My cat Puff [hey, I named her when I was 5 … deal with it.] stood off a feral mix dog protecting her kittens [we were at the simmer cottage, she had them in the small shed we stored sails in because she escaped the cottage.] She didnt get hurt, that dog got as was interestingly put above a facectomy [well, it lost an eye, and major snout damage according to my uncle - he caught it and took it to the vet to have it put down]
her only advantage was she was backed up in the doorway and the dog couldn’t get behind her. And the kittens.
She was also fast enough that she hunted snakes and lizards as snacks. She was always dragging something back to ‘share’ with us.
I think the basic disparity is this: folks have seen their cats dissaude dogs from bothering; and a certain percentage of those folks translate that into their cat being able to beat a dog in a fight.
What’s happened is that the dog hasn’t been motivated. If anyone’s seen an actually vicious dog, one which is *seriously *attacking, you know just how scary that is. The disparity here is that 90% of dogs are not actually vicious.
Basically, the cat faces 10% of the dog.
One can recite anectodes about how cats dissauded dogs until one is blue in the face; all that means is that it didn’t matter enough to the dog. I’m sure a small dog could dissuade you from attacking it; but if you really wanted to kill it, it wouldn’t stand a chance.
Heck, there are anecdotes of humans dissuading sharks and bears from killing them. I don’t think anybody would argue that a human stands a chance against a shark which really wants to eat them.
There muct be some wish-fullfillment going on on the part of cat owners. I own both, and I love them both equally. I am under no illusion whatsoever that my dog could end my cat’s existence very rapidy if it decided to. The cat knows this too - she stays upstairs. She’s not stupid; she is fully aware that that fury of teeth and muscle ends her at the moment it makes contact.
Don’t get me wrong - my dog’s not a big dog. And he’s friendly. I shudder to think that these allegedly ninja velociraptor-defeating sumpremo cats of fantasy would do when confronted with an actually big dog in a bad mood.
I don’t think I’m engaging in wish fulfillment - when a cat gets serious about killing something, they get unbelievably scary (like you’re saying about the dogs). Kitty playing and romping for fun is not kitty in full kill mode - kitty in full kill mode makes you want to drop a load in your pants. I’ll agree that if a dog gets a chomp on a cat, it’s over, but the thing about cats is how very hard it would be to do that (with all five pointy areas flashing and slicing).
Cats don’t stand much of a chance against coyotes, I know that much. The apartment complex I used to live in was on the edge of a canyon where coyotes lived. Whenever someone with cats moved in, they were warned to keep their pets inside. Inevitably, they’d ignore the warning, and I’d see “Have you seen my cat?” flyers up soon after. One guy bragged that he had a real badass cat that could handle any dog…it was “missing” within a couple of weeks.
Likewise a cat, one that is seriously pissed off and motivated is scary as hell.
It might not be able to kill me but I have seen it and the thing is a whirling dervish of razor blades.
I likewise have seen a dog in full on attack mode and they too are scary. It’s a whole other mode that most pet owners rarely see. It is the pure, wild animal come out and is in 100% “kill you” mode. Very frightening to behold.
I agree a cat, simply by virtue of size most times, cannot take out a dog (and I have a dog and cats…seen them tussle plenty of times). But it sure as shit a cat can dissuade most dogs most of the time because most times the dog is not fully intent on killing the cat. My dog outweighs my cat 10:1 and most times the cat convinces the dog to move along. I am sure the dog could kill the cat, she just doesn’t want to and anything else is not worth the trouble.
In the video linked above the cat was in run mode, tweaked the dogs prey instinct and it got caught. Had it faced that Dalmatian I think there is a good chance it could have persuaded the Dalmatian to go do something else.
I think it’s not dissimilar to the strength/speed/dangerousness relationship between cats and people. (Especially since there are plenty of dogs that mass as much as at least a small human). Could a housecat kill me? Not unless it got very, very lucky. Could I kill a housecat? Yes, certainly - once I’ve a good grip, the fight is over. But the cat is going to make it painful, difficult, and time-consuming to get that good grip. And I’ve got options that a dog doesn’t - I can move furniture, close doors, and so on to shape the fighting environment to my advantage.
I would have to say a cat is, overall, faster than a dog (which is not to say dogs are exactly slow…they can react very quickly when they want to).
The reason being is cats are mostly made up of fast-twitch muscles. Dogs not so much. The fast twitch are, as the name implies, faster than the slow twitch which is what dogs have more of (all animals have both to varying degrees).
The upside of fast twitch muscles are incredible bursts of speed and jumping ability and so on. The downside is they tire very quickly. Dogs are built more for endurance. Cats for bursts of activity.
A friend of mine’s neighbor had to have their lab put down due to injuries received from a very aggressive cat. The orange tabby terrorized the neighborhood until it was seized by animal control after slashing a mail carrier severely enough to warrant a trip to the hospital. The f*cker came after my friend once when I was walking her home. I got my book bag between the cat and my friend, then old man who lived in the apartment above hers saved us by hitting the cat with a half-filled sack of concrete powder (he was patching the walkway).
Get a mean enough sumbitch of a cat, and even a quick big dog will have its paws full.
This is a very germane point - unless the dog is pretty much committed to killing the cat, the cat is going to do everything in its power to freak the dog out (and when they get to howling, it’s awful damned freaky). This is part of a housecat’s “powers” - the power to act so crazy that it doesn’t have to fight.
My dog got in a severe fight with a cat once. I never saw the cat, as I only saw my dog come home with one eye hanging out. He was thereafter a one-eyed dog. Now I suppose that the cat might have got the worst of it, but I doubt it, he was a small but mean dog.
When I was young I tried to play with my neighbor’s Pitbull, even though he growling heavily I was convinced that I had some sort of Midas touch when it came to animals. Well, he attacked me and sent me to the hospital where I had to get 30 stitches in my hand and arm. I’d rate the pain from being attacked by a Pitbull around a 7/10. As it happens, I got this nifty scar in the shape of a smiley face from the attack on my palm which makes a nice conversation piece.
A few months ago, I was playing with my baby kitten Asimov ( http://i48.tinypic.com/2co643c.jpg ). He playfully swiped at my hand, and nicked me right in the knuckle. There wasn’t any blood, so in my wisdom I decided to forgo washing it and kept playing with him.
Well, a few days later I could barely move my hand. By the time the week was through my arm was completely paralyzed, and my hand ballooned out a good half an inch. Originally I thought it was just another staph infection and decided I’d stick it out, but by the time day 7 hit I took myself to the ER. 5 shots and a couple hours later I was released. The pain from this was immeasurable.
I’d rather be attacked by 2 Pitbulls than deal with that again.
