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Playing or fighting?

1K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  tanyuh 
#1 ·
By now, most of you know about my new kitty. As the introduction period has progressed I am allowing them to be together supervised. For the most part the new kitty plays while he is upstairs and doesn't pay a lot of attention to Barnaby. However Barnaby's curiosity has him following the new kitty into every room checking out what he's up to. I'm not exactly sure what started it but this morning after about a half-hour the new kitty jumped down from the couch and pounced on Barnaby and then they got into a bout where they were chasing each other madly, pouncing, rolling, meowing, jumping, etc. This lasted just a short period of time and then I decided to separate them before it got too out of hand. Even when I was carrying the new kitty back to the basement Barnaby was following me. I don't know if he didn't want me to take away his playmate or if he wanted another piece of him.

What they were doing didn't seem vicious and there didn't appear to be any hissing. It all came and went rather quickly.

So my question is, is behavior like this a fight of sorts, or is it just the way they play?


Here's a couple of pictures of the new kitty playing with his toy mouse and Barnaby watching him closely...

 
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Discussion starter · #4 ·
CheeseheadKitties, another fellow "Wisconsinite". I'm in Green Bay, where are you?

Anyways, I let them together this afternoon and they went at it again almost from the get-go. Barnaby likes to jump on him and bite the back of his neck. He must have bit hard at one point because the new kitty let out a wail. That's Barnaby's play style though because when I play with him he likes to latch on to my arm and bite my hand and the longer it goes on, the more aggressive he gets and bites harder.

I don't really know how to handle this because I don't want to see either of them hurt.
 
Discussion starter · #11 ·
Actually that's Barnaby that latches onto my arm and bites. His ears even go back but he's not really vicious about it. It's kind of cute. He doesn't do it alot and doesn't bite hard at first but if I let him continue he gets more aggressive and leaves me with "battle scars".

The new kitty is vocal, friendly and outgoing where Barnaby is more of a scaredy cat but a mild mannered sweetheart, but he's also the aggressor lately when they play. That's just his play nature because he's not really into toys like most cats. That's why I really felt he needed a playmate.

It's been 12 days and all seems to be going well. I think they're ready to be left together unsupervised. However, I am a little apprehensive about letting the new kitty stay upstairs when I am sleeping right now because he is talkative and where Barnaby's meow is high pitched and soft, his is lower and quite loud.

The play/fight sessions are just occasional and I'm convinced that it's just playing because nobody runs away screaming and other cat owners I know describe their cats playing exactly the same way. They've spent 6 hours upstairs on Sunday and so far another 6 today and most of the time they keep to themselves doing their own thing, but they can be walking by each other and in close vicinity without any hostility. The new kitty even stuck his face in Barnaby's food dish and nudged him out of the way. He didn't even seem to care though.

I'm still waiting for the first time I see them laying together. I hope I have my camera close by.
 
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