They pause to take in the situation. When they are play fighting either with another animal or with a human, you will notice they wouldn’t wanna go all in esp when they get too involved. They pause to see if the other person is doing ok- these are more or less training phases for them. When it’s a real fight, it’s to see if the opponent is dead or if they need to be more dominating/or switch to a submissive stance, or to see if the other would submit. Mostly animals don’t wanna kill during a play fight and they dont wanna keep attacking something that’s dead/dying.
Because fights in nature are not designed to kill/injure but to determine who is the most dominant, a pause in a playfight simulates them looking for various cues that will let them know who is the most powerful, in nature the weaker will usually give up and allow the stronger competitor to have the food/mate/resource.
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