When I was a kid, our neighbors had a simply massive, jet-black cat named "Voodoo" that would hang out laying on the top rail of the fence between our properties, waiting for dogs to come by, at which point he'd jump down and chase them off down the street. He'd come sauntering back a bit later and get back up on his fence.

I don't doubt that many dogs could have made short work of him, but none in our neighborhood tried to. He was an impressive cat.

Like I said, not really relevant, but I hadn't thought about Voodoo in years.

[–] TotallynotJessica@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It just isn't worth it for the dogs. They could kill the cat, but they'd get badly cut up. Predators avoid fighting all together in most instances, and when they do fight, it's usually over a scarce resource. Even when hunting, animals learn to minimize unnecessary injury.

[–] sxan@midwest.social 1 points 9 months ago

Yeah. Size matters a lot, but dogs' big advantage is the pack. Voodoo lived in a time and place where dogs had lost that advantage, and it let him be king.