Cat to Cat body language?

[ASorcererIsAWizardSquared]

Just interested to know what was going on here :)

WizardCat is starting to adventure outside our garden and next door have two cats who used to be in our garden quite a bit, but less so in the last couple of months as WizardCat has been allowed out regularly.

She just crossed over into their garden and the one sat stock still paws all bunched up underneath her, ears back and just hissed.

Wizard Cat stopped, stayed stood still for a moment, then carried on approaching, then at one point just lay down as if totally relaxed, just the tip of her tail flicking.

Neighbours cat looked away first, and WizardCat trotted further up their garden, NC followed, and then resumed the sat/hissing position, so WizardCat just sat and cleaned one of her paws, then laid down and rolled over for a second before getting up and coming back down the yard to me.

NC is quite old, and has no tail, so i couldn't tell if she was being aggressive or worried by my cat, and i only ever know the 'belly up' position as being 'i'm not worried by you' when she does it to me.

Hissing and ears back is a defensive position, so I'd say neighbour's cat feels threatened by younger WizardCat. They will also perceive your cat to have muscled in on their territory.

When they do the belly up thing, it can be to show they're not a threat, or so their claws and teeth (all their weapons) are facing their enemy...

I'd say it's more a boundary testing thing for WizardCat at the moment.

Is she a particular breed?

Either she's too old to take her on or she's not too bothered by her but doesnt want to roll out the red carpet either.

Asbo get's the rage about other cats being outside but not enough to actually do anything about it.

They're all tabby and white moggies. NCs are rescues, but both about 10-11yo, Wizardcat is only 14mo, so this is her first year 'out and about' as she was too little to go adventuring last year!

just makes me chuckle, Wizard is a small cat, she barely hits the 4kg mark, NCs are both almost twice her size!

i did break it up, i dont want them fighting, so i called her back with the temptation of dreamies!