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:
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?
And also, the bear isn't out to cause trouble, not worth the hassle to fight anything when you're out exploring.
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.