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:
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.
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.
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.
They can be dangerous if starving or if they're used to humans. That's about it, though.
Bear entertaning the kids by pretending to be the blueberries warden then fleeing as a cartoons vilain
Sorry this is my headcanon now
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.
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.
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.
That was INSANE