We keep her nails pretty well trimmed so I’m not worried about her accidenly scratching Bailey. She grew up with him since she was 3 months old and they’ve always done this. He’ll hop up to her when she’s laying on the carpet and stop just out of reach, then kind of step forward then back until she swats at him so that he can bat at her. He’s done it with me a few times too – hey here I am I’ve come to see you don’t you want to pet me… HA! FOOLED YOU!
When Sierra was a kitten she did try to do the rough-and-tumble playing with the bunnies but we quickly stopped that by squirting her with the water bottle until she learned she wasn’t supposed to do that with them. She still likes to eat with them and will come and try out the romaine or the cantaloupe with them – I swear for the longest time she thought she was a bunny. But the way she plays with Ringo and the way she plays with Bailey are totally different – Ringo and Sierra do the rough-and-tumble wrestling, and with Bailey its very gentle. Much more gentle than he is with her!
And I don’t know if it’s clear on that video or not, but he’t not backed into a corner, he can easily get away, and he’s actually the one that came up to her.
We have 2 other cats – Ringo doesn’t play with the bunnies much at all. He does try to join in the chase now and then when they’re running the Bunny500 through the house – he thinks that looks like fun. But other than that he’s happier playing with Sierra. And Harley… he’s afraid of the bunnies. We got Harley as an older cat to begin with, we thought he’d make a good companion for Bailey. Bailey decided to charge him instead, and Harley’s such a coward that he just ran away. Since then Bailey’s decided that he can be a bully and he’ll still sometimes charge Harley for no reason – I think he likes to see Harley jump. He’ll even charge fairly large dogs (did that at Pets in the Park). And if he’s going to be aggressive at home then I’d rather it be with Sierra, at least she knows to be gentle with him. Scooter’s got some scars from bunny scratches. But thankfully most of the time Bailey is just our sweet little marshmallow boy. Come to think of it, he’s probably not loafing about all that time, he’s probably thinking up new ways to terrorize the cat.
– Annette
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