Boo got attacked by a housecat!

[Vickkers]

Good Lord... i have 3 cats of my own and I would have kicked/maced/whatevered any cat that attacks my dogs. Or if my cat had *god forbid* done something like that you know I would have high tailed it to the vet with the cat and if there was nothing medically wrong it would never be let outside again. That is really weird behavior. If the owners won't take responsibility then you should definitely call animal control and tell them what happened... they *should* do something about it. Good luck

[Aussie_Dog]

My first thought was that the attack was related to the two younger kitties. Buffy isn't biologically Willow's kitten, but we brought Buffy home when she was a 4 week old orphan (our idea is that she was living as a stray with her mom and litter, until everyone somehow ended up at the vet hospital. Mom and the litter were all sick and died, and Buffy was the sole survivor). Anyway, after a week of the silent treatment, Willow decided to approach little Buffy, and they were best friends from there on out. Willow took it apon herself to make herself Buffy's new mom, so she cleaned her constantly (including her bum), she taught her the kitty ways of life, and most importantly, she kicked ass if she felt Buffy was threatened. Willow has always been a docile kind of cat; she'd rather hunker down and try to turn invisible instead of jumping out and attacking whatever is scaring her. So it was a total shocker the evening Jake was being overly obnoxious and Willow attacked him. See, what happened was that we were all in one of the bedrooms (me, my sister, Buffy on a shelf, Jake on the bed with me, and Willow hiding under the bed). At one point, my sister took Buffy and began taking her to my room next door, and Jake wanted to follow (he loves cats). I was holding onto his collar, so he was scrabbling about frantically, since my sister had turned the corner and he couldn't see her anymore. When we got to the corner, I suddenly felt a burning sensation on my legs, with an unfamiliar scream echoing down the hallway. I looked behind me and there was Willow, having flown out from under the bed and tried to attack Jake, but got me instead since I was in the way. She screamed again and launched herself at Jake, and basically used his body to pull herself to the other side of us, so she was at the other end of the hallway. Jake was still oblivious to her, still staring into my bedroom at my sister and baby Buffy. This PISSED OFF Willow, so she gave another scream and launched herself at Jake again, but this time he noticed her and he lunged at her too. So Willow was attached to his face, he was throwing his head from side to side, I was screaming bloody murder, and my sister was running and screaming bloody murder as well (and baby Buffy was oblivious to the whole thing). We finally got Willow off of him and chased her down to the basement and shut the door (which, might I add, is mostly glass panes so you can see through it). Jake's face was bloody, so I took care of it, but when Jake saw Willow sitting on the other side of the basement door, he went nuts. He was snarling and scrabbling at the door, and Willow, rather than running away, arched her back and hissed back at him. There must have been only inches between them, but Willow stood her ground. I tell you, Willow gained SO much confidence from that fight, so much that after that night, whenever she felt Jake was being too threatening, she'd take on a pose of intimidation (like that time she stepped over Buffy's sleeping body and hissed and growled at Jake below (the two cats were on a bookshelf) and she made like she was going to jump off the bookshelf and velcro herself to Jake's back, for yet another hearty fight. So me and Jake scrammed outta there.

 

Willow's still protective of Buffy, but now that Buffy's over 4 years old (*sigh* where does the time go?), she's more confident that Buffy can take care of herself. But if anything happens, like if Jake races towards his ball, which happens to be in Buffy's general direction, and he slips and crashes and makes a huge racket, Willow will pop up from out of nowhere and chase him. It's not like a regular "I'm gonna kick your ass!" kind of chase, but Jake would jog away or walk away and Willow would be hot on his heels, head down, tail down, in predator mode. But she wouldn't attack. But she WILL attack if Jake doesn't see her chasing him and he turns and accidently runs into her (then it's a defense thing, Willow doesn't know that Jake means no harm). Or if he's decided to have a squabble with Buffy, Willow drops everything and lays into him. One time Buffy snuck outside and since Jake was right there with me, he took off and decided to take it upon himself to bring her back. Only problem is, he has no clue HOW to do that... So Buffy's racing towards the nearest tree, Jake's hot on her heels, I'm yelling bloody murder and running after him, when suddenly this grey streak bolts past me and begins her work of amputating Jake's back legs. By this time, Buffy's up the tree and Jake's prancing around squealing, and I'm yelling at him to STAY! STAY! STAY! while I try to herd Willow back to the house (it's these times when I actually fear for Jake, which is saying something). And at that moment, or maybe it was some other, similar moment, this girl went by on her rollerskates with her dog, and Jake went up to meet this dog. This dog decided to meet Jake. The girl crashed into a tree. Willow lit into Jake again (versus the strange dog that was tresspassing on our lawn and posing an even greater danger to Buffy). Willow's the most meek, avoidance-type cat of our bunch, but man, she packs the biggest punch of them all. She's not just tough on Jake, she makes it her job to watch strangers and back before we got Buffy (who mellowed her out, BTW), she would attack the strangers if they tried to pet her or something. Not viciously, but she'd give one swipe at the outstretched hand and more often than not, the hand would bleed. At least nowadays, she'll notice a stranger walking into the house, but she won't get up from wherever she's napping. FINALLY!

 

Last note, I can't see macing a territorial, frightened cat as being a good thing. I'm thinking that if it happened to Willow, it'd just reaffirm (for her) that this dog means BAD BUSINESS! So next time he goes by, she'll know that he poses as a great threat to her kitties, and she'll attack anyways. Personally, if I saw a haughty cat with kittens getting ready to charge at me, I'd go as far around her as I could. But if she was on one side of the street and the cats were across the other, I'd just turn around and find a new route. An angry cat is nothing to mess with.