I’m wondering if cats think of us kind of like how a person thinks of a friendly bull: aware that they could easily kill us, but not necessarily afraid of them; or more like a large Dalmatian: they could fuck us up, but most of us don’t really think about that unless they’re being aggressive.
I grew up with dogs and feel like I understand them a lot better than I do cats as a whole. I adopted my cat almost four years ago and I feel like I get her pretty well, but I don’t really have an idea of what she thinks about me. I also don’t really know any other cats, though I’ve gotten along with strays and friends’ cats a lot better since I got mine.
Cat tax:
Making fight decisions based on “could I kill it” is a convenience of human technology. The ability to seclude ourselves during healing and medicine allowing us to avoid infection, heal faster, and heal from more serious wounds has skewed how we think about fighting. Most animals make fight decisions less on “can I kill it” and more on “how badly can it injure me”.
Sure a human can kill a house cat, absent technology can the human do it without having the skin on an arm or leg shredded? Will the injuries be significant enough to make you unable to protect yourself from other predators? Will the injuries set up infection and kill you?
Cats are basically the perfect land predators. Even with their small size domestic cats are the most deadly and destructive hunters on earth.
They are ambush predators. They are really good at evaluating prey, identifying strengths and weaknesses, figuring out how, when, and if they should attack. Cats know whether or not they can win a fight. Cats will sometimes charge into fights they can’t win, like attacking the bear, because they know that they can inflict damage and that the other animal is making a similar fight decision. The hyper aggression of a 10lb claw tornado flying toward a 200lb bear is usually enough to convince the bear that the fight isn’t worth it.
I don’t think that they are too aware of size differences, based on plenty videos that I’ve seen of cats chasing bears away. Here’s one of them.
Instead I guess that what triggers them to think “fuck, it could kill me!” is 99% behaviour.
To be fair, that’s a black bear and they are afraid of everything. They are pansies. They will bluff charge you and if you do nothing and just look at them they get awkward and start wandering off. You can charge them and they’ll sprint too. They just act on bear reputation but if you don’t act afraid of them they short circuit and have no idea how to respond.
Source: Everytime as a kid we went blueberry picking we had to deal with these guys. Same with going to the landfill or hunting.
Do you think the cat thinks it can win? I always assumed it was just trying to scare off a threat, but I don’t really know. My cat’s an indoor cat and though she used to growl at my neighbors (and get in between us, my heart), I didn’t think she really thought she was more of a threat than me. She also hides behind me sometimes when new people come over, so who knows if she thinks they’re only a threat to her or what.
Cats don’t fight to take anyone down, they mostly fight to scare eachother off, as they are so fragile as beings, both in attack and defence
Might be that they just transfer that to anything they want to get rid of.
Had my elderly, whole life indoors cat stare down a British Mastiff (130 kg dog, bred for guard duty), and consequently train it what surfaces she was allowed on and not.
And if I were the bear, yeah, I probably know I could kill that little thing as soon as I got hold of it, but it’s way faster than me and it’s made of knives. It’s gonna hurt me the whole time I’m killing it. Why risk it?
Perhaps; I’ve also seen the opposite, a cat being considerably scared of a smaller critter (another cat), because the smaller one showed no fear.
Or perhaps the whole idea is to avoid the fight altogether, like some sort of chicken game. Either way they don’t seem to take size into account.
If that were true, cats wouldn’t naturally fluff their hair to appear larger. I think they’ll just go after big stuff when they feel the need and know they’re pretty badass.
We do the same when scared, and at least in our case it’s outright useless. And more importantly it isn’t a conscious reaction, so it’s really hard to associate it with the cat potentially assessing the size of the threat and trying to make itself look larger.
Also note that they’ll also do it when they feel threatened by a smaller critter.
I’ve always felt that we are like clumsy giants to them lumbering on throughout the home with the great strength and dexterity to manipulate objects. In spite of all of this they can swing from loving you to down right cold shoulders on a whim!
My obligatory cat tax. :)
To be honest, I don’t think your cat thinks about things the way you’re thinking about them. Your behavior has shown your cat that you’re safe, so your cat isn’t afraid of you. If you start acting aggressive or scary it will treat you like a threat and fight or flight based on what it decides in the moment, but that’s about it. It’s not thinking, “this giant ape could kill me if it wanted, I’m glad it’s my friend,” it just has a positive association with you based on your pattern of behavior.
Also, cats social cues aren’t as obvious as dogs, but if you don’t know what you’re cats thinking, here are some clues: is your cat walking around with its tail up a lot, usually curled at the top like a little question mark? Your cat feels super happy and confident in it’s territory (AKA your house). Does it ever look at you and narrow or close it’s eyes and look away, sorta like it’s nodding off? Your cat is saying it trusts you enough to let it’s gaurd down, it’s basically a cat hug.
Edit: cat tax.
Oh, one more I forgot, cat-loaf! Cats put their paws underneath them to conserve heat. It also means they’re putting their primary weapons away, so they only do this when they feel happy and safe…or they’re very cold. If your cat is loafing a lot, it’s either very happy or you need to turn your heat up.
Got to love that picture: shares an insightful post about cat psychology regarding how to tell when a cat feels safe. Follows up posting a picture of a scared/triggered cat :D
When cats square up to each other they arch their backs and their hair stands on end, to me, that’s an effort to make themselves look bigger. Therefore they know bigger == more dangerous.
Cat tax:
