“Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough….”

There was an article featured on a spoof news site recently about how a cat was victorious in fights by just jumping in. It made me laugh, but it also made me aware that to most people that’s what the build up to a cat fight must look like. To a cat, the situation is entirely different.

The first interaction between cats who are sparring for territory isn’t even really direct contact at all, it’s scenting. Cats, especially entire toms, leave very clear signals that they’re in the area so it can be noted as “theirs.” They use a number of different approaches, some are definitely apparent to humans, some aren’t. But they’re all noticeable to other cats.

Because this all happens prior to actually meeting each other, when they are face to face the cats are already aware of each other’s existence. They aren’t necessarily going to dislike each other so at the point they finally are in close proximity, their body language is important. What looks like doing nothing to us, is a series of signals being conveyed by body gestures with varying degrees of subtlety.

Obviously, this process is pretty intense in terms of their exchange, and can go on for some time. Watching cats when they first encounter each other is actually pretty informative if you know what to look for in their body language. Below is the link to a basic guide that is available online showing a few postures you may witness when cats are initially interacting with each other, and in the “Importance of body language” blog is another resource. Hopefully they’ll be useful in reading a situation to navigate things with feline friends in the future.

 

https://www.rspca.org.uk/adviceandwelfare/pets/cats/behaviour/understanding

 

I suppose they’d definitely START the fight…..

(Source: Daily Mash Website)