Many intercat behaviors are somewhere between playing and fighting, but there are some telltale signs that a tussle is getting too aggressive.
Veterinarians have conducted research by watching over a hundred videos of cats interacting with each other.
and as an admitted lover and owner of cats, Gajdoš-Kmecová had been especially interested in a question that many owners of multiple felines have pondered
The study was led by Noema Gajdoš-Kmecová, a veterinary doctor and researcher at the University of Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy in Košice, Slovakia. As part of her thesis,
and owner of cats, Gajdoš-Kmecová had been especially interested in a question that many owners of multiple felines have pondered: are my cats playing or fighting?
Her team, which includes cat behaviorists in the UK, decided to combine standard methods of studying animal behavior with modern citizen science—in other words, watching videos of other people’s cats. All told, the team collected 165 videos,
by owners and 102 videos downloaded from YouTube. After removing clips that were judged too ambiguous or missing important information like sound, they were left with 105 videos of 210 cats.
but at the same time was a quick and accessible way to collect the data by simply recruiting cat owners—who love to videotape their cats—via social media or typing the behaviors of interest into YouTube,” Gajdoš-Kmecová told Gizmodo in an email.