Please reassure me my kitties are playing and not really fighting!

[StuffezLaYoni]

I've had my new cat for about two weeks and she and my boy got on instantly. They do scrap though and I just need to make sure they're not trying to hurt each other. They chase each other (both as bad as the other!) and grab each other and roll around. Sometimes it involves a bit of a yowl and banging around. However, when they get bored, they seem to instantly lie down apart, panting and rolling on their backs, until one of them decides to play again.

Is this normal? There's no wounding going on or fur flying. Both cats sleep happily on my bed and bump noses all the time. I'd hate to think I was allowing one or both to get hurt...

Don't worry - mine do this a lot. I think if they were really fighting you would hear lots of yowling, their ears would be back and their claws out.

Thanks for the quick reply! That's what I thought. I've just never had 2 cats before so wasn't sure...
Managed to get a great video on my iPad of the girl lying down knackered and the boy trying to wind her up by banging his paw by her in a blatant "can't get meeee" gesture. :-)

If they were fighting for real - boy would you know it, Stuffez!

When i was growing up my 4 cats would play fight loads sonetimes when 2 were fighting the other 2 would join in we had fur flying everywhere

Real fightsinvolve fur flying, I am not joking, the stuff whizzes up and around the air. And the yowling is very different from play fighting, there is no wondering "is this real or play?"

They can make a heck of a racket when playing though. Snowball and Whiskers got into it a lot when they were young and I would wince as somebody took a flying leap and three seconds later somebody's head clunked on the floor. Sometimes I would send them to seperate rooms cos they drove me batty with the need to bicker and wrestle All Day Long.

Ours were playfighting 2 of the cats had a load of thick fur ( they seemed to malt all year round) afterwards they would all snuggle up

Thank you all - I feel reassured!