An Irish Diary

Feline Fight Club – Frank McNally on what mountain runners (and other potential meals for wildlife) can learn from their pets

“Unusually for a cat, she has been the subject of a ruling by the actual rugby referee, Nigel Owens”

Frank McNally's face
Frank McNally
Fri Feb 15 2019 - 17:30

I'm not surprised to read that Travis Kauffman, the Colorado man who last week fought a young mountain lion to the death while out running, has credited his pet cat with teaching him some of the skills needed to survive the encounter.

Kauffman has been a “cat dad” for only six months. But in that time, without realising he would ever need them, he had been studying the cat’s play-fighting techniques. In particular, he noticed its tendency to lie, face up, “and just kind of go crazy with his back legs [...] scratching”. This knowledge proved crucial in the lion fight.

Apart from the lion bit, I know exactly what he means. I too have been a cat dad – again – for about the same period. This time it’s two kittens: brother and sister, we think, but so unlike each other, physically and temperamentally, that parental superfecundation is suspected.

He’s big-boned, orange, and easy-going. She’s wiry, black, and permanently wide-eyed, as if overdosed on caffeine. And yet they’re also inseparable. For this reason, we haven’t managed to name them yet, individually. Pair-names suit them better, including “Black and Tan”, “Fox and Socks”, and when they’re curled around each other, asleep, “Yin and Yang”.

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But they also fight a lot, which is fascinating to watch, because it’s the first time we’ve had two young cats at the same time. It can be like watching a martial arts class, although some of their more balletic moves also remind of those comic-book kung fu movies, in which fighters fly through the air and perform somersaults in between unleashing death punches.

Even the fighting has a choreographed quality. They seem deliberately to put each other through their paces, swapping positions, or taking turns to mount “surprise” ambushes.

Of course every so often it veers into actual violence, where one plays too rough. Then the other yelps, and they disengage. It’s a feline safe-word system.

Anyway, just as Kauffman noted, one of their key fighting moves is to grip the opponent with front paws, while scratching furiously with back ones. This also tends to happen in the yin-yang position too, so that it’s each other’s eyes they’re scratching.

Or pretending to – their version of Queensberry rules means that claws remain sheathed in this set-piece.

But they also practice it individually, with a rug. Then the claws are out.

Valued as the education has been, I sincerely hope my cat-fighting expertise will not be tested as Kauffman’s was. I had no plans to visit Colorado anyway.

I run mostly in the Phoenix Park, where as long as the fences of Dublin Zoo remain secure, lion attacks are unlikely.

Still, if it happens, at least I know the moves.

When our kittens are not fighting each other, meanwhile, they sometimes also fight with things on television. They will sit directly in front of the screen for 10 minutes at a time then, and wait for prey.

Maybe it's because she's an All-Black, but the female kitten especially enjoys watching rugby, in which she always tries to get involved. Like Joe Schmidt, she works mainly off set-pieces, where the action stops for a time.

Then she will target an isolated player – typically the scrum-half – and just as a real All-Black would, try to take the head off him.

Unusually for a cat, she has been the subject of a ruling by the actual rugby referee, Nigel Owens. While watching a Pro-14 game one night, I posted a short video of her on Twitter in which she tackled a Cardiff player off the ball.

Somebody in Wales copied the tweet to Owens and asked for a decision.

And gamely, he gave one: a penalty (she got off lightly – I thought it was a card offence myself).

Back in their real world, meanwhile, the cats continue to prepare themselves for the actual foes they will soon face, which is fascinating too. I am fairly certain that neither has ever yet seen a mouse.

But they already have a fully-formed concept of what that is and how it behaves under interrogation.

I know this, because we gave them a toy one – just a piece of fluff with a tail – and they train with it regularly: catching and releasing, tossing it off either paw, pouncing on doomed escape attempts, etc. No adult cat has taught them this. The software is preloaded, somehow.

One of these days, a real-life mouse will have the misfortune to cross their paths, and they will know exactly what to do.

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