I enjoyed reading the responses to my “Big Cats vs. Bears” query. Now I have another question: if you took one of the largest dog breeds, say an Irish Wolfhound, and pit it against a big cat of similar size (I do not know which big cat species would fit the bill-- perhaps a leopard?), what do you think the outcome would be?
Probably the cat.
Anecdotal evidence but my ten pound cat pushes my 95 pound German Shepherd around. The cat goes completely ninja on the dog if she bothers her too much.
Of course if it came down to one killing the other my cat at a tenth the size of my dog doesn’t stand a chance. Still, pound for pound I’d say cats are tougher critters than dogs. If you’ve ever seen a cat go into a frenzy it is a sight to behold…they are a blur of motion and the screeching is enough to freeze your blood. Dogs likewise have an apeshit mode but my money is still on the cat assuming equal weight with the dog.
I believe that felines are supposed to have an advantage because they have much more serious claws than canines, while their fangs and jaws aren’t too different.
So your talking about something like a St Bernard vs a Cougar?
If only we were still living in old Roman times; they apparently matched just about every type of animal you can think of in death matches with each other… horrible but they must have seen some pretty interesting things and could answer any of these questions. Imagine going out to watch a bull vs a bear vs a lion (for real), then seeing a few dozen people get butchered with various cutting and bashing tools for sunday afternoon entertainment. Ahhh, the good old days…
I don’t think you can accurately compare a domesticated dog (St. Bernard, etc) with a wild big cat.
A grey wolf vs mountain lion would be a good fight, IMHO.
A cat’s claws have a lot more reach than a dog’s teeth do and cats have greater agility and flexibility. However, in general dogs have more running endurance. A cat snags prey with its’ claws which lets it have shorter more powerful specialized killing jaws while a dog needs to have a longer jaw with less leverage to snag prey with.
I would think a wolf and a cougar or lynx would make a more ferocious fight.
If you’re talking domesticated dog versus domesticated cat, I say “dog”.
If you’re talking wild dog versus wild cat, I say “cat”.
If you’re talking GQ versus IMHO, I say “IMHO”. 
Of course, the wolves and the mountain lions might end up joining forces and forming a plan to get at your social worker.
I saw it on a TV show.
Generally, though, predator species will rarely fight to the death. Sooner or later (and probably sooner than later), one of them will bolt. Which one depends largely on the individual traits of the animal, rather than any species perogative.
I’ve occasionally seen mountain lions run across badgers and the badgers are so damn mean and aggressive that the much larger cats end up backing off.
Interestingly, herbivores can get far more vicious when they want. An irate cape buffalo is about as mean as an animal can get.
When I was up in Canada a few years ago I was told that watching out for bears was always wise but the reality was that deer caused FAR more injuuries to humans than bears or any other predator. They figure people think nice, cute doe-eyed deer and then get some hooves in their face or the working end of the antlers.
The dogs would win.
Notice I said dogs. Dogs are pack animals, and operate best in that manner. A pack of good dogs with a trained huntsman can take down just about any creature they are raised to hunt, provided it is near their point of origin. Russian elkhounds take down elk, south african … word. Lion hunting dogs… take down lions.
Pound for pound, dogs are stronger and have better teeth and are also more aggressive, but tend to be less persistant… relating to their pack behavior, where they nip and fall back.
Cats are solitary hunters, with great one-strike capability. Dogs wear their prey down. It’s a really situational question. Depends on the dog, really. It is known to happen that one dog, if I remember the news correctly, took down a full grown bear, by latching on to the throat and hanging, dying in the effort, but saving a child in the process. German shepherd, if I recall correctly.
Really depends on the breed, though. My poodle, for example… standard poodle, about seventy pounds of very bright dog, punches squirrels, much like how deer rear and punch with their hooves. He’s found that if he bites them they go after his nose. If he were to fight a coon cat, not that he would, he’d probably knock it silly, as his fur is reasonably proof against its claws. A lynx would be harder, but… again, dogs have superior jaw strength and persistance. On thinking carefully with his daily romping with a smaller but more massive springer spaniel, who has an easier road to his throat than my dog has at the spaniel’s throat, the usual reaction is to grab the head as the spaniel leaps at him, tip the dog over, and go for the underbelly, using a paw and shoulder to fend off the head and forepaws. I don’t see much of a difference between that and how he’d handle a lynx. May be wrong, mind you, and my dog is a bit strange… very pawcentric.
Leopards LOVE dogs - and not in a good way!
In 1958 my father lost a much loved German Shepherd to a leopard in Tanzania (then Tanganyika). His mistake - the dog was tethered and could not run away.
Dogs are pack hunters and rely on endurance to wear down their prey (see Canadian Timber Wolves or Cape Hunting Dogs). They simply do not have the power to compete with a cat of equivalent size.
Shalola (the unlucky dog) was killed with one swipe of the leopard’s paw.
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- I’d bet on the cat - in the more northern regions, it isn’t unusual for a 150-lb puma to kill a 750-lb elk. Southern pumas however are much more wussy–they only get about 2/3 the size of the northern ones, and they hunt smaller stuff like jackrabbits because that’s all the prey there is where they live.
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- Dogs are pack animals because they have to be. They don’t fight well one-on-one, except with other dogs, because all dogs use the same techniques. Cats tangle differently than dogs: a cat will grab on to the neck area of an opponent with its jaws and front paws, and then kick with its rear claws, tearing open the abdomen of the prey. That’s one trick that dogs can’t really do, and they have nothing to counteract it.
- If we look to Africa, we see that wild dogs do not attack lions or any other big cats. Lions make kills, hyenas scavenge kills and dogs scavenge kills from hyenas.
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Lion Hunting Dogs: Basenji.
African wild dogs are pretty small, even so a pack will intimidate a single lion or two on a kill, once the dogs blood is up they persist.
One tv documentary I saw stated that the lion backing away from a pack of these was doiong it purely for survival, the commentator stated that he had seen a lion try to defend a kill agaonst a pack of them, it absolutely destroed eight dogs, but the pack still killed the lion, and ate it too.
Lions have to work in groups too, even smaller prey are very difficult for a single lion to take down, such as porcupines, wild boar live in family groups and are very dangerous to lions.
Lions will back off groups of hyenas, giraffe, rhinos, elephants, crocs, hippos and many of the larger deer, cape buffalo, water buffalo etc are also too much for a single lion.
Thank you, Basenji. Interestingly, my dog appears to fight like a bear, from the other related thread. I don’t know why. He’s got a fascination with bears on nature shows on the TV.
As far as the cat grapple and rake, my dog does have a defense against that, he ducks and stuffs his shoulder and the ground in the way.
Maybe I just have a weird dog.
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- Yes but you see, the question was one dog vs one big cat. — Single dogs do not regularly attack and kill prey 3-5 times their weight. Some big cats do. Although admitedly, the claws have much to do with it… I read once that the Cheetah is the safest big cat to keep, because it is small and light-framed and has only a thumb claw on each front foot, and (even though I’m sure one can be a damned handfull if pissed off) ordinarily won’t attack any animals larger than itself.
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- Yes but you see, the question was one dog vs one big cat. — Single dogs do not regularly attack and kill prey 3-5 times their weight. Some big cats do. Although admitedly, the claws have much to do with it… I read once that the Cheetah is the safest big cat to keep, because it is small and light-framed and has only a thumb claw on each front foot, and (even though I’m sure one can be a damned handfull if pissed off) ordinarily won’t attack any animals larger than itself.
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Ahem. The adult basenji stands around 17 inches at the shoulder and weighs about 20 to 22 pounds. We used to have basenjis when I was a kid. They are small dogs, rather thin and high strung. They are by no means lion hunting dogs. Perhaps they might be used for tracking or flushing, but they certainly don’t hunt or fight lions. Hell, even a domestic cat would be too tough for them.
You might have been thinking of Rhodesian Ridgebacks.
However, from the link:
Notes from a Basenji owner. . .
Although Basenjis have been used in groups for hunting, you’d need quite a few of them for hunting lions. Although they are very strong for their size, they are not a large dog. As far as I am aware, they are mainly used by hunters to flush game out and sometimes harass it. Interestingly, the fact that they don’t bark can be a liability when it comes to flushing game, so sometimes a bell is tied around their neck. Still, they do work remarkably well as a team. Despite the fact that they bicker like siblings much of the time, my two Basenjis coordinate their hunting/stalking/wrestling like few other dogs I’ve seen.
The Rhodesian Ridgeback is also often associated with lion hunting. Here again though, they were mainly used to distract and harass the lion while the human hunters did the killing.
I have no doubt that a pack of dogs could take down a big cat, but one-on-one would be highly dependent on the individual dog involved. There are a few breeds that I would be on winning against a cat of the same size, but many that I would think would lose the fight. For instance, I’d bet on my male Basenji against any cat the same size (not that I’d ever want him to be in that situation!). But my friend’s Great Dane wouldn’t stand a chance against even a smaller cat.
Actually, the main thing that I’m reminded of when I watch my dogs play-fighting is Greco-Roman wrestling. It can be pretty interesting to watch them. Sometimes I’m astounded by their resourcefulness. Of course, they also cheat. . . My female always tries to bite the male’s testicles when she gets pinned! :eek:
Depends how far south you go ;). Purportedly the pumas in Patagonia on the southern tip of South America are on average the biggest. Of course that far south is ecologically pretty similar to the extreme north ( only with guanacos instead of moose ). Meanwhile the smallest individuals are found near the equator. Pretty common pattern, really, but pumas may be one of the best examples as they undoubtedly have one of the largest north-south range of any large mammal.
-Tamerlane