Although sustaining a territory is labor-intensive, it guarantees cats access to sufficient food and prospective mates. Your cat needs to monitor it, scent-mark the boundaries, and protect it from intruders in order to establish a territory. According to experts, reflexes that extend back to cats’ wild ancestors have a significant influence on their behavior. Domestic cats and their wild counterparts share much greater genetic and behavioral similarities than dogs and wolves. Cats hunt alone, thus claiming and preserving space to forage and mate, which is essential to their way of life. Nicky Trevorrow, a behavior manager at the charity, Cats Protection, said, “Cats will confront most other animals if threatened, even dogs. This is because they’re naturally territorial-–it’s an ingrained instinct-–so will often challenge any other animals on their territory.” A video online shows just how brave our furry friends truly are when defending their land. A beautiful grey cat is in someone’s front yard when a fox approaches. The two animals are curious about what the other is doing there.
A Fiesty Feline
When watching the footage, the fox almost appears shocked that the cat is defending itself. He must’ve thought this was going to be an easy catch for lunch, but he couldn’t have been more mistaken. At one point, the lush, orange fox walks behind the cat, as if to get ready to perform a stealthy attack. The feline stares down at the fox to intimidate him, but the fox takes this as a challenge. “If a cat’s first encounter with a fox causes that fox to run away, it will likely embolden the cat in any subsequent encounters with foxes,” says Professor James Serpell, an animal welfare expert from the University of Pennsylvania. Finally, the fox decides to make a move and lunge at the cat. This causes the people filming the video to gasp and shout in fright! Without hesitation, this household cat hisses and chases after the fox, showing him who’s boss! In a split second, both animals are out of the shot and running into the neighborhood. The person filming has said they followed the cat to ensure that it made it out of the situation okay. Cats are extremely brave animals and this furry feline is just showing this off to any animal that tries to cross him.
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