The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #124582   Message #2752777
Posted By: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
26-Oct-09 - 04:07 AM
Thread Name: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
Bill D: "*I* just wondered why cat fights are such a popular topic to post on YouTube....there's a whole list of them."

Quite honestly?
I think it's something of an instinctive throwback to blood sports. Albeit a milder and more 'socially acceptable' one. People enjoy watching animals attacking each other in the same way kids will crowd around a schoolyard scrap. I watched it because it was thrown up here and assumed it to be harmless, which it was of course - though I must say I wouldn't go looking for it. And despite thinking the B&W cat stood her ground pretty admirably, I must confess it didn't amuse me much either. But then I am rather more sensitive than most about animals used as entertainment unless *they* are actually having fun themselves - in which case it's all good!

Cat fights are usually about intimidation more than anything, but I tend to break them up, as males will try to rip off testes or go for the throat, and they can inflict pretty serious injury to each other.

Neutered females especially can come in for aggression and attack from un-neutered males too, because they smell wrong. Which considering the big ginger tom, and disparity in size of the lesser B&W cat, might well in fact be what the scene in the YouTube is depicting - despite the 'feminist' anthropomorphism of subtitles.