There’s a decent amount of controversy over whether or not cats should be allowed to roam outside. They can make enemies of neighbors with their propensity to poop wherever they please, make sounds at all hours of the night and kill off local wildlife.
Many cats get hit by cars or attacked by wildlife, making life on the streets for many cats short and violent.
But one recent video is another great reason to keep your feline indoors. A homeowner in Surfside, Texas, recently caught an interaction between a cat and a coyote, and it certainly makes a point.
Tony Gray from Surfside moved to the area about a year ago and said he had no idea coyotes were in the area.
“I’ve never seen one before, never experienced them,” Gray said, according to KHOU. “I’ve heard about rabies so I didn’t want to introduce myself to a situation where I got hurt.”
The video of Gray’s deck shows a coyote chasing a cat onto the deck as the cat desperately tries to get away. The orange tabby bats at the coyote whenever it closes in, then darts away.
Coyote v. cat. A Surfside homeowner shared this video with us. He believes the agile kitty (not his) is okay. Turns out, like in many areas around Houston, coyotes are not uncommon along the coast. More on the encounter later on @KHOU #khou11 pic.twitter.com/xDcEG9dw9D
— Jason Miles (@JMilesKHOU) June 10, 2022
First, the cat tries to hide under a lawn chair, but the coyote follows it. After batting at its attacker, the cat tries to leap onto the railing twice, but the coyote bites onto and pulls it down, both times.
Finally, the cat manages to climb up one of the support posts and clings to it for dear life. Eventually the coyote moves off the deck, and it appears that the cat has “won.”
“They say they have nine lives,” Gray said. “So I hope he’s got eight left.”
According to Gray, the cat got away and survived — but many aren’t so sure.
Many news outlets are sharing a short version of the video, ending as the coyote leaves the deck. But coyotes are canny hunters, and in the longer version of the video the coyote can be seen slinking around to the other side of the deck in the yard.
Toward the end of the longer video, the cat falls off its perch to the yard below, and moments before the video is cut off, there is a yowl.
Gray hasn’t responded to online inquiries as to the cat’s safety, though he did tell Fox News that he was present at the time of the attack and banged on the door to scare off the coyote.
“You can hear me bang on the door to scare off the coyote,” he said. “That’s why he ran off. He was a fighter and luckily the coyote was a skittish pup.”
“The last thing I would want to do is mess up that ecosystem,” he added. “So maybe it’s just best that people keep their pets inside at night.”
KHOU was supposed to provide an update on the story on June 10, but never did, causing more concern.
Many are choosing to believe that the feisty cat lived to see another day, and the video is being circulated online as a heart-stopping story of feline bravery — but really, it should be a warning to cat owners everywhere that if your cat lives outdoors and you are in a place with coyotes, this could easily happen to your pet.
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