It's not always easy to tell if cats are playing or fighting when they wrestle with each other. Now an important new study has determined the prime difference between the two activities, explains MarcBekoff
The cat engages in physical contact with another cat, whereby the focal cat appears to struggle with the other cat. This can include pulling the cat toward itself with its forelegs and performing raking movements with the hind legs .Cat runs rapidly in pursuit of another cat or the cat runs away from another cat or one cat travels closely behind a cat .Non-interactive activities:The cat produces sounds or calls, originating from the throat and mouth .
Using a statistical method called Principal Components Analysis , the researchers wanted to determine what behaviors were observed during playing, fighting, or in the middle ground. PCA basically allows researchers to determine which factors—in this case, which actions—are most important in the different contexts in which they are observed.
The most distinctive of the different categories was agonistic behavior which was observed in 32 percent of the cats, during which they vocalized, chased one another, and had periods of rest.. If chasing was mutual, it was more likely play. When the cats were resting, they may have been deciding what to do next based on what previously happened, what the other cat was doing, and what they, themselves, wanted to do.
When the cats were in the murky middle, where 28 percent of the cats were observed, their behavior was more playful than agonistic. Of course, play could escalate into aggression depending on what each cat wanted to do. The researchers didn't report how often this occurred, butThis is the first ethological study of playing and fighting in cats in domestic settings and I found it to be an extremely valuable guide.
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