I can’t embed this, but click on the screenshot below to go to a HuffPo UK video of Cats Bullying D*gs, or The Way It Should Be:
And another cat vs. dog video demonstrating felid superiority:
Notice in the second video that artificial selection for speedier dogs has given them to a body form similar to the world’s fastest felids, sculpted by natural selection alone. That’s an intriguing convergence between the products of natural and artificial selection.
h/t: Miss May, Robin ~
Poooor houndies; meeeeean kittehs.
HuffPost needs an apostrophe editor…
My little brother got a puppy at the same time I got a kitten and they used to tear around the house play-fighting as equals. After a while though the pup got much too big for that sort of roughhousing and we’d hear yowls of protest before Tigger streaked away from a puzzled Duke. They remained friends, however, and used to sleep curled up together or even nose-to-nose.
The scenes in the first video reminded me of that.
I got a kitten when my dog was a bit over 2 yrs. old. They played like that, and I believe I watched him teach her not to use those needle-like kitten teeth in play. She had driven him to distraction; he picked her up and closed his mouth, just till she complained, then promptly released her. She stopped nipping my fingers, too. A year later she was in trouble, being furiously chased by a strange dog, with not a tree in sight. She hurled herself at my dog and landed spread-eagled (think IrfanView Splat) on his side. His presence saved the day.
I liked the Miata vs. Greyhound.
Some of the dogs & cats in the first video were playing. Some weren’t as you could see the cats were pissed.
This is also an example of the artificial selection of dogs that are bred to get along with humans and other pets. Often dogs who bite are put to sleep so in a way culled and if someone is breeding dogs, especially dogs that are known for good behaviour, breeders make sure not to breed for vicious or ornery behaviour.
Some of it is also conditioning. My dog, for example, is a very dominant dog. She is friendly toward people but if there is a dog that she sees as nervous, she will jump on it & hold it down. Also, she randomly decides she doesn’t like some dogs & will challenge them. However, she is corrected and controlled on a leash when she does this. She has also tried to be bossy a couple of times with me and has been scolded appropriately; she is not allowed to growl at humans at all, even in playing because I feel with a dog like her, that is confusing. I was once bugging the crap out of her and she quietly growled and I replied, “Growling!?” – not yelling, just stated it and she made a sad face and licked and licked me to apologize for doing a naughty thing.
Yes — a point I was going to make. Baihu and I play like that. You each try to tag the other and then get back out of range before being tagged, yourself. When we do that, he always goes after my hand and arm even though my face might even be closer, and even though I tag his forehead and nose (and also paws and belly). He’ll also “hide” under the bed and tag my ankles before either making an hasty retreat back under the bed or hauling ass to the other side of the house, bouncing off a wall, and back into the bedroom.
Yup. You can tell by the expression on the cat’s face…a brow furrowed in concentration is play, but a grimace with teeth exposed is not. The kitten was playing with the doberman, for example, but there were a couple cats in that sequence that were royally pissed off.
b&
My sister had a cat (Charlie) that her dog (Cindy) was terrified of, and Charlie knew it. He would deliberately sit in doorways so Cindy couldn’t get out of rooms, and Cindy always gave him a very wide berth. Then she got another dog (Grace) who was scared of Cindy, but not Charlie, and Charlie was scared of Grace, so there was balance.
None of them ever actually hurt or attacked the others, they were just constantly wary around them unless they were close to a human family member.
I imagine all three of them circling, looking at the guy/gal behind. 🙂
Hilarious! Love the one with the cat in what appears to be a fish bowl.
The ultimate bully cat, “Get out that bowl, fish! This is my home now!”
I was enjoying it with a smile, then the cat in the bowl nearly knocked me out of my chair.
My family had greyhounds. Very docile animals, not aggressive at all even with strangers (including thieves going after the poultry housed with the dog).
They are indeed very fast in flat ground but rabbits would escape them by running uphill.
I’ve known a few through some friends. Big, friendly, lazy dogs. Think they’re lap dogs.
They need lots of room and regular exercise, so they’re often not a good choice as a pet. But if you’ve got the space to accommodate them, a track rescue dog should be on the short list if you’re looking to adopt a dog.
b&
Here is an interesting chart on dogs, put into quadrants.
Notice an unlabelled felid has suck into the happy upper right quadrant. I don’t know if people saw this or if it was just me.
That’s a great chart! Gotta feel sorry for the bulldogs…but not enough to want to go out and adopt one….
And that cat definitely belongs a bit farther to the right on the chart, though I can understand the hesitation to rub the dog peoples’s noses in the fact.
b&
The cat is facing to the right, which indicates ‘clever’ according to the (rather clever) iconography they’ve adopted.
Just as darn well.
Yeah – I’m glad the cat was light green: non-sporting dog:-)
Our greyhound was like that. 90 pounds, looked incredibly lethal, but just a nice big dog (though not too bright). Because he was a former racer, he was extremely tolerant of strange people, children, and other dogs. You could walk him on leash, with him pegged at your knee the entire time.
For some reason, whenever a bunny or loose cat came into view he was always very conveniently looking the other way. He was just a nice, gentle giant.
One of my parents’ border collies used to swim in the pond near them with his eyes conveniently averted from all the swans and Canada geese swimming nearby. I think he just didn’t want to have to deal with them.
Dog are easy enough to train around livestock and other animals if you put a bit of time into it. We ( my GSD and me) ran 15k along canals this morning, through a flock of grass guzzling hissing swans at one point, and he kept on trucking without a single sound. A variety of dogs charged us and again he kept on trotting forwards as if they didn’t really exist. It takes time and patience, but very rewarding in the end.
Geese & swans can really hurt. The dog probably learned early on that they were not worth it. I imagine my dog would bark at them really loudly. She does this to the poor squirrels running down the horse fence on the other side of her chain-linked fence. It psychs the poor things out so much that sometimes they stumble. She also barks at large birds so I guess she feels she owns the air space in the yard as well. Lately, she’s decided that large groups of small birds are also unwelcome as I heard her the other day barking (with her kong in her mouth so it sounded muffled) at a flock of gold finches that like to sit in my weigela bush.
I introduced them at an early age, Diana, as I knew it would be part of our running route when he was older. Swans are large and potentially aggressive, but they wouldn’t stand a chance against a German Shepherd, so it was really important that he respects their space and leaves them undisturbed. I wish more people would do the same, it really annoys me how many people seem to be oblivious to their animals running amok on the canal banks here. Your little dog is not part terrier is she? My old terrier growing up was MOST vocal on the subject of squirrels and birds too 🙂
My little dog is neither terrier nor little. 🙂 Though I think she is like a fox terrier in a big body, smart, high energy & high drive.
She is a 100 pound yellow lab – very slim and tall. I got her as a rescue & I suspect she comes from field trial lineage as loud noises don’t bother her (like gunshots wouldn’t bother a dog bred for field trials), she is high energy and has a high drive. She was very easy to train to go out to get something and to go out and jump over something and she is very soft mouthed.
Given that she is way out of standard for a lab, I think if she were bred for field trials, often the appearance is secondary so I can see a breeder not being worried about her size.
Oh she sounds very field and very lovely. I love working labs, lady I meet on our mountain trail has four: so different from the show, much leaner, longer gait, super intelligent and full of drive. Hers are incredibly biddable. There seem to be a huge number of over weight labs where I live, and it’s quite sad to see such beautiful dogs with barrel bodies and stiff hips. Not at all how they are meant to be.
There was a departure from what I see as the true lab as well. The British started breeding them to have big, rottweiler heads & large bodies while the Americans kept them as they were originally – slim heads and slim bodies. The American standard is the one I prefer.
My dog came to me completely untrained. She would have been a real Marley if I hadn’t put her into training as soon as I got her. Often people see trained labs & think they come that way, not realizing it takes a lot of effort on the part of the dog and the human to control a high energy, high drive dog. I swear she is just like a little fox terrier in a big dog body.
The rescue group I got her from had nicknamed her “Big Puppy” & she was about 8 months old and 72 pounds when I got her. She was under weight as you could see her hips but she has filled out nicely and become good and muscular. Now that she’s around 6, she gets more stiff from her rambunctious behaviour!
Maybe that was Bozo’s (Beauxeaux, officially) reasoning, though he was generally a bit of a good.
My dog really doesn’t bother with birds except wild turkeys on hikes, and once she treed a peacock up near Collingwood. You somehow don’t expect peacocks in Ontario, but I have a feather to prove it.
The thing about dogs is this: WHY are they so spineless around cats? Are they wary because of the claws? I think they’re wary of the claws AND of the speed with which those claws can strike. I think it’s a speed no dog can achieve or effectively counteract.
This first one is strange: the cat tears around the corner of a couch and starts to whale on the dog. It’s clearly an unprovoked attack because we see the dog was already at rest. Thing is, the dog kind of takes it in stride. He doesn’t really react, and then, ho-hum, he falls to his side for a nap.
The cat on the dresser whacking at the dog. This cat isn’t kidding. There’s real fury in that cat’s slashing thrusts.
That triple punch to the German Shepherd kills me every time. The dog is just stunned and confused.
That slo-mo one is great for the contrast: that cat is showing its teeth and means business while the dog has a “hey, what the…” look on its face. “What’d I do?”
The last one is great. The two stare at each other and then, wham, the cat knocks the dog down. I can’t tell if the cat is Bud Abbott or Moe Howard. Certainly Oliver was never that mean to Stanley.
It’s because those dogs have been artificially selected to get along with people & other animals. If a cat did that to a terrier, selected for their strong prey instinct, the results would probably be quite horrible.
My labs were often bad around cats and small animals because they had strong prey instincts. My current dog likes to catch small animals (strong prey instinct) but she has clearly been bred not to hurt the animal (as sporting dogs bred to retrieve ducks and other small, hunted game are bred) so she has what would be called “a soft mouth”. I’m not sure how she’d be around cats – I think it would completely depend on how the cat is.
My dog’s breeding and conditioning is what saved the small bunny she caught this Spring. She had the bunny in her mouth & I hollered at her to drop it. She spat it out & watched it hop along in front of her. I picked up the uninjured but slobbered on bunny & placed it back in its nest.
That rabbit story is great.
Bred to get along, but then there’s that quivering dog on the coach. Wow, now THAT is spinelessness.
Yeah, that dog is bred to sit in a lap I think. 🙂
Pound for pound, cats are far more lethal than dogs. Faster, stronger, sharper, and better hunters. A fifteen pound dog doesn’t stand a chance against a ten pound cat, and even a twenty pound dog would do well to give that same ten pound cat a wide berth. No lone wolf is going to stand a chance against a cougar or a jaguar. The jaguar, especially, will put its fangs through the wolf’s skull and maybe snap the wolf’s spine or eviscerate it with a single rabbit kick for good measure.
Of course, a ten-pound cat isn’t going to stand a chance against a pack of 60-pound dogs unless it can escape, and many feral cats meet their ends in such situations.
The dogs in this video are quite familiar with cats. Some are clearly aware that the cat thinks it’s play time but aren’t interested in engaging. Others, the particularly stupid ones, have likely tried to dominate the cat and gotten a face full of claws in return and are justly terrified.
b&
Yes, that makes sense: if it follows for cougars and leopard it also follows for domestic cats. Hadn’t thought of that.
Yep, some of the latter segments were clips of them at play. Yes, the stupid ones. Funny.
The interesting thing is coyotes (which are actually quite small and nowhere near the size of wolves) are afraid if a human shows up. They also don’t like the size of my dog. I do worry about a gang of them (my yard is fenced) because then it’s going to be me & my dog fighting a bunch of coyotes – my dog with her fangs & claws & me with whatever big instrument I can pick up & whack them with while charging & yelling. I guess it’s my Celtic roots that make me think of that. 🙂
There’re coyotes in Phoenix South Mountain Park that start singing to each other at dusk. I’ve felt slight bits of nervousness hearing them when out on the trail with Baihu, but I can’t remember the last time I heard of somebody being attacked by one. Between the cat and me, any coyotes that tried to mess with us would know they’d been in a fight…and I’m pretty confident I could convey that fact to them without actually having to engage. They may be dogs, but they’re not as dumb as hounds….
b&
Yeah, I usually hear them yipping & howling at night. My dog springs to action in the middle of the night & barks while running through the house. I’m glad she hears stuff while sleeping because I never notice until she wakes me up.
I don’t think coyotes would bother with you because they are typically not interested in engaging humans. My dad saw one coyote (an unusually big one) check out his dog down the back of my place but he thought twice when he saw my dad then took right off when my gigantic dog showed up. Not worth the risk.
Yeah…the nervousness isn’t anything rational or even conscious. It’s just one of those instinctive things…hear wild predator in not-distant proximity claiming territory, have intended reaction.
I’d get a kick out of seeing them atop a ridgeline or some several dozens of yards in the distance.
The only time I’d really get nervous is if I saw one acting erratically during the daytime. But it’s been ages since I’ve heard of rabies cases, so I hardly expect that to happen.
b&
I saw one in the next field hunting mice. Jumping up and everything. It was pretty cool. I also think if I saw one up close, I’d think it was a dog.
I’ve seen some in Joshua Tree Park in California. Looked like medium-sized shaggy dogs. It’d be easy to mistrake them for strays.
b&
We had one right over our fence the other morning. I have heard them recently at night. Currie has gone quite deaf so doesn’t hear them, but went quite crazy out back the night before I saw the Wile E.
Be sure to buy the whacking big instrument from Acme Corporation. Very effective against coyotes, I’ve heard.
Yeah, but their irony detectors are shit. Gave up on ’em years ago — blew up the instant a Christian opened his mouth.
b&
I saw a live simulcast (is that redundant?) of the Met Opera’s Barber of Seville on Saturday, directed by Bartlett Sher (who often directs musicals), in which a gigantic anvil is dropped on stage near the end, demolishing a cart full of pumpkins. I could not tell if it had an Acme label, but I did look…
The Met spares no expense. I’m sure they were Fabergé anvils, not those cheap ACME knockoffs.
b&
But the Met has been experiencing financial problems of late, so it’s possible they might have had to source their anvils from Acme. Whether or not Acme carries anvils the size of a Mack truck is a different matter.
Speaking of Wile E., an adolescent one strolled along the berm behind our house not 5 minutes ago. Cheeky bugger:-)
The Met has always experienced financial problems, even at the same time they’ve been the wealthiest performing arts organization in human history.
The two are not inconsistent with each other…a single Navy ship may well cost more than the Met has spent in its entire history.
b&
Or the big whacking istrument;-)
Ha ha! Thinkgeek should sell those!
I have a twelve pound dog that will kill any cat stupid enough to get within reach of its jaws if I’m not there to prevent it, and have seen smaller dogs do it. Once they learn how to approach a cat the cat has no chance.
Cats are not fierce hunters, they mostly take small prey. Ferrets are way more impressive.
I’ve had two Italian greyhounds an ibizan hound. I love the way they run. The Ibizan could reverse direction at full speed when chasing. There’s a hint of that in the cheetah film. Definitely built to chase hares.
They can only run for a few years. By age five they are done with actobatics.
When my wife took in a stray kitten, we already had two cats (both had been mine, and I used to tease her by saying she only married me to get her fur fix). Thorbjorn was a placid pussycat, but Freti had been a street cat for a long time, and the notches in his ears showed he knew what a fight was all about. Kveldulf, the newcomer, was only four months old or so and couldn’t have been on his own very long. He did not understand the difference between fighting and playing. Much as I do not like the procedure, that was the only time I ever had cats declawed – Kveldulf didn’t realize that his play was taken by Freti as aggression, and that play could have led to severe injury.
It’s entirely possible that some of the cats who were showing genuine aggression were less socialized than the more playful ones or had spent some time as strays defending themselves against legitimate threats.
Getting back to my cats, eventually, things settled down, and Freti became the “mother hen” to the other cats. When Thorbjorn got shut in a closet, Freti sat in front of the door until we opened it to see what he was after. When my wife took Kveldulf out in the yard, Freti sat in the window keeping an eye on his brother in the yard. I will never have another cat declawed, but I have made a point of giving preference to adopting cats who are already without their weaponry. For one thing, mixing armed and unarmed cats can lead to trouble; for another, I never let my cats outside, so, barring some calamity, they won’t have to fend off wild opponents; finally, it soothes otherwise pet-unfriendly landlords.
As far as the war between canids and felids, all I can say is Bully For The Cats!!
We had a pet greyhound when living in California. Lovely d*gs. He was a retired racer, and I must say this breed was really easy to manage. Take him out, let him run a bit (and wow, they are impressive), then he was happy to just sack out the rest of the day.
If you live in colder climates, you need to buy a coat & boots for the skinny little guys. They have a very thin fur & no undercoat.
They are a very low maintenance dog though. Happy to lounge on a couch.
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