Cats fight over territory on slippery roof with unforeseen consequences

The location is Sula, Cortes, Honduras and this is a slippery roof.  It is early morning by the looks of it (crepuscular activity). I guess the roof is deliberately slippery to allow rain water to run off efficiently. The cats are unaware of this technical point obviously. The black one is patrolling his territory or has he entered the territory of the ginger cat? They meet and of course fight but are unable do so on the slippery surface. 

Two cats encounter each other on a Honduran roof. Screenshot.

One of the cats slides off the roof and drops to the ground; a fall of about 10 feet which is okay for a cat. He appears to have been unharmed and is likely to be unharmed. The video was caught on CCTV. It is just another day in the life of free-roaming cats. Millions of them do the same thing every day.

The roofing material interests me as much as the cats 😃! I'm going to guess and say that Honduras is quite wet in the rainy season. They don't have roof tiles like they have in the UK which are quite complicated to put up and it means that you have thousands of parts onto the roof. In this roof you have this great slab of material which is treated to be slippery so that the rainwater runs off very quickly. 

Personally, I prefer the Honduras method to the UK method. It looks far more durable to me and far more sensible. And a lot cheaper to install. I could go on for hours about builders in the UK and the building methods which I question.

Another thing worth mentioning about the cats is that they are, expectedly, on a roof. A lot of their time is spent high up off the ground. They prefer to be up there where it is safer. Until they meet each other and feel compelled to fight over their overlapping home ranges. The must be quite a few stray or free-roaming domestic cat in Honduras and I suspect that the home ranges of male cats overlap because of the high population which leads to encounters like this one.

Note: This is a video from another website which is embedded here. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

Video example of antagonism between cats in multi-cat household

This lady bought some new cat shelves which attach to the glass in a window frame through suckers. It's quite a clever idea as cats love to look outside and high vantage points. She is pleased that they work. She is not going to be pleased that her cats are fighting. It looks like a minor contretemps between two family cats in a nice home. 

Video example of antagonism between cats in multi-cat household. Screenshot.

They, are no doubt, well looked after and loved. But my guess is that there is a background of quiet, simmering animosity between these two cats. They probably get along pretty well nearly all of the time. But they both jumped onto these new cat shelves to try them out which put them close together and a slapping competition commenced.

CLICK FOR A PAGE ON FIGHTING IN MULTI-CAT HOMES

This is an embedded tweet. They often go caput because they are pulled from Twitter. Sorry if that's happened. You have a still image instead which is nowhere near as good.

Was looking at “cat shelf” reviews and found this truly perfect user-submitted video: pic.twitter.com/s7IzHpg5e2

— Carlos Maza (@gaywonk) August 24, 2021

The experts say that if there is a cat behaviour problem described as "bad cat behaviour" in a home it's often caused by friction between cats in a multi-cat household. If that isn't the cause it is going to be the behaviour of the human caregiver which has rubbed up against feline emotions.

Adopting a second or third cat into a home is a problematic process which should be carried out with great care. Rescue centres should allow people to "suck and see" when adopting a second cat. They should allow them to bring the cat back after a week if it doesn't work out. Perhaps they do this in some shelters but it should be the default policy.

You get chemistry between cats. We don't know why some cats get along and some don't but I'm going to propose that the reason is a common sense one: they just get along like people get along because it's the right chemistry. But the big issue with multi-cat homes is that you are putting cats quite close together; unnaturally so. 

Domestic cats need several acres at least of home territory and they have to adapt to a much smaller space especially if they are confined to the home. They do this but it is easier for some cats compared to others. This is likely to cause stress if the cats are not friendly with each other. This is what has happened in this instance in my opinion.