Fox Attack on cat

Shivi111

Has anyone encountered this?
Poor Loki was in our garden in the middle of the day today and was attacked by a fox, which was very unexpected!
After disappearing off for a few hours she luckily returned with no damage, but we are nervous now about the kitten who we had just started to give access to the garden as I suspect she would be less able to fight off a fox...
We keep everyone in at dawn and dusk and nighttime, very surprised to see the fox out and active in the day.
Is this common in peoples experience?

AvyStreet

Are you in a town or rural area?
I imagine she'll be keen on staying indoors for a while.

Shivi111

In Dublin suburb, I've seen foxes once before last Summer so we don't see much of them, though I guess they are there...
Surprisingly enough, she came home for a bit and wanted off out again so doesn't seem too traumatized... more of a shock for us! :eek: My sister who saw it happen said the fox grabbed her around the middle with his jaws & both had run off by the time she got outside.
Mostly I'm concerned about the kitten (7 months) as shes pretty small, I think we'll restrict her back into the house until she's a bit bigger just in case...

intheclouds

Its not Blackrock is it? I was just talking to a woman earlier this week who said a huge fox was coming into her garden during daylight hours with no fear at all.

Shivi111

No, not blackrock. Walkinstown area. Was so surprised the fox would actually go for her, but she's no worse the wear for it thank goodness.

intheclouds

I saw quite a bold one sauntering along in broad daylight the other morning in dun laoghaire. Perhaps they are bolder due to something seasonal?

Surprised one would go for an adult cat unless cornered or surprised mind you.

Tails142

Our cats and foxes get on with each other, have an outdoor shelter for the cats and would often catch the fox asleep in it with the cat just looking on.

Had another cat before that would give chase to the fox, always feared the fox would turn to defend itself but never did.

Would it be that the cat and fox were playing with each other and the person who saw it took it up wrong? Foxes have pretty impressive jaws, I would imagine that they could do a lot of damage if they intended to.

Shivi111

Apparently there was a lot of hissing and growling so it seems to have been a genuine fight. Kitten came charging Into the house but Loki stood her ground in the middle of the garden and fox charged her from behind the shed.
Loki is fully grown but a very small cat so not sure if that makes a difference...
I'm hoping it was a once off, anything I could find online seems to suggest they usually leave each other alone...

Shivi111

It (possibly?) wasn't a one off!
Mori has been bitten on his leg, had to have a trip to vet to be pumped full of penicillin & pain killers and is now sporting a very debonair limp.
We didn't witness the event, but all other cats in the area usually give the Mori cat a very wide berth as he is huge (really abnormally big for a moggy) & he is only allowed out in the day...so it's unlikely he was in cat fight... He is also a total scaredy cat & usually high tails it as soon as he sees another cat!
We will have a better idea once we can examine the area, our normally placid boy isn't letting anyone near him & vet wasn't risking it without sedation.
At the moment, coming so soon after Loki was jumped, we suspect fox involvement.

denismc

Growing up on a farm I have witnessed several fox/cat encounters. In 2 cases the cat was stalking rabbits when it got jumped by the fox. Fully grown cats will put up a enough of a fight to scare off a fox.

Shivi111

Yeah, I think there was a fight, & Mori's injuries are relatively minor considering... Think foxes are getting braver too, my neighbor says one was in her garden & didn't run away when she went out... Just stood looking at her, She retreated to her house!
all three cats are housebound for the moment (& very vocally unhappy about it!), I wouldn't be so worried about Mori as he's a big boy but Loki is very tiny & Willow is only 7 months so don't want to risk any more serious injuries. They'll survive confinement, we do the same when the fledglings are in the nests as Loki goes after them, so a couple of days of whinging is familiar!
According to Google it's breeding time for the foxes so I'm wondering if that's contributing to their being more active in the day...

intheclouds

Since you posted first I've heard a few people comment on similar encounters with foxes (daytime, foxes not retreating), south Dublin so close enough to you. I don't know enough about foxes to comment on what's going on.

scuby

The more people leave food out for Fox's the more they will interact with humans and become more brave and fearless. Over the years have seen Fox's chase cats and kill them. Remember the incidents last year in UK where the Fox was in houses and attached kids. At the end of the day,these are still wild animals,and should be treated as such.

Aragneer

Foxes are quite desperate animals, if they are hungry enough and the suburb bins are slim pickings, they will attack as they tend to get fierce with hunger (like most humans).

I live rurally and a large fox attacked my similar-sized cat, he bit hard and the poor cat had problems with his leg that eventually led to an infection and death (long live King Chub ) so in all, if any wild animal is desperate enough, it will hurt someone.

My advice would be to minimise the little cat's outdoor activities for a few days so that you can monitor whether there is a fox around and start putting things in your garden that would creep out a fox. There are good lists of them online - this is only if you are super concerned though

schaffer1969

I've a fox den at the end of my garden for the past 5 years. There are also about 15 cats living in the immediate area. The cats are allowed into the fox's den. Also when the cubs were a few months old they would play with the cats.

Maybe the fox has just given birth. In this case they would defend against anything coming near until the cubs are big enough.

scream

There's a fox that wanders around our neighbourhood in the early hours every morning, it never bothers our cats and they don't bother it. I've watched them a few times and they all just ignore each other, in fact ours don't even watch it, they're more interested in making sure there aren't any intruder cats around.:D

Another poster mentioned that they didn't think that their cat would have been in a cat fight since the cat was injured during the day, but cats quite often fight during the day because they're out and about. We'd been having problems with a cat from a few streets away coming in and fighting with our cats during the day, even though he's a well looked after pet cat. We hadn't seen him for a few weeks with the bad weather and hoped he'd got bored but he was out on our shed in the sun yesterday.

Frisbee

Quite handy there was already a thread on this. There's a wild cat wandering around lately (we live in Brittas Bay so lots of countryside around), we've fed it a few times and it's taken to wandering over to the house and watching our indoor cat through the window. Last night I'd left some food out for it outside the patio door. Was munching away and then it suddenly stiffed up and bolted. A couple of second later an absolutely massive fox walked around the corner of the house and came right up to the patio door. There was still food in the bowl which it ignored so thinking it was going after the cat maybe?

There's loads of wildlife in the area. Always Hare and Deer around, we'd see foxes almost daily and plenty of badgers. But the f*cking size of this fox was something else, I'd never seen one this big before, it must have been the size & weight of a border collie. Wouldn't have fancied the poor cats chances against it.