur isn't as dense and he has really short hair, but he really puffed up even the hairs on head.

Naby on the contrary, has really dense fur and medium short hair and looks like a chipmunk when she puffes up xD

(Inserting this pic just cause I think she looks like a sweet little chipmunk here . This was her getting surprised by Zacky running past by her).

So what I think I finally learned from all of the feedback I got to my posts, and please do correct me if I'm in the wrong:
Cats playing or fighting is black&white - either they are totally playing or they are totally fighting.
I was under the impression my cats were somewhere on the greyscale between playing and fighting (Baby smacking/biting and chasing him of beds/couch and being overall a lot rougher with him that he is with her (that's also why the confusion of him suddenly puffing up at her).
But I understand now there is no greyscale. It's either they are playing or they are fighting.

I did look at the link you posted Furballsmom again, and as I meantioned before, I think when my 2 playfight it looks a lot more rough/intense than any videos I've seen. The cats in the videos I'veseen playfighting sometimes almost look a bit bored and sleepy, and they take breaks, while mine are always tensed up - especially Baby and sessions are usually very intense but short. Maybe they just play more roughly with eachother.
Maybe it bothered me a bit that when Zack gets woken up from sleep and smacked around until he leaves the bed/couch, he runs away and doesn't really "come back for more", so I took that as basically Baby shooing away Zack and taking his spot (kind of sounds like a bully :/)

Anyway, thanks again to both of you
I hope I won't freak out so much in the future now that my point of view on play / fight has been updated x)

 

[Hellenww]

After re-reading your original post somethig hit me. Am I correct that they are 13 and 15 mt? They are both still in the "teenager" months, very close in size, and like each other. It's likely they will become less intense or less frequent with the "let's freak out the human" type of play when they are around 2yrs.

Grab some popcorn and enjoy the show.

A life stage chart:
Your Cat In Human Years - The Animal Health Foundation

 

[Alldara]

Valerian Not exactly. So yes most of what you posted has been play. But consider it more like when you were young and you would begin play with a sibling and then sometimes it would break down into a disagreement.

Baby has been overzealous with Zaky for the last while. Zaky was done, so he poofed up. He tilted his head and waited to see if Baby would engage again. Baby listened to Zaky's body language and settled. Zaky unpoofed and walked away.

Now you, as cat parent are asking, "should I have intervened? Should I intervene now?" But like with parenting human children you don't intervene when they have communicated well. Zaky said, "I don't like that anymore!" And Baby said, "Oh I'm sorry. I'll stop." Zaky hadn't expected that at first but he was happy for her response and unpoofed.

It's great that you ask questions. When you first learn about cat play vs fighting we give a list and it seems really self-explanatory. And then people as more questions and it's actually really subtle things. And then its even more a mix of subtle things and personal preference as to when you intervene. I intervene when they aren't listening to one another's cues. Like when I hear two squeeks from Magnus close together, I know Calcifer is being too rough. One squeek only and I know Cal listened to him and I don't need to do anything.

 

[Kris107]

I don't think cat playing/fighting is always black and white. I think sometimes it can start out as play, then maybe one goes a little too far and it can become more fight. It's just like when you were a kid and you're getting tickled or something and you're saying "knock it off" over and over and then at some point you have to do "serious voice" and say "STOP." It's boundaries and they have to learn each others'. I think what A Alldara said is good - they showed that they sort of communicated all of that. Any playing/fighting usually warrants a parent's watchful eye but doesn't necessarily mean intervention. It does sound like Baby might be more of the dominant one but that can happen. Make sure Zack has other soft places to sleep if Baby makes him move. I feel like there's always bound to be a bit of a pecking order on certain spots/things. I've always had two of everything. Occasionally I have to help with boundaries on stealing beds or one cat just being a jerk about wanting something. Just make sure Zack isn't getting truly picked on (i.e. relentless, etc). If they're young, they might work a lot of this out and things will settle down a lot.