Female community cat who became a pet scared off 2 coyotes attacking dog companion

This is another one those impressive cat stories were the modest cat companion protects either a dog or a child or even a toddler from danger including attacks from coyotes. 

This story proves that domestic cat companions living in homes where there are dogs and kids, regard the dogs and kids as companions, even offspring to be protected. It is female cats who appear to regard kids and dogs as their offspring to be protects and defended when danger is present.

They take on the courage of the mother cat protecting her kittens and take enormous personal risks. 

In this video we see the family's black cat, Binx - who the family adapted as she walked into their home as a community cat - notice that her small white dog companion was being attacked by one of two coyotes. The attack was about to be fatal when the Binx intervened and the coyotes decided to leave.

The video is interesting also because coyotes often attack and kill domestic cats in the US. Cats know that coyotes are a predator to them. And yet this cat runs towards them and takes up the larger profile to try and scare them off. She succeeded. 

It is unsurprising in one way because mother cats are fearless when protecting kittens.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Python has been eating cats at a trailer park in Oklahoma, USA

A most disturbing story indicating a less than optimal relationship between humans and domestic cats, to say the very least. The story is that a massive 13-foot python has been slithering around a trailer park in South Oklahoma City, US, killing and eating domestic cats at the park. The snake is also eating opossums and rats.

Python. Image: MikeB.

An expert was called in to get rid of the predator. Trevor Bounds of Red Beard Wildlife Control said: "The mouth on that thing is the size of your foot and when it opens up, you're going to be able to fit something pretty large in there."

He and other experts believe that the stake was a pet which escaped. Or it was released by the owner. Comment: I'm being cynical and speculative but I wonder whether the snake's owner deliberately allowed it to go outside and live outside in order to keep down the numbers of cats, rats and opossums which he didn't like. As I said speculative idea but quite possibly plausible.

Staff at the trailer park warned residents to be on the lookout for the snake. The python kills animals by constricting them, forcing all the life out of them and then swallowing them. They can kill small children so there was a real danger that a child was at risk.

We are told that the snake is a reticulated python. It is one of the largest species of snake. It lives under one of the trailers. It is still there according to this story because they are still looking for it.

Mr Bounds said: "We were using our thermal camera last week to find it but because it is cold-blooded, we had to just look for an outline of him. They can get up to 24 feet if you let them, maybe longer. The body of this snake is like Mike Tyson's biceps but 13 feet long."

The problem first came to light when neighbours reported that their cats were going missing. And then carcasses of large animals were found in the crawl space beneath one particular trailer.

There is a primary school nearby hence the worry about small kids. At this time the snake, as mentioned, hasn't been caught but traps have been set up and there is a 24-hour live feed watching the place.

As soon as the snake moves the cameras will be alerted and they will send a signal to Mr Bounds' phone. The park staff wants the snake out of the area asap for obvious reasons.

Comment: the story begs the question as to what they are doing about the owner of the snake. Is he being prosecuted? Have the police been called or should they be called? He has apparently been using his snake to kill people's domestic cats. Isn't that using a pet animal as a weapon to destroy the property of others?

Do cats have a natural fear of dogs?

This is a social media question about domestic cats. Note that this is about domestic cats. Clearly a Bengal tiger is not going to be scared of a single medium-sized dog! Point made.

Neighbour's dogs repeatedly escape neighbour's yard and attacks a man's cats. This is neither the cat nor the dog in the story. Pic in public domain as assessed.

Domestic cats have a natural fear of predators of domestic cats. They know when they are about to be a victim of a predatory attack by any animal or human larger than them. This is not therefore limited to dogs.

So that ability is innate and natural. But it is not possible to say that all cats have a natural fear of dogs. It is wrong because if a cat has been socialised to domestic dogs at an early age, they will be friendly towards dogs all their lives. We see many examples of cats and dogs being friendly towards each other.

This is about size too as the domestic cat is a top predator. Small predators such as the domestic cat are vulnerable to larger predators. This holds true with respect to the small wild cats such as the caracal being attacked by the large wild cats such as the leopard. See below:

Leopard a large wild cat species and a top predator kills and eats a small feline predator the caracal. Image in public domain. 

A very small dog or puppy would at least be vulnerable to an attack by a large feral cat although an attack would be unlikely.

I think size matters. As dogs are almost invariably larger than domestic cats the attacker and the attacked will be dog and cat respectively.

But it could be the other way around. A tiger would kill a single wild dog with one swipe. There is no natural fear of dogs in a Bengal tiger unless we are referring to a large pack of wild dogs which can kill a tiger.

Conclusion: Do cats have a natural fear of dogs? No, just a natural fear of predators that they perceive as genuinely dangerous and posing a serious threat.

Video shows how domestic cats escape the jaws of coyotes

This Ring doorbell-video camera shows us how indoor/outdoor domestic cats save their lives and escape the jaws of those resourceful and dangerous coyotes in the USA. They climb. The climbing ability of the domestic cat will save them countless times. They are great climbers as is every cat species. 

Some are better than others and some wild cat species actually live in trees more than on the ground. The domestic cat is in between the best and the worst which means that they are very skilled by human standards. I guess we all know that but it's a lifesaver when it comes to predation by coyotes. Coyotes can climb pretty well but nowhere near as well as domestic cats.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

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For example, coyotes cannot climb trees (or if they rarely do, it'll probably be exceptional) because their bodies are not adapted to it and their claws aren't either. They're too rigid and their claws are too blunted. The domestic cat is enormously flexible and the the claws of their forepaws are very sharp as we all know 😇 .

Coyotes kill a lot of cats; stray, domestic and feral. Many escape but many don't. Sometimes cats frighten off a single coyote but the coyote may be infirm or inexperienced. Or they may have been ambushed and surprised by a courageous cat. But most often the coyote is a real danger to domestic cats.

Cat escapes coyote by climbing. Screenshot.

We don't have an overall number of domestic cats killed by coyotes in America in a year. But a study carried out recently in California by the National Park Service which found that 20% of urban coyotes' diets are made up of domestic, stray and feral cats. 

They are highly adaptable and a recent study found coyotes were present in 96 out of 105 cities surveyed in the US. They attack cats and dogs. In six months, in Culver city, there were 40 pet deaths recorded from coyote attacks. It is a major reason why cat caregivers keep their cats inside full-time in America. 

It's not a problem that people face in Europe. Certainly in the UK cat owners do not fear attacks on their cats by predators. It is not part of the British culture. It's road traffic which is the biggest danger in Britain.

Most greyhounds will instinctively lunge at cats

I used to live in a block of flats with my cat who I allowed outside. Nearby, in another flat was a man who lived with two greyhounds. He admitted to me that his greyhounds liked to chase cats. He had to be particularly vigilant. And so did I.

A quick search on the Internet confirms that of all the dog breeds, it might be fair to say that greyhounds are a particular threat to domestic cats who are allowed outside. They can lunge towards a cat instinctively. There's one man who says that "my newly adopted greyhound goes mad lunging when she sees cats. She's very strong. I have to be constantly looking for them as we walk."

Gizmo a domestic cat was recently killed by a greyhound. Photo: Carla Hunter his owner.

And this is the problem. People will go out with their greyhound on a lead and in the UK it is commonplace to see domestic cats outside because they are indoor/outdoor cats. Unless the dog owner is particularly vigilant it is possible that a greyhound might pull hard enough to release themselves from their owner's control leading to an attack on a cat which would almost certainly be fatal.

I think it is a matter of being vigilant and I'm referring to dog owners because when domestic cats go outside their owner has no idea where they are.

Just today, reported on the website Leicestershire Live, an owner watched as her pet cat Gizmo was killed by greyhounds. Two greyhounds attacked her cat outside her home in Loughborough, UK. Carla Hunter heard a group of young boys shouting "get off" outside her home on August 12. She went out to check what was going on. She saw a group of children with two greyhounds. Her cat Gizmo was in the mouth of one of the dogs.

The other dog was trying to attack her other cat, Pebbles, who happened to be sitting on top of her fence. By the time she got there, Gizmo were dying. She contacted the police but they did nothing. She contacted the RSPCA and is waiting for them to get back to her. The dogs' owner has not apologised. They've done nothing about it. That sounds typical of modern-day UK. It has become a very selfish and difficult country to live in.

Carla Hunter has lost one of her cats and I would bet my bottom dollar that nothing will happen. She will simply have to cremate her cat and move on. She is very distressed by the whole event. It's a good example of the greyhound's urge to lunge at and attack domestic cats. They are trained to do this kind of thing. I guess that they can be untrained.