It's not playing, I am afraid. Once or twice it's come close to a vet's
visit. They seem to take it in turns to be the instigator. If one of
them is feeling a bit off-colour for any reason, the stronger one tends
to start the fights...

Why not recommend it?  It's helped keep my crew from committing murder.

Pam S. who's seen some ugly cat fights

Thanks Charleen.

We love cats and have only had two cats that were not strays! They seem
to find us. The current two are called Sox and Shoes!! Sox has white
paws and Shoes does not... hence the names. When we lived at our
previous place, we had two kittens, Scruffy and CC. Unfortunately,
Scruffy was hit by a car when he was about 7 months old and did not
survive (very sad). CC was not too lonely as we were feeding a bunch of
'wild' cats that used to turn up for dinner, but would not be tamed.
Then along came Sox... he had been adopted by one of the staff on the
property as he had been abandoned by someone. Sox decided he liked our
cottage and moved in. He got on very well with CC, who used to play his
'bouncer' against the wild cats. Then we moved to our present house
which is out of town on a small holding and CC and Sox came with us.
They loved all the open space and all was well until CC contracted
feline lukemia from somewhere. (Our vet says it could have been from the
wild cats at the previous cottage). We had him backwards and forwards to
the vet for months, but we eventually lost the battle. That was really
bad. I really miss them!

However, just before CC died, Shoes had started coming here for food. We
had no idea where he came from, but fed him anyway. Once CC was gone, he
got braver and braver and eventually came into the house... we caught
him and had him 'fixed' as well and he is still here....

I think the fact that they were both strays may have a lot to do with
the rivalry - they have found new territory and wish to defend it,
maybe? Our vet says that they should settle down eventually, but we have
had them about 2 years now and although the fighting has abated, it
still flares up too often to be good for our nerves!

Ironically, as I type this, Sox and Shoes are both in our bedroom, one
on the bed and the other curled up by the heater... go figure!

Thanks for listening!!

Cathy

Thanks for the welcome, Adrian.

As I mentioned before, they are not play fighting - fur flies and it
comes close to a vet visit sometimes.

Its got to the point where we have to ban them from the bedroom at
night, because they keep us awake with their spats. This is not nice for
them in winter, which is fast approaching in our part of the world... I
do think it could be some sort of jealousy/territory thing as the little
buggers's spent the *entire* day in our bedroom, together, with one on
the bed and other curled up around the heater. Not a spat the whole day.
But let one of us enter the room and there they go. Dunno what to do
anymore. We make as much fuss of both of them as we can... worse than
kids! LOL! Hopefully they will 'grow out of it'

Cheers
Cathy