Fellowship of the Minds – by Dr. Eowyn
One of the boons of technology is that we no longer must rely on ethologists (scientists who study animal behavior) for knowledge about non-human creatures.
The widespread availability of recording devices — cell phone and surveillance cameras — now makes possible the collection by everyday people of visual evidence of animal behaviors pointing to hitherto unknown and, in some cases, astonishing attributes.
An example is this video, from a post I’d published two years ago, of a turtle in the Taipei zoo helping another turtle who had been flipped on its back (an act committed by a human?), which is indicative of the turtle’s empathy and compassion.
We tend to think that, among our pets, only dogs are protective of their humans.
Not so.
Here are two videos of cats being fiercely protective of their humans.
You likely have seen the first one because it was all over the news — of a brave cat named Tara who tackled and chased away a dog that was attacking a young boy.
After chasing away the dog, Tara returned to check on the boy!
Below is a video of another fiercely protective cat, who clearly believes the young woman (babysitter?) was harming the toddler.
Watch how the black-and-white cat, with the heart of a lion, repeatedly attacks a human being who’s more than 10 times its size and weight.
H/t FOTM‘s josephbc69
~Eowyn
Awesome videos. I remember seeing the one about the cat saving the toddler from the dog attack back when it was on the news. Impressive, but honestly not that surprising to those who know cats.
That video and others pretty much dispense with the myth that cats are “wimps” who “don’t care about their owners.” People who parrot garbage like that have either never owned a cat, didn’t care for it properly or pay enough attention to it, or only had experiences with cats that were feral and/or had been abused. Unfortunately, there are a lot of chickensh!t assholes out there who think being heartless toward animals makes a man “tough.” (Be cruel to animals in front of me, and we’ll find out how “tough” you are very quickly.)
Honestly, I think a lot of the negativity we sometimes hear about cats comes from sissies and poseurs who are insecure about their manhood. Real men whose masculinity is doubted by no one are not going to be the least bit shy about saying they like cats (or any other animals generally regarded as cute).
I’m not saying everyone needs to like cats, or dogs, or whatever. But it’s pretty stupid to HATE an animal. It’s not like animals had a choice to be something other than what they are.
That babysitter vid. was not good. If it were me, I’d have kicked that cat across the room, period and hopefully incapacitated the thing.
The cat saving the boy from the dog was justified.
Nothing an animal does is either justified or unjustified in a moral sense. What the cat did to the babysitter wasn’t “wrong” — it simply reacted as animals often do when they feel that they (or someone they care for) is threatened. Animals aren’t people. They aren’t moral agents and cannot be “guilty” of anything.
Apart from that, the babysitter got off easy. Cats are too small to kill people, but they have done far worse than you see in that video when sufficiently provoked (inadvertently or otherwise). When truly fearful or enraged, cats will typically attack a person’s face, and their bites are HIGHLY poisonous due to the bacteria on their needlelike teeth. One good bite on the hand can land you in the ER on IV antibiotics and requiring hand surgery — no joke.
So, kicking a cat is not only wrong, it is never a good idea. You will probably not incapacitate a cat by kicking it, even repeatedly (they’ve been known to fall from tall buildings and land completely unharmed) and you could even end up in the hospital like this woman did:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=o-oVhu2fu20
If I had been the babysitter, I’d have simply scooped up the child, gone to another room, and closed the door.
“… you could even end up in the hospital like this woman did:…”
Yup, that video was posted on FTT (by me, I think) a couple years ago, BMF. Angel posted the one about the dog being attacked. THAT one was wicked! (good wicked)
Cats are far more discerning of human nature than most humans are, Katie (especially brain-dead sheeple). I’m thinking this wasn’t off-the-cuff, that maybe that cat had seen other things previously (not recorded), and this was the final straw.
Since this cat had shown no animosity of this sort toward either the child or other family members, I have put the full blame on the babysitter.
“Since this cat had shown no animosity of this sort toward either the child or other family members”…
I saw nothing in the text that made this obvious. I did watch a portion of the video of the family that had the cat that protected their son from the dog. Not sure if this was the same cat, and this family is the one that said the cat never showed animosity toward the family, then ok, I stand corrected. I don’t have enough details right now to make a judgment other than what I’ve already stated.