BS: What fighting cats are really saying

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:07 AM

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.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Genie
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 01:52 AM

John in Kansas, your story of how Bela, Vincent, and Boris Bat reacted to the video is hilarious!

Genie

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Genie
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 09:59 PM

Maybe because so many of us can identify with the parties involved?

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:52 PM

*I* just wondered why cat fights are such a popular topic to post on YouTube....there's a whole list of them.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Alice
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:32 PM

Technically, a calico is tortoiseshell with white, I've read, but we lump it all together and call them calico.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Alice
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:30 PM

There are orange female cats, but they are rare, as the orange female must have an orange father and an orange or calico mother to inherit the x chromosomes from each to be orange. (Where I live, we say orange, not ginger, and calico, not tortoiseshell).

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:18 PM

Are you in the States ranger? It may not be true over there.

The same might apply to the link between a cat being tortoiseshell and being female which seems to be the case in the UK.

.......................

I imagine most people will have seen this one.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: ranger1
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:59 PM

I've owned several ginger cats who were female, so I'm not sure how rare they are.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Genie
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:50 PM

Do cats really sound like that? Ohhhh, yeah!

Not only have I heard comparable caterwauling outside my windows many a time over the past 30 years, but almost no sooner had I posted the link to that video than I saw my neighbors (female) kitty perched atop my big recycling cart SCREAMING in the direction of my house, which was just 3 or 4 feet away. I kind of figured out what she was screaming at, and when I went inside my suspicions were confirmed.   I heard such ear-shattering yowling and thrashing about that I thought somehow the neighbor's cat or some other critter had managed to get through the window into the bedroom. Turns out it was just my own normally mild mannered female kitty giving back as good as she was getting!

Sounded pretty much just like the moggies in that video.   (Good thing there was a pane of glass separating them!)

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:32 PM

They've got the sub-titles wrong. As has been pointed out already, the cat doing the talking is a male. (It's very rare to have a ginger female, I understand.)

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Alice
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 11:47 AM

What the beaver is saying.






welcome to Canada

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 11:44 AM

Apparently it's the age-old problem of guys not understanding what gals are saying.

At about the first "WHY?" our lone semi-female Bela jumped in the middle of my desk, knocked my keyboard and a pile of papers mostly on the floor, and started "answering" the rant. She didn't seem to pick up on the image, but she heard a fight and was obviously ready to join in.

Vincent, our young philosopher wandered slowly over and peeked around the computer, but it's impossible to know whether he was curious about the video sound or just curious about what Bela was upset about.

Bela either decided that it was Vincent's fault ... or just that "you guys are all alike" .. and lashed a barage of claws at Vinnie, who retreated to the other end of the desk behind the computer.

I killed the sound, but Bela continued her rant at "anybody and everybody in general" for a while; and I had to "physically remove" her from the desktop when she threatened to tip the monitor over.

Five minutes later, Vincent was still sitting behind the computer with a "what the f***k! was she talking about?" expression on his face. (Uncertain whether he was referring to the cat in the video or to sister Bela.)

Meanwhile, Boris Bat, the elderly male, just sat on the floor the whole time screaming "Doesn't anybody here realize it's time for my breakfast?". (But he does that every morning.)

Ten minutes later, Bela is sitting on the table in the dining room, glaring at the world from her "assault posture" looking like "gimme a male - any male- and I'll claw the s**t out of 'em."

John

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Alice
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 11:37 AM

What cats are REALLY thinking!

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: My guru always said
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:37 AM

LOL!!

But our cat Rusty didn't understand a word of it, different dialect I guess....

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: MAG
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:14 AM

that soundtrack sounded good enough to set my cat off.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:23 AM

Are all Ginger Toms big old bullies? One of my little sissy lads got well bashed up last night by the local big Ginger Tom too, he came in looking most put out! I thought the little black & white one in the Tubey did well stay stay his/her ground without running the hell away.. :)

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:28 AM

Since the ginger cat is actually the Tom.. I guess he is probably making his plea to her for some close liaison!!

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: gnomad
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:18 AM

Someone e-mailed me too, I had a good laugh but have a question:

Is the sound track real? I just never heard a cat make that sort of noise, though I have known quite a few.

The one night I heard something a bit like that it turned out to be a fox.

Subject: RE: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Janie
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 11:50 PM

That was e-mailed to me yesterday, and my son and I just howled. (Bat Goddess posted a great Cat cartoon on facebook today also.)

Subject: BS: What fighting cats are really saying
From: Genie
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 11:18 PM

She really tells him off!