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Backyard Cat Fight Shows Shelling Points Pre-Exist Language By Jakhan Published on January 14, 2026 Two cats fighting for control over my backyard appear to have settled on a particular chain-link fence as the delineation between their territories.

This suggests that 1.

Animals are capable of recognising shelling points.

2.

Therefore, shelling points do not depend on language for their shelling nests.

3.

Therefore, tacit bargaining should be understood not as a special case of bargaining where communication happens to be restricted, but rather as the norm from which the exceptional case of explicit bargaining is derived.

Heading Summary of Cat's Situation

I don't have any pets, so my backyard is terra nullius according to cat law.

This situation is unstable, as there are several outdoor cats in the neighborhood who would like to claim it.

Our two contenders are Tabby Cat, who lives on the other side of the waist-high chain-link fence marking the back edge of my lot, and Tuxedo Cat, who lives in the place next door to me.

There's a code block here in the text.

In the first incident, I found the two cats fighting in various locations around my yard.

Eventually Tuxedo emerged victorious, and Tabby fled back over the fence into his own yard.

Tuxedo looks to be younger and more robust than the comparatively elderly and scrawny Tabby, so this outcome was not surprising.

In the second incident, Tabby and Tuxedo had a stare down through the fence, where they spent almost an hour meowing loudly at each other and refusing to budge from their respective seats, Tabby at A, and Tuxedo at B, a few inches apart, with the fence in between.

This appeared to be a symbolic extension of the physical fight from earlier, whichever cat were to retreat first would be taken to concede the territory on the other side of the fence.

That is, if Tabby retreats from A while Tuxedo is still at B, then this means Tabby will no longer enter my yard.

And if Tuxedo retreats from B while Tabby is still at A, then Tuxedo will not attempt to take the fight into Tabby's yard.

Scratching is a continuation of meowing by other means.