Caturday felid trifecta: California cat fights off coyote; Dubai erects cat feeding statiions; a feral cat befriends a wild fox, and they’re adopted together; and lagniappe

From People magazine (also at the UPI), we hear about a brave moggy whjo chased off a coyote.  Click on the screenshot to read:

An excerpt:

A Pico Rivera, California, resident captured some surprising footage: a cat fighting off a coyote in the middle of the day.

“I was in shock,” Debbie Beltran, the cat’s owner, told KTLA-TV, after viewing the video. “It took me a while to see—is that our cat or somebody else’s? And no, it’s our cat.”

Beltran said she was at work on May 1 when a neighbor sent security camera footage of her cat ferociously fighting a coyote outside. The video shows the cat standing its ground outside the family’s yard on Manzanar Avenue before it climbs a tree and escapes the coyote.

“Coyotes usually come out when the sun goes down,” Beltran said. “So to see this happen in broad daylight, that was shocking.”

Beltran said her cat, named Mama, has been with her family for about 5 years and is believed to be about 10 years old. She notes that Mama has always been a courageous cat who doesn’t back down from a fight.

“She’s always been feisty, this type of cat, and has got into fights before, so it doesn’t surprise me,” the pet parent told KABC.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time a coyote has attacked one of Beltran’s pets. She said that last year, one of her cats died in a coyote attack. Now, she’s giving Mama some extra attention since her caught-on-camera battle.

The video is below (turn off the closed captions, as they interfere with seeing the scrap).  Mama is a brave cat: watch at her bristle, hump her back, and chase the d*g! However, cats should really be kept indoors because not all predators are so timorous.

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From IHeartCats, we here about a high-tech way Dubai has developed to feed street cats. Click headline below to read.

An excerpt with a video below:

As people stroll through Dubai’s carefully maintained parks and busy public spaces, a quieter sign of compassion is beginning to appear beside the city’s modern landscape. New feeding stations for stray animals are being introduced across several locations, giving homeless cats a cleaner and more dependable place to find food and water. For years, many residents relied on leaving bowls wherever they could stop to help, often hoping hungry street cats would discover them in time. Now, Dubai is taking a more organized approach that blends kindness, sanitation, and public care into one thoughtful effort designed to support both animals and the shared spaces around them.

Dubai has launched a pilot program featuring 12 feeding units placed in parks and other public areas. The project is designed to support stray animals while also improving cleanliness and organization in shared spaces. For years, many residents and volunteers have cared for street cats on their own, stopping to leave food and water wherever they could. While compassionate, those efforts often created scattered feeding spots that were difficult to maintain.

Now, the city is taking a more structured approach.

The stations aim to make feeding more consistent and sanitary while helping caretakers provide support in designated locations. It reflects a growing recognition that animal welfare is connected to a city’s overall health and appearance. Instead of treating stray-cat care as an informal act left entirely to volunteers, Dubai is weaving compassion into its public infrastructure.

For the cats wandering through busy streets and quiet parks, the change could mean something deeply important: reliability.

Street animals often survive day by day, never knowing when food or water will appear. Many endure extreme heat, exhaustion, and long stretches of uncertainty. Having fixed feeding stations creates a sense of stability for animals that spend their lives navigating harsh outdoor conditions. Even a simple sheltered feeding spot can offer relief and comfort.

Dubai’s decision also highlights how cities are beginning to rethink the relationship between urban development and animal care. Modern public spaces are usually designed around people first, but this initiative acknowledges that stray animals are part of the environment, too.

The feeding stations are intended to reduce mess and discourage random food waste while still allowing residents to help animals responsibly. By centralizing feeding efforts, the city can better manage sanitation concerns without removing the compassion that inspired people to feed the cats in the first place.

The idea transforms what was once a scattered, individual effort into something shared and supported at a civic level.

Not only that, but the station combines feeding with recycling: if you put a can or bottle into the station, cat food is dispensed into the station. See the video below.  Great idea!

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From The Animal Rescue Site we hear of an unholy interspecific friendship between a cat and a d*g species: “Wild fox befriends cat“, by Malorie Thompson.  Here’s an excerpt, with a video below:

Cats and foxes seem like two of the same, but it’s rare that we see them interact.

They’re both sly and cunning, playful and adorable. Yet, they’re different species and they likely rarely cross paths in a meaningful way.

However, a wildlife photographer managed to capture a sweet exchange between the two animals and you have to see it to believe it.

Turkish wildlife photographer Ali ihsan Öztürk (@aliihsanozturk.65) shared a video of a cat and a fox hanging out on Instagram and it’s really something special.

He captioned the post (translated): “Fox and cat’s friendship. I couldn’t believe even while taking the picture. what a beautiful friendship.”

In the video, you can see the cat come up behind the fox and nuzzle the wild animal. Surprisingly, the fox didn’t seem to mind one bit and took it as an invitation for friendship!

The two animals continued to nuzzle each other in a playful way. It’s easy to see why Ali was so surprised to witness it!

Below is the Facebook post, which you can also see by clicking on the picture. Here’s the entire text:

In January 2026, a story began spreading online that many people could not stop thinking about: two stray animals who soon became known as the “street brothers.”

A fox and a cat had somehow learned to survive together outdoors. They shared warmth, protection, and the feeling of not being alone. Life on the street was hard, but they always stayed close to each other. The fox, a little bigger and stronger, often let the injured cat lie right by his side. On cold nights, it almost seemed as if he was quietly keeping watch so nothing would happen to his small companion.

When rescuers finally brought them to safety, the cat received the medical care it urgently needed. But at the shelter, something became obvious right away: whenever the two were separated, both became visibly stressed. Restlessness, searching, whining — as if the most important support in their lives had suddenly been taken away. Their closeness had long become more than a habit. It was their home.

So the team did everything they could to keep them together. Eventually, their story reached a kindhearted person who did not want a half-solution. He did not adopt only the cat — he took in the fox too, so the two would never be torn apart again.

Their journey is a reminder of what loyalty really means. And that friendship sometimes appears where no one expects it. Family does not always have to be the same species — sometimes it is simply the same bond holding two hearts together.

Fox-and-cat-friends videos are not rare: here are two more. All of these, oddly, feature cats that are mostly white.

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Lagniappe: From Reese: “Our Michael” from Archaeology & Art on Facebook, featuring an old photograph that was apparently for sale on eBay but that has been sold. Lovely cat!  Here’s the whole text and the dead link:

Oct, 1938: our Micheal [sic]

The love radiating from the phrase “our Michael” alone is enough to warm our hearts.

The photographer and story are unclear. The source of this vintage photo is an old eBay listing, but the link isn’t active:

http://www.ebay.com/…/Antique…/391002853535…

h/t: Michael, Reese