Cat Play Behaviour

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willowdragon
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Cat Play Behaviour

Post by willowdragon »

I've recently acquired a new kitten, he's about four months, a Bengal, and gets on like a house on fire with my adult bengal. My query is about the adult bengal. She's obviously really thriving from having a playmate, she's come out of her shy shell a lot more and she's even getting a little naughty, which is cool because when we first adopted her she was so shy and timid and pretty terrified of anyone but me, whereas she now follows the new kittens lead, and he's pretty adventurous.
The only thing that has me worried is play with toys. Of course being the only cat for a while she had the toys all to herself, and would happily play with them. Now the kitten pretty much gets all the toy time, and she just watches. She doesn't seem overly upset, and maybe I'm anthropomorphising, I'm just concerned she's now not getting the playtime stimulation she needs. The only times I get some quality playtime in with her alone is if the kitten happens to fall asleep in another room, but that's rare since they're basically stuck to each other and generally sleep together. Often when I do try to entice her into play alone, kitten wakes up and runs in because he's heard, and he jumps straight in to play, so she pads off to one side and just watches.
They play well together mind you. It's mainly things like teasers and when we play fetch*, she doesn't get a look in.
*Yes, I taught my cats to play fetch. It's awesome.
LittlePenBigHeart
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Re: Cat Play Behaviour

Post by LittlePenBigHeart »

This is incredibly common in older cats when younger cats are introduced. We've had the same thing with absolutely all of our cats. There are ways of dealing with it, and with Bengals in particular, it's really important to keep up their play/hunting time because they're such an active breed. Do you have someone else who can play with one cat while you play with the other? If not, you may have to do what we did/do - shut one cat out of the room while you play with the other. It seems a bit heartless because you ideally want them playing together, and you can build up to that, but you may need to build the older cat's confidence up a little more when it comes to play before you try playing with them together again. Also, try to find which toys each cat prefers. Our youngest cats prefer the laser pen, except Dylan, who carries his stick toy around in his mouth. Gizzy prefers something with feathers. It will make a big difference if you can narrow these things down.

Hope that helps!
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Lilith
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Re: Cat Play Behaviour

Post by Lilith »

Lol, my Siamese used to play 'fetch'. My boy would even play it by himself, dropping his scrunched up piece of paper into the wastebasket, and then retrieving it.

Sounds to me as if your girl is playing 'mother cat' - she's presented junior with a nice wriggling prey and now she's content to watch him learn how to deal with it.

Bless her! :)
willowdragon
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Re: Cat Play Behaviour

Post by willowdragon »

Yeah I think she's mother catting him. I have tried the whole putting them in separate rooms, me playing with one while my partner plays with the other, but the cats are not interested, they freak that we deprecated them and spend the whole time either jumping at the door handle or yowling at eachother through the door ^^
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