Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you • Hacker News Board

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#81

Post by marcosdumay » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 5:24 PM UTC

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #45

My take is this. Dogs are pack animals who defend threats to the group. Cats are colony animals who respond to threats to the zone. I'm fairly sure both consider their owners to be one of their own species.

> I'm fairly sure both consider their owners to be one of their own species.

At least for dogs, I'll have to disagree here. Dogs have a complex political structure among themselves, and humans never take a part in it. You are not the "alpha" of your dogs pack, you are something completely different.

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#82

Post by paganel » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 5:27 PM UTC

pestatije wrote: post #3

They don't bring the stick back either

I used to play fetch the ball with our cat, somehow I had managed to teach him to bring the ball back. And about 4 months ago we got a border collie and the cat now best best likes to watch how the bc fetches the ball, it's like he's watching a TV show.

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#83

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #36

leetcrew wrote: post #19

there's also the obvious fact that a cat isn't a credible threat to a human. there's no point in "punishing" a creature that weighs 15-25 times as much as you do. would you try to "punish" an elephant if you were unarmed? conversely, any creature that a cat can credibly deter is not a lethal threat to a human. I imagine a large dog understands, at least on some level, that it can actually win a fight against a human.…

Actually up to a weight for weight match or even more in the case of lighter humans, a single dog is trivial to defeat in combat unless it is properly trained to never fully engage and only to tear and dash. If a person reacts aggressively and not trying to escape, a dog is easily defeated. Just have to protect your throat and keep facing the dog. Allow it to grab you on a limb , preferably a hand or arm, and you hav…

[deleted]

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#84

Post by CraneWorm » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

leetcrew wrote: post #73

CraneWorm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it would be interesting to study how/if cats defend other cats against roughly cat-sized threats fiercely: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EEa6jZv-Khc

that is an interesting video, thanks for sharing. as much as I want to view it as the cat heroically defending the child, I have to wonder if that was the real motivation. the video seems to take place in the front yard a house that the cat presumably lives in. I wonder if the reaction was more defensive (of the child) or territorial. on the one hand, it seems the cat doesn't react (not in the frame, so hard to say)…

Prolonged engagement would probably not end well for the cat.

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#85

Post by giardini » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

K0balt wrote: post #36

leetcrew wrote: post #19

there's also the obvious fact that a cat isn't a credible threat to a human. there's no point in "punishing" a creature that weighs 15-25 times as much as you do. would you try to "punish" an elephant if you were unarmed? conversely, any creature that a cat can credibly deter is not a lethal threat to a human. I imagine a large dog understands, at least on some level, that it can actually win a fight against a human.…

Actually up to a weight for weight match or even more in the case of lighter humans, a single dog is trivial to defeat in combat unless it is properly trained to never fully engage and only to tear and dash. If a person reacts aggressively and not trying to escape, a dog is easily defeated. Just have to protect your throat and keep facing the dog. Allow it to grab you on a limb , preferably a hand or arm, and you hav…

Good advice but hard to accept and harder to practice. I always carry a pocket knife and sometimes a walking stick or umbrella - animals haven't yet figured out umbrellas.

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#86

Post by giardini » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

dealpete wrote: post #55

K0balt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually up to a weight for weight match or even more in the case of lighter humans, a single dog is trivial to defeat in combat unless it is properly trained to never fully engage and only to tear and dash. If a person reacts aggressively and not trying to escape, a dog is easily defeated. Just have to protect your throat and keep facing the dog. Allow it to grab you on a limb , preferably a hand or arm, and you hav…

I'm not sure that plunging my arm down its throat and choking it with my fist would be my first instinct if I were attacked by a dog :)

Amen, brother! But that's why you have to practice, practice, practice! Hit the dojo! Hard to find dogs, bears or sharks willing to spar though! Maybe a rubber bear?

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#87

Post by wk_end » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 6:15 PM UTC

clairity wrote: post #72

at_a_remove wrote: post #40

I had a cat who would become upset if my mother and I were having a fight. She would immediately begin "yelling" at my mother and once scratched her. The scratching was especially funny given the situation: we had a rug that kept getting moved, my mother was convinced that I kept moving it, when I had not. She kept arguing this, the cat came over, yelled, eventually scratched her when that didn't work, then annoyed w…

my cat absolutely believes she can talk. she yells at me when she wants to eat, asks for reassurance and protection when she’s feeling uncertain (like during supervised outdoor time), seeks forgiveness when she’s feeling guilty, and scolds me when i’m off-schedule (especially around treats and playtime).

Yeah - my conjecture is that cats understand that we’re somehow communicating by vocalizing, but obviously don’t understand the whole language thing, because they’re cats. They don’t really grasp any difference between their meows and human speech.

My Siamese - a notoriously talkative breed - and I regularly have extended “conversations”. Especially with the whole pandemic stay-at-home thing, she’s become the centre of my social life. To an onlooker we undoubtedly look and sound utterly insane.

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#88

Post by lamp987 » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 7:04 PM UTC

pestatije wrote: post #3

They don't bring the stick back either

playing fetch is normal for kittens

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#89

Post by objectivetruth » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 7:54 PM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #56

K0balt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually up to a weight for weight match or even more in the case of lighter humans, a single dog is trivial to defeat in combat unless it is properly trained to never fully engage and only to tear and dash. If a person reacts aggressively and not trying to escape, a dog is easily defeated. Just have to protect your throat and keep facing the dog. Allow it to grab you on a limb , preferably a hand or arm, and you hav…

I can't tell if this is a serious comment or not, but if you're being serious this is horrible advice. Some dogs bites are strong enough to crush bones, and they aren't even 100 pounds. You want to willingly give them a limb so they can actually snap it in half? Sure, if you're fighting a 50 pound Australian Shepherd, have at it. If you're fighting a 150 pound German Shepherd, you're going to die.

I think it's good advice -- it's what I was taught growing up, but admittedly and thankfully I've never had to use it. Sacrifice your non-dominant forearm to the dog bite, and when it locks on, use your other hand to kill it. (At this point,the advice I always heard was to bring it into your body and break its neck or at least choke it to death, which seems easier for a panicked, injured human than gouging out the eyes.)

I have used a similar but less intense strategy when dealing with poorly-trained (smaller) dogs that try to bite me, though again, these aren't killer breeds -- just jam your hand as far back into the dog's mouth as fast as you can, and it won't be able to bite down. As you noted, I wouldn't try that with an unfriendly 100 pound GS because I would try really hard not to let it get within biting range of me in the first place :-)

Re: Why cats won’t punish a stranger who harms you

#90

Post by msrenee » Sat, Apr 10, 2021, 8:17 PM UTC

wut42 wrote: post #24

msrenee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wanted a dog growing up. My parents finally agreed to a cat, so I made do. She knew sit, shake, high five, would "play" the piano, and could be sent off to touch a mark. When my sister's cat came to live with us for a few months, I taught him to sit and to jog on the treadmill. The treadmill trick was no longer allowed after the day mom was running on the treadmill and he jumped on and ran up between her fee…

That's damn cute. While I've always grew with cats I've never been able to make one do things! They always loved me deeply (in their own ways, for example my first one was always walking me to school and doing silly things for fun on the walk, coming back at the pause, and coming back to search me when school ended).

I think I only accomplished any of that because I was a kid before kids having their own computers was a thing. So I had nothing but time to spend and all the patience an 8-15 year old could muster. Once I got a job and could drive places, I never really taught any more tricks.