I have witnessed exactly the same thing as Pixel_Dent. A few years ago, Twinkles, one of my females, and I were out in front when Zeus, a quite friendly but large German Shepard, wandered into the yard. There was no threat but Twinkles blasted out at Zeus and actually jumped on him, ripping and tearing all the way. I concur with Pixel_Dent that Zeus was sufficiently surprised that he ran off at a blinding rate of speed. I was proud of Twinkles, even though no harm was meant by Zeus. I had never seen a cat act like that before.
Twinkles was not protecting me, but enter her turf and face the consequences!
My cat defended me once. When my wife and I were dating, we were play-fighting in the kitchen. She grabbed my hands behind my back and pushed me into a corner. I was trying to get free, and neither of us would give up. Then we hear “MROOWR!!” and she screamed. My cat had attacked her on the legs.
This story is getting a lot of play – it’s on I Can Haz Cheezburger, and I just saw it on the national news.
Listening to the story, this cat is very much like our own Maggie, who “defended” MilliCal – it adopted their kid, and slept curled up next to him in the crib, just like Maggie did. The only difference is that, in our case, the dog didn’t actually attack Millical. But it was still too close for Maggie’s comfort.
I had a Siamese who tackled a burglar in our apartment when I lived in Austin. Clawed him up pretty badly, as best as I could tell from the splatter diagrams of the blood drops.
