Little Kitty, Big Courage: A Cat vs. Coyotes Story

I thought my cat was a goner. 

I was out early one very cold winter morning a couple weeks ago, walking the dog… and the cat. 

Yes, the cat walks with us sometimes. She’s this tiny skinny fluffy former stray. When we got her the kids kept calling her Little Kitty, so that became her name. She likes to be with me wherever I am; so does the dog. During the workday, kitty sleeps on my desk, while doggo guards the office door:

At night she sleeps on my pillow, and he sleeps at my feet. And around 6:30 a.m. most mornings, we all go on a walk around the block. Seriously:

Of course I worry about her running off and getting hit by a car, or worse, eaten by a coyote. We live near woods with packs of coyotes. Missing pet posts – or eaten pet posts –  are relatively common on the town social media feed. But usually if she comes out walking with us, she also comes home with us. 

Anyways, it was still really dark out so I was wearing a headlamp. We were the next street over and the dog was pulling me along, leading from well in front. Little Kitty was tagging along behind, occasionally calling out to us with a “Meow!” Like, “Wait up!” 

We were walking by some bushes, and all of a sudden two creatures burst out from underneath and brushed past me.

My heart stopped. It was coyotes!

My first thought was that they had ambushed the cat and taken her. But one second later I saw Little Kitty sprinting by, all puffed up and snarling and hissing, chasing after the coyotes.

I started yelling at her of course, and tried to drag the dog up closer to where she was, but he was frozen, fixated. I didn’t want to drop the leash for fear he’d go running after them, too.

Then, both coyotes looped around and started loping back towards us. They were coming closer and my cat kept charging them, spitting and hissing. No hesitation, no holding back. I thought for sure she was a goner.

But they kept running. As they passed by — so close! — I heard one make a quiet “Woof” sound as it nipped at the other one’s tail. The Woofy one was the bigger one, and it was chasing the other one which was smaller. I remembered a post I had just seen somewhere that warned: “It’s coyote mating season! Keep your pets safe!” and I realized– it’s a male chasing a female! They clearly were too preoccupied with each other to bother with us. Thank God. Still, we made our way back home as fast as possible. 

I tried to make sense of my cat’s behavior. She could have run away or hid from these wild carnivores, but instead she was aggressively chasing and then charging at them. 

Then I remembered something that happened eons ago: Waaaay back when I was a premed student, I had a number of part-time jobs, including working at a veterinarian’s office. I had been looking for something  medical that would look good on my resume, and it was the first job I stumbled across, so I found myself cleaning kennel cages and shaving sedated pets. 

The vet and her intern sometimes got asked to help out with strays in the community, and a call came in for a mother cat with a litter of kittens. It was a very unusually hot stretch, well over 100 degrees, humid and miserable. We all headed to this house, and under the porch was a white cat with six adorable kittens. 

But that mama cat was not going to let us near her babies. She puffed herself up and growled and mrowled and hissed and spat. Then she charged us, leaping at us with claws out, making unholy noises. She was terrifying. All I could think of was the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, the deceptively adorable white bunny that ripped people’s eyes out…That’s exactly what she was like!

The vet intern reassured me, “She’s just a mother trying to protect her babies. Once we collect them all and get them somewhere safe, she’ll be fine.”

I was like, Yeah, right. There was no way I was going anywhere near that beast. 

The intern used a snare to loop Killer Cat into a carrier, and then we used a can of tuna to lure the babies out and pluck them up one by one. Back at the office, we reunited the family in an exam room, with food and water. Lo and behold, Killer Cat transformed into Purry Furry, rubbing up against our ankles and head-butting our hands, sweet as pie. 

Remembering that, I realized my cat was acting the exact same way: Protective. But what was she protecting? 

Awww, *heart melting*, she was protecting me! And maybe the dog, too. Or not. Still, what an amazing little feline. So cute, and yet so vicious! 

Sometimes the threat is much, much bigger than we are, but we protect what we love anyways. 

Also, if you’ve met this cat, you know she probably could rip someone’s eyes out, but that’s another matter. And here she is, as I type: