5 ms·
The title gives the impression that cats got into a losing fight with rats, but the article makes clear that is not the case. The cats just rarely bother with t
by tromp 3y ago
The title gives the impression that cats got into a losing fight with rats, but the article makes clear that is not the case. The cats just rarely bother with the rats, having plenty other, lazier, food options.
- jncfhnb 3y agoThat is not accurate. Rats are much bigger and more dangerous. “Not bother” is misleading. Cats are not able to reliably hunt rats and are at risk of being injured
- BurningFrog 3y agoI get it. I am much bigger and stronger than a cat and lost my only fight with a rat. They bite HARD!
- jacquesm 3y agoYou'd lose a fight with a cat just the same. I've seen a very beefy adult man utterly filleted by an angry cat. And it wasn't even a particularly big cat, it just didn't feel like being evicted from the barn that it had been living in. I've rarely seen that much blood on a human being and the fight didn't last for more than 10 seconds.
- arethuza 3y agoI was hospitalised for two days because of a cat bite and when talking to a nurse was told that she had treated someone who lost a leg!
- jacquesm 3y agoI totally believe it. At first I thought the guy had had a really bad car accident.
- rowanG077 3y agoI doubt any non-impaired person will seriously lose to a cat. All these stories are people LATER having some kind of infection. Sure, you have a chance at serious damage due to infection. But a cat just killing a person in a 1v1 deathmatch? I very much doubt that.
- dylan604 3y agosays someone that's never been in a fight with a cat
- fireflash38 3y agoMy assumption is that people in fights with cats are woefully unprepared and/or not wanting to seriously injure the cat.
- jacquesm 3y agoThey probably haven't a clue how ferocious a cat really is as well as how incredibly strong a cat hopped up on adrenaline is. My own most impressive encounter with a cat was one that had to go to the vet and wouldn't go into the transport carrier. I finally managed to get it in and it simply shredded it's way out the bottom leaving me looking pretty silly with an empty carrier in my hand and a very much pissed off cat sitting in its accustomed spot on the window sill. I didn't go for a second try and told my aunt (whose cat it was) that maybe the cat wasn't going to go to the vet that day after all and whether she would consider asking them for a house call. The carrier was well beyond repair. It was some kind of tick nylon weave and I'm pretty sure it would have been hard to cut with scissors.
- rowanG077 3y agoNice assumption. I have been in a fight with a cat. The only reason it's not dead is because you don't seriously fight with a cat. You just defend and get the cat or yourself out of the situation. I had a ton of superficial cuts with a lot of blood but it was all superficial. They can only seriously damage the eyes. I just went to the doctor got a rabies shot with like 3 follow ups, some medication and an ointment and that was it.
- corethree 3y agoHumans only lose these fights out of fear. The damage to you is superficial. One successful move from you can end the life of a rat or cat. The animals that attack do so at great risk. The animals who run, which is what most animals do is the more logical and ,evolutionarily speaking, successful move.
- Teever 3y agoBut for what purpose? With many feral/semi-feral cats it would be a pyrrhic victory. How many times do you want to explain to people that you're blind in one eye because of a vicious barn cat?
- corethree 3y agoMost animals run. If an animal attacks it's likely to be rabies.
- dylan604 3y agoOr just defending itself when the human is trying to trap it.
- corethree 3y agorunning is the best defense. You don't get it, if an animal kills a human it's hunted and put down. Natural selection has already done it's work so that most animals run. There are pockets of the world where animals don't run. This is in remote places where humans rarely ever set foot. Islands and such. One prominent example are penguins at the south pole. They don't run.
- dylan604 3y agoYou're acting like we're all out on the Savanah hunting a wild predator animal. Just trying collecting a cat to put in a carrier that's just not interested in that. The longer you try, the more upset it will get. It doesn't have to be a cat that doesn't know you.
- stephencanon 3y agoYes and no. We had a smallish (8lb) cat who brought us a dead rat every day for years. We had a graveyard with thousands of rat skulls. These were “normal” sized rats though (~0.5 lb), not enormous subway rats. Our current (20lb) cat only hunts voles. Go figure.
- dylan604 3y agoat 20lbs, I'm surprised it can hunt anything other than the food dish
- magicpin 3y agoThere are a few breeds where the males are massive muscular monsters, at 20-25 lbs.
- dylan604 3y agowhen someone has a mane coon, they usually tell you that bit of info. it's like crossfit, when you have a mane coon, you must talk about mane coon.
- stephencanon 3y agoHe’s a rescue, so who knows, but he’s definitely maine coon adjacent.