First, some background information on my cat Atari for you guys. She was adopted by myself when she was six months old and for the first few months of her life I was unemployed and so was home all day to play with her. She grew very close to me as a result and has decided that I am ‘her’ human. She is now almost five years old and has spent the majority of her life being super relaxed and has never showed aggression towards anything other than one particular male cat I handed over to the SPCA. I’ve taught her tricks like ‘sit’ and ‘shake’ and she follows me like a shadow all over the house, yowling if she loses me to make me talk to her so she can come find me again.
Having said that, I'm currently trying to help my mother-in-law with her highly insecure and aggressive small dog. Pug/Shitzu. The dog has fear-based aggression issues and has bitten a few people in the past hard enough to draw blood. I have dealt with dogs like this before and they’re usually not much of a problem for me once I can gain their trust. While I was working on training him I told him to come to me and instead he looked the other way and wandered off. I went to go and grab his leash to lead him to me and he turned on me and tried to bite me. I had to stop him and try to roll him over. The problem was that rolling this dog over is like trying to roll a cement block that's fighting back. Needless to say he got upset and started making all kinds of loud growling sounds. He was also throwing his head back and forth because he was trying to bite me while I had a grip on the fur on the back of his neck.
All of this commotion attracted my cat and as soon as Atari saw that Ripley was trying to bite me she came charging down the stairs and attacked him! My finance and I separated the animals quickly and I got Ripley under control very easily after due to his shock of the cat, who was buddy-buddy with him for the last two months, attacking him. Atari was put at the top of the stairs and held there until I could calm the dog. This whole time Fawkes, my finance’s cat was sitting at the top of the stairs acting like it was no big deal, meanwhile Atari was bottle-tailed with her hackled raised spitting at the top of the stairs wanting to get back at the dog again. She remained there until I calmed Ripley down, let him up again, and then we brought them together again. Neither animal had was sore or bleeding and Ripley listened to everything I told him to do for the rest of the night, a perfect little prince. Both animals now are cuddled together again in the sun, buddy-buddy like nothing even happened.
The reason this is such a big thing for me is because Atari is my first animal that doesn’t belong to ‘the family’ and even then none of the animals we’ve ever had before have defended me against anything, even when I was attacked previously. Finally understanding how much Atari cares for me is monumental to me and I just had to share it. I always thought I was just ‘food dude’ to her, but for her to act that way when Fawkes didn’t shows that she really cares on some level. It just makes me feel all bubbly inside.
Has your cat even protected you from another animal or person? I hear about dogs doing it all of the time, but I’ve not heard of a cat doing this before, not that I’m complaining. xD
Having said that, I'm currently trying to help my mother-in-law with her highly insecure and aggressive small dog. Pug/Shitzu. The dog has fear-based aggression issues and has bitten a few people in the past hard enough to draw blood. I have dealt with dogs like this before and they’re usually not much of a problem for me once I can gain their trust. While I was working on training him I told him to come to me and instead he looked the other way and wandered off. I went to go and grab his leash to lead him to me and he turned on me and tried to bite me. I had to stop him and try to roll him over. The problem was that rolling this dog over is like trying to roll a cement block that's fighting back. Needless to say he got upset and started making all kinds of loud growling sounds. He was also throwing his head back and forth because he was trying to bite me while I had a grip on the fur on the back of his neck.
All of this commotion attracted my cat and as soon as Atari saw that Ripley was trying to bite me she came charging down the stairs and attacked him! My finance and I separated the animals quickly and I got Ripley under control very easily after due to his shock of the cat, who was buddy-buddy with him for the last two months, attacking him. Atari was put at the top of the stairs and held there until I could calm the dog. This whole time Fawkes, my finance’s cat was sitting at the top of the stairs acting like it was no big deal, meanwhile Atari was bottle-tailed with her hackled raised spitting at the top of the stairs wanting to get back at the dog again. She remained there until I calmed Ripley down, let him up again, and then we brought them together again. Neither animal had was sore or bleeding and Ripley listened to everything I told him to do for the rest of the night, a perfect little prince. Both animals now are cuddled together again in the sun, buddy-buddy like nothing even happened.
The reason this is such a big thing for me is because Atari is my first animal that doesn’t belong to ‘the family’ and even then none of the animals we’ve ever had before have defended me against anything, even when I was attacked previously. Finally understanding how much Atari cares for me is monumental to me and I just had to share it. I always thought I was just ‘food dude’ to her, but for her to act that way when Fawkes didn’t shows that she really cares on some level. It just makes me feel all bubbly inside.
Has your cat even protected you from another animal or person? I hear about dogs doing it all of the time, but I’ve not heard of a cat doing this before, not that I’m complaining. xD