Happy people who share their lives with more than one cat can become concerned when their four-legged companions are fighting colds, or even when they seem to tear out their fur, claws and hair with spit and hiss bonus. How did these adorable kittens who loved to snuggle so much for one of their – very – long naps come to this? And first, is it serious? Did they become enemies for reasons that escape us? Or have they taken their fighting game to another level?
This question, which fuels the concern of their human owners, has just been the subject of work by a team of Slovak-British researchers who have just published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports.
Videos of cats… not always cute!
Distinguishing a playful fight from a genuine antagonism can be a real headache. In an attempt to better understand these phenomena, Dr. Noema Gajdoš-Kmecová, from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice (Slovakia), and her colleagues 105 videos of cats, some taken from YouTube and the others collected from cat owners following messages from the team on social networks.
On YouTube they used keywords like “cats fighting”, “play cats”, “cats playing fight”… (English). The sample also included videos of bullshit situations.
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