When I see them running after each other, batting each other's ears, hissing a bit, and jumping over each other, I've tended to assume it was play fighting. Today I'm home with a bad cold -- I nearly didn't make it through my class last night, I was coughing so badly -- and I've been watching them play like this all morning. I finally decided that perhaps I ought to figure out if it was appropriate or not, and considered calling our vet to ask. But first I thought I'd type in "cat behavior is it fighting or play" to google, and see what came up. And of course, what came up was a very useful page that defined the differences (a big one being that no one gets hurt when it's play -- an observation that should have been obvious to me from watching my kids play).
There's a picture on that page (the upper rightside one) that even looks remarkably like our two cats. So... once again, I'm grateful for the net. Of course, this assumes that I'm willing to accept the authority of this particular page, but I guess it verifies enough of my existing notions that I am.
Posted by hessma at March 1, 2005 09:11 AM