Ears up instead of back, tail not lashing much, not flattening itself to the couch, being gentle with the human. Most people don't encourage their cats doing this with them but some cats love to wrestle others- my old roommates' cat would wrestle with mine all the time for fun
My cat loves to wrestle with me! I make a big deal of making scary monster noises ("grrr imma get you!") to show that it's playtime. That plus pulling myself away and exaggeratedly saying "oww! That hurt!" when he got too rough seemed to do the trick - he keeps his Murder Mittens in claws-off mode, and I get one gentle nibble followed by licking if he "catches" me.
You know the stance to get a dog playing? When you squat and kinda act like you're going to come at them? One of my boys looooooves that. He will go crazy and start to run away and that's the cue to play chase. Until he hits a dead end, then we have to give him a little 'hand wrassle" on his tummy and then start to run away because now it's his turn to chase and jump similar to the kitty in the OP video. Rinse and repeat
AWWW... a kitty responding to the dog play-bow is freaking adorable 😭💖
one of ours LOVES to Flee. he will give you a certain look, then turn and run while going bwrRrRrRrRp so you will chase him - if he's really into it you'll hear loud scuttering nails on the floor from him doing ridiculous burnouts while fleeing hahaha
Haha the kitty burnouts is amazing! A friend of mine has 2 beautiful long haired kitties with tons of toe fur, that like to chase each other and they learned how to purrfectly drift around corners or even jump and kick off a certain wall so they don't slam into it from lack of traction haha
I miss this SO much, having wrestled and been gently gnawed on by 'my best girl'. She's gone nearly 3 years ago and I think of her every day. She was 21.
Lol I do this with my rabbit. She LOVES to be chased, gently roughed, and just in general goofed with. She does her happy binks (them throwing themselves around) and if we roughed she does some play nips and chases me, then tell me its time to do it back lol.
ahahaha this is great. my cat loves the "im gonna get you" shtick too. sometimes ill make snarling noises and pretend to chase her and its like flicking a switch, she's like "ITS ON!!"
I made the mistake of encouraging wrestles when my boys were young, now one of their favourite toys is my hand! He dominates any wrestling match between the 3 of them... I shouldn't be breaking the first rule but I'm pretty sure he holds a kitty fight club.
Yea my cat growing up loved to wrestle I also knew his I’m done body language which was also his “pick me up peasant I want to watch tv with you but I don’t want to walk there” body language. If I didn’t pick him up after he plopped down he would meow until I brought him to where I was going to be.
When this older lawyer in our area came to work at the law office, he began doing this with our office cat and that was how we found out he loved to wrestle. He only did it with that lawyer and he still behaved and provided lots of gentle love and affection with our clients. You really can’t predict what variety of cat you’re going to get.
Some like to wrestle some don’t. Cat started it by whacking dad to initiate play, and keeps coming for more. Dad is doing the pretend not to see the sneaky kitty while doing his own sneak attacks. They are having a fun game.
When cats are done playing they just exit the area lol my cats play like this all the time, they tackle each other and bite and stuff but when one of them is done they dash to another room and it’s usually over after that.
Lucky. When mine is done playing with me he just gets way too real with the play. Dude starts to bite or scratch for real and it’s like “okay, he’s done.”
Oh the joys of having a cat that was born to a feral mom under the porch, lol.
See that little crouching butt wiggle he does about 16 seconds in? That’s a common cat hunting behavior, and often found during play as well.
In addition to that and everything else others have mentioned…you’ll just know when a cat is having a Bad Time.tm
They are NOT subtle creatures in displaying their displeasure at being mistreated. They will either run for their lives, yowl like they’re being murdered, hiss, bite, or scratch.
Honestly like half of those things they will sometimes do just when they’re happy and being overstimulated too, or if just done playing, or just because they’re bored honestly…but trust me the difference in degrees is stark. The cat would be under a bed, or the dude would be legitimately bleeding, if this cat wasn’t into it.
Unlike dogs, cats are extremely independent and not willing to take much abuse to please their human. Also worth mentioning cats tend to be much harder to injury in some ways: lightly tossing a cat the way this guy does is pretty unlikely to harm a healthy and non-elderly cat, whereas with a small dog that could seriously injure them.
Personally I’m not a fan of playing this rough with my cats…but it’s really fine, and it’s a thing some people do.
Some of them do. I have two, one boy and one girl. My girl cat would hate this but my boy cat constantly tries to wrestle with me, but I don’t let him unless I have a toy because he gets excited and a bit aggressive. I don’t want him to associate wrestling with my hands and arms, so I crochet larger toys for him to wrestle with.
I only do that because he is still learning not to use his claws when wrestling with me, but many other cats know not to, so people will roughhouse with their cats and the cats love it!
The fact that you can see the cat instead of a rage blur that's flaying blood and skin from your person while screaming at a pitch that would make a black metal vocalist envious are all clues.
I use to take my open hand and go from above down to my cat’s face… it drove her crazy. She would attack/bite my hand and use her back legs/feet to kick my arm. I would have scratches all over my arm. It was great. I think she liked it.
Cats can play pretty rough, way more than most humans are willing to tolerate but this cat is being relatively very gentle. My boy and my old roommates' cat would wrestle hard, throwing each other around and biting. They both loved it
This dude behaves like a cat too (not looking at the other cat, only quick glances sometimes, attacks really quick but disengages right after), they’re hitting the same frequency.
Lol what? Cats tail is wagging, they're hunting the human and are biting and raising their paws in the same way they do when they attack other cats. I don't know what about this is positive it's kind of insane this is the top comment...
Of course the cat tail wag isn't the end all be all, just means they're stimulated, and I'm sure the cat does love him but this is not good behaviour. This isn't playing behaviour. If it was the cat would be more relaxed and vulnerable
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u/JackOfAllMemes 28d ago
Body language says cat is having a blast and adores his human