Posted on 05/13/2004 4:55:16 PM PDT by mylife
‘Big funky house cat’ turns out to be wild By DAN WHITE Sentinel staff writer SANTA CRUZ — A good Samaritan thought she was rescuing a "funky-looking house cat" that she spotting lying stunned along Highway 1 on Tuesday afternoon.
She’s lucky the cat was too out of it to move. The "funky" kitty turned out to be a bobcat with sharp claws and ¾ -inch fangs.
The 9.8-pound, 20-inch-long creature had been hit by a car near Wilder Ranch State Park, according to Dr. Dave Shuman, owner of Westside Animal Hospital.
The unidentified rescuer took the young female cat to the animal hospital, where it was put under anesthesia, given fluids and medicine to reduce brain swelling.
Shuman said the rescuer was taken aback when she found out exactly what she’d just put in her car.
"She said, ‘I thought it looked kinda strange,’ " Shuman said. "I don’t think she quite understood that if it had woken up in her car, she would have had to run out of her car.""
Shuman said the cat has no broken bones, "just a big whack on the noggin’ " and a very bad concussion.
The sleek, rodent-munching feline, which Shuman nicknamed Betty, has powerful muscles, a soft coat of fur and long paws.
Shuman said the cat has a 50-50 chance of survival, depending on neurological damage.
Native Animal Rescue is expected to pick up the bobcat today.
Shuman said the rescuer is lucky not to have been bitten or severely scratched.
"These are not house cats," he said. "Domesticated cats have been bred selectively for thousands of years. Nothing about bobcats would be warm and fuzzy. There is not a lot that separates them from the tigers of India. They’re pure predator."
Shuman said he hopes the wild bobcat will have at least some "willingness to be treated." Administering medicine when she’s awake will not be easy, considering "you can’t even get near them."
If she recovers, Betty likely will be re-released into the wild.
Oh my word....
You forgot to add: "with great glee..."
Simply, dogs are smarter than cats. There is no argument about that.
Pound for pound, cats are the killing machines of the animal world. (Until us technological humans came along. What cat or what shark ever invented the gatling gun or the H-bomb?)
You wouldn't be trying to start one would you?
...or is that what cats are leading us to believe....
Be careful. I've got a cat with an attitude resting on top of my monitor right now...:)
That Chick is soooooooooo a Democrat!
ROFLMAO!
2 cats and 2 dogs here. Dogs are smart. Cats play dumb and just wait for the right time. I think that makes them smarter.
I own my dogs. My cats own me.
I dated a wildcat for a while.
Unidentified rescuer, indeed.
I dated a wildcat for a while.
 |
Before or after I did? |
Killer catches full grown rabbits in the summer and eats them over the course of three days, hiding her kill in the hayloft. I watched her take one down with three strides and a single grip to the neck. She gets them in the throat and cuts off their air.
Killer climbs the silo doors to the top, about 80 feet. She then sits on the rim and waits until a pigeon flies in the dome. She leaps from the rim and rides the pigeon all the way to the silage at the bottom. It's soft, but a fifty foot freefall is amazing.
Killer will not be seen when she doesn't want to be and she associates with no other cat.
Our veterinarian took one look at her and he thinks she's a Bobcat. Of course he could only get a look at her from about fifty feet.
Dogs have masters, cats have servants.
Time to get back to serving.
DK
Dogs have owners. Cats have staff. I have had them both, just dogs at the moment.
Wow! Thats one hell of a barn cat!!
The bobcat she picked up was hit by another democrat in a Ford Expedition on their way to a fundraiser for Greenpeace. The guest speaker was Barbara Steisand, who just flew her private jet from Rio where she was speaking on fossil fuel and global warming. During the flight she took out an entire flock of Geese at 20,000 feet.
And that makes them different from regular cats how?
A so-called "house cat" that is born in the wild is pure predator. Just ask the Australians.
When my cat gets excited, I can tell you what it DOESN'T try to do to my leg!!!
Another example of my ex-husband's favorite saying, "God takes care of drunks and little children". Not to mention, good Samaritans.
A black cat with a white stripe down its back? I know how to handle one of them.
"Where are you my pejawn? I am looking somewhere for you!"
I've been told that "domesticated" house cats are only a hair removed from the big cats of the wild.
Meow ping.
Where I used to live, bobcats and housecats were crossbreeding.
I had the luck/misfortune of owning/being owned by one such magnificent creature.
While not quite as physically tough and sturdy as her purebred bobcat bretheren, Mimi was still stockier and tougher than the normal everyday cats.
(She hunted stuff that the regular cats wouldn't touch, or couldn't.)
She was grabbed as a kitten and saw us as 'her' colony.
I in particular was seen as her parent.
(Rather lucky for me, I guess.)
She leaped 6 foot vertical, popped a birdcage door open, got the bird out of it, and after mauling him, presented him to me since she was jealous.
I'd been paying attention to the 'dirty squawking thing' and she got mad about it.
Pet mice were 'fair game' since they looked like prey.
We had bricks, books, and clips on top of the lid and it didn't matter, she still got mice out of the tank -without disturbing the bricks or books.
No, I still do not know how she did it.
She was more or less 2 1/2 foot long bodywise give or take, roughly 3/4 the size of your standard bobcat.
She was quite a magnificent beast.
Dr. Shuman: "I have good news, there's no broken bones, just a big whack on the noggin.""
Patient's family: "Oh, thank heavens! So our daughter will be coming home soon?""
Dr. Shuman: "Weeellll, not exactly. She has a 50-50 chance of survival, depending on neurological damage.""
I had a dog of questionable parentage for a while. She could leap 6 feet straight up and come down with a bird or squirrel right out of the air. She would wait for a vole or shrew for days just like a cat waiting for a mouse. She would also sing along with me and never barked, kind of a strange, warbling harmony, liked close dischords. She took on a moose one day and that was that. Those eyes! Just like a wolf.
Yum. Bobcat ribs.
/john
...I had a friend in the Canal Zone that had an ocelot and a cotamomdie(Racoon?). First one scratched me, second one bit me. I still haven't learned my lesson about wild animals, but, I learned caution...
Humans can learn from cats. A black cat and a white cat aren't going to fight because some fat cat on Nob Hill tells them to.
Sounds like you had a wolf mix.
I wouldn't doubt it.
Closest thing to a 'domesticated' wolf I've seen was a rather selectively friendly malamute.
It liked me, thought my presence signaled play, and it's 'mommy'.
Anyone else, it'd stand quietly and glare with it's legs stiff.
But, some dogs 'Michigan Wisconsin and similar area way' have questionable parentage.
(I've heard of such. Never seen one myself though.)
Once I visited a woman whom I didn't really know very well. I had been at her apartment for a short while when her "cat" walked into the room. I thought, "Oh, a cat!"
I kept looking at it and thought, "Oh, it's a big cat!"
Then I said to myself, "Oh, my, it's a wildcat!"
I was sitting on a low chair and was transfixed as it walked over to me. I had visions of headlines describing the unfortunate fate of a woman (i.e., me) attacked by a wildcat in someone's home. I knew I couldn't run out, so I just put my head down and closed my eyes. It came right up to me and sort of blew out a puff of air beside my cheek, then walked away.
The woman said, "Oh, that's very unusual. He doesn't usually approach people; he must must like you.
Whoa ... now that's a big baby.
Visiting my aunt on her farm in West Texas many years ago, I met the only cat that ever actually scared me ... a large, brawny, orange half-bobcat, half kitty-kat ... she had big paws, long legs, the broad face and bobbed tail of a bobcat, but the sweetest disposition a house cat could have.
Frightened when I first saw her, I lost my fear when she rubbed up against me, purring.
I'll never forget her ... such a beautiful creature.
That's a fact!
I was once walking my 125 pound German Shepherd on a leash down the MIDDLE of a neighborhood street.
A Siamese female cat came out from between two houses, came out into the middle of the street, walked right up to the dog and ripped open his nose with one swipe of a paw!
The dog and I were both stunned! This dog had never been around cats before and didn't know what to make of one.
He never much liked cats after that.
Siamese use to be temple gaurdian cats and they still think they are kung fu fighters! This story was on the TV, a crazy homless guy was trying to break in at a lady's screendoor when her siamese cat attacted the screen door. Just flew up into that guy's face, claws stuck in the screen and hissing and yowling! The guy ran away!
Hey! That woman's holding my cat!
And it is the opinion of many that the Bob Cat is pound for pound the most savage cat of all.
The pinnacle of Santa Cruz intellectual achievement.
--Boot Hill
Streisand denied it was her LearJet that dropped a 35 lb. chunk of green ice on a colony of endangered Florida Fairy Shrimp.
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