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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 7:05:08 GMT
Even though I fully subscribe to the idea male Lions are adapted and specialised for combat, it is still feline combat, which is it's own specific contest. Almost like a niche martial art. When cats fight, lions included, they spend a lot of time sizing eachother up and resting for extended periods between extremely brief flurries of frenzied noisy activity. Their fighting reflects their assassination style of offense, and also their "bluff" "don't f'ing touch me" style of defense. So they're standing around looking at eachother making a hell of a lot of noise to try and intimidate the other guy and prevent him from attacking, lashing out with ouch-inducing paw swipes, while looking for an opening to try and maybe launch an assassination attempt on their foe when his focus wanes. They don't grow a lung and suddenly have high stamina just because they're fighting. No they have special low-stamina stop/start cat fights in tune with the animal they are. Whether it's lions or alley cats. They spend an insane amount of time just laying around looking at eachother and making noises during fights. At best a wild cat can persuade a non-cat opponent to play their "sport". They can do this by threatening the other animal with their savage display of snarls and hisses and paw swipes and etc. If they can ward an opponent off and keep them at a distance, they can potentially formulate a decisive assassination. Many hunter testimonies through the ages speak of how much more at risk a hunting dog is if it stands back on a cat, and how it actually is safer to just rush in, seize hold and press the assault. That's pressing a fight on the cat that it's not built for, like going for a double leg take down on a TaeKwonDo practicioner. He'll be like "hey no fairsies, that's cheating" and be useless without the space he needs to execute his spinning reverse axe kick or whaetever, and that's what cats are like against bulldog types. Of course, that's when they're close enough to the same size. Small bulldogs attacking a big lion are just going to get killed, so then you start wanting stand-offish "cur" dogs but they have to be very good at evading. But then we have bears. Very difficult animals to kill, not so perturbed by a few scratches, big and strong enough to physically match a lion (and then some), and can sustain a relentless attack in a fight while taking damage. Bad time for a lion, as fighters I think they are outmatched by bears, even if they are fight-specialised cats. I maintain cats are inherently poor fighters, despite the "oohs and ahhhs" their savage noisy displays and frenzied angry movements elicit. That's exactly what they're designed to do- look scary, and it works on some animals and works on some people who swear they are the chuck norrises of the animal kingdom after seeing them move around and snarl and throw some paw swipe combos. But it's pretty dumb when you know about actual fighting and how wasting energy trying to posture and scare your opponent is stupid, how having poor stamina is impossibly detrimental for fight success, how being deathly terrified of getting hurt is not a mentality a fighter can have, etc etc. Their attributes aren't good fighting attributes. They are anti-fighting attributes. Techniques and strategies to avoid fighting. Even killing quickly is a technique to hopefully avoid fighting. You know who sucks at killing quickly? Bears. And that just means they are comfortable taking their time and trading blows. Go ahead and fight back, they don't mind. They're comfortable easing into a fight like it's a nice warm bath. I actually think brown bear vs Lion isn't that close, but maybe black bear vs lion CAN BE due to black bears being scaredy cats who shirk at conflict. That is playing into the felines hands, believing and respecting the bluff is the best way to set yourself up for failure against a cat. Give them the time and space to actually maybe pull off a chuck norris spinning roundhouse that might actually work. Generally though if push comes to shove a bear will outfight a cat, a dog will outfight a cat and a mustelid will outfight a cat. A pinniped also would outfight a cat if it came down to trading blows. Nearly everything would. Where do wolves fit in the fighting category? |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 7:10:22 GMT
Probably badly. Cats are still deadly killers. Extremely deadly killers. The deadliest. So they are akin to a guy who has no stamina, no fighting ability, is scared of fighting, hates it, has no combative composure or toughness or heart, BUT has a monumental knock out punch and a very intimidating angry looking face with crazy eyes. If you are prone to being intimidated, this bad fighting guy could be very very very dangerous indeed. If you're gonna stand back and be like "shit... he seems crazy, I don't know if I should fight this guy, ummm..." with a worried look on your face all nervous, and give him time to breathe and wind up his telegraphed KO and aim it directly towards your stupid forehead, you're in danger. Continental herders have never given me any confidence when it comes to dealing with animals. I frankly find it downright mysterious how well they do engaging with humans. It's almost like it just gets trained into them and their eagerness to please and perform the objective overrides their normal instincts. They NEVER perform well in dog fights and from what I've seen never perform well against other animals either. They stand back, look worried and bark when they see something like a cougar (I've actually seen a GSD interacting with a cougar on youtube), and they don't even have the shrewd evasive urgency of curs or proper herding dogs (collies, kelpies and heelers) or spitz or even scenthounds. They really hate getting hurt, I couldn't count the number of times I've seen a GSD actually screaming horrible because it was being bitten by something. They're kind of perfectly poised to get fucked up by a cougar or leopard. Hypothetically if they pushed the pace and were willing to take some superficial scratches they should be able to rely on dog qualities and do well, but they just don't seem to have it in them. So if you think Continental Herders would be fucked how do you think Pastoral Herders would do? More specifically North American-used ones. Border Collie, Aus Shepherd, Heeler, etc. I don’t think Border Collies are as perfectionist as many people like to say. Sure, they can win herding competitions to a level of perfection, but we aren’t talking British, im talking North American Border Collies. They are on the level if Kelpies as a versatile outdoors dog. I.E Border Collies can hunt with you, fish with you, herd with you, and hike and ride ATVs. But onto the point, I would love to see how you think a Pastoral Herder would fare in these situations. |
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Post by CoolJohnson on Feb 21, 2023 7:13:10 GMT
@ajay
I just realized something.
We could compare these animals to video game characters.
For example, big cats are like protagonists.
Bears and mustelids are like special bosses. A mustelid would require a special upgrade (size) to beat, while a bear would need a special skill (ambush) to defeat.
The basic level thugs would be canids. They can cause mild damage but are the easiest to kill. The next would be other predators like constrictor snakes and moderate sized crocodiles.
Also this is one of the few forums that actually favors the lion over the tiger.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 7:17:07 GMT
@ajay I just realized something. We could compare these animals to video game characters. For example, big cats are like protagonists. Bears and mustelids are like special bosses. A mustelid would require a special upgrade (size) to beat, while a bear would need a special skill (ambush) to defeat. The basic level thugs would be canids. They can cause mild damage but are the easiest to kill. The next would be other predators like constrictor snakes and moderate sized crocodiles. Also this is one of the few forums that actually favors the lion over the tiger. I agree with your opinions on the canids and mustelids and big cats. But you are extraordinarily correct on the lion over the tiger. Lions are the only cats who hunt in coordinated hunts in packs. Tigers on the other hand are solitary. Im curious on how they would beat each other if someone could explain |
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Post by Hardcastle on Feb 21, 2023 7:37:59 GMT
Where do wolves fit in the fighting category? In some ways they are very similar to continental herders in that they are arguably too cautious for their own good and too worried about pain. Against cats they play into their hands somewhat and can be psyched out, hang back to avoid getting hurt, and then set themself up for a calculated assassination. Where they differ from continental herders is having more offensive fire-power in the form of a bigger skull with bigger teeth (just due to being a lot taller/longer), and I think better movement with their long legs and being light on their feet. With their great height they also have a great vantage point to "snipe" down devastating bites to the head and neck-vertebra of their opponent. I think they do much much better than continental herders in canine vs canine contests thanks to these qualities, but have similar limitations against felines. The threat of scratching bothers them too much, and that's how felines can trick opponents into hanging back and falling into their trap. Cats are most dangerous with space and time to breathe and think, animals that are bluffed by their scratchy spaz-outs afford them that luxury. I think wolves certainly could do better against cats than continental herders but still probably not great. So if you think Continental Herders would be fucked how do you think Pastoral Herders would do? More specifically North American-used ones. Border Collie, Aus Shepherd, Heeler, etc. I don’t think Border Collies are as perfectionist as many people like to say. Sure, they can win herding competitions to a level of perfection, but we aren’t talking British, im talking North American Border Collies. They are on the level if Kelpies as a versatile outdoors dog. I.E Border Collies can hunt with you, fish with you, herd with you, and hike and ride ATVs. But onto the point, I would love to see how you think a Pastoral Herder would fare in these situations. These british origin herders have better agility and movement and are extremely difficult to catch. That's their main weapon. They have less firepower than continental herders and much less than wolves, but they are extremely gifted with their lateral movement (the best among all dogs and arguably all carnivorans, other contenders would be other canines like dholes) they can harass a big cat or a wolf without being at great risk of getting hurt because they are so evasive and quick. However, they can't do much damage with their nipping harassing bites in these "skirmishes". For staying safe in an interaction they are top tier, for dishing out punishment they are very low tier. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 7:39:06 GMT
Probably badly. Cats are still deadly killers. Extremely deadly killers. The deadliest. So they are akin to a guy who has no stamina, no fighting ability, is scared of fighting, hates it, has no combative composure or toughness or heart, BUT has a monumental knock out punch and a very intimidating angry looking face with crazy eyes. If you are prone to being intimidated, this bad fighting guy could be very very very dangerous indeed. If you're gonna stand back and be like "shit... he seems crazy, I don't know if I should fight this guy, ummm..." with a worried look on your face all nervous, and give him time to breathe and wind up his telegraphed KO and aim it directly towards your stupid forehead, you're in danger. Continental herders have never given me any confidence when it comes to dealing with animals. I frankly find it downright mysterious how well they do engaging with humans. It's almost like it just gets trained into them and their eagerness to please and perform the objective overrides their normal instincts. They NEVER perform well in dog fights and from what I've seen never perform well against other animals either. They stand back, look worried and bark when they see something like a cougar (I've actually seen a GSD interacting with a cougar on youtube), and they don't even have the shrewd evasive urgency of curs or proper herding dogs (collies, kelpies and heelers) or spitz or even scenthounds. They really hate getting hurt, I couldn't count the number of times I've seen a GSD actually screaming horrible because it was being bitten by something. They're kind of perfectly poised to get fucked up by a cougar or leopard. Hypothetically if they pushed the pace and were willing to take some superficial scratches they should be able to rely on dog qualities and do well, but they just don't seem to have it in them. Blue Heeler Dingo Belgian Malinois Archaic LGD Husky Black Mouth Cur Rhodesian Ridgeback How do you reckon those do? |
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Post by Hardcastle on Feb 21, 2023 8:32:54 GMT
Blue Heeler Dingo Belgian Malinois Archaic LGD Husky Black Mouth Cur Rhodesian Ridgeback How do you reckon those do? Blue heeler, dingo, husky, BMC are all actually pretty similar to the british herding dog breakdown above. Evasive harassing skills off the charts, but can't do that much damage to a cougar or wolf. Still it's nice and comforting to have dogs like this in the wilderness interacting with wildlife because they will PROBABLY manage to stay safe. Ridgebacks are similar also but pack more punch due to being bigger. They lose a step or two in evasiveness (still very evasive) but gain more impactful offense and also more durability if they DO slip up and get caught. I think ridgeback vs cougar at parity is actually a somewhat interesting fight. Remembering it would be a fairly small cougar. We see a "ridgeback x" (barely recognisable as a ridgeback x but is described as such) have a skirmish with a jaguar in the "el tigre" mutuals of omaha episode. (starting at about 15:20) Lots of barking and harassing and evading, but then occassionally sees openings and presses an advantage with some lugging (around 19:00 for example) Now how real this situation is (I'd say not, I'd say staged) doesn't really matter, the fact remains it's a real cat hunting team (probably normally used on puma in real life) and it shows how a ridgeback cross works a big cat. If this dog was giving this kind of treatment to a puma, including the running and harassing and then pushing with close-quarter scuffles when the opportunity arises... over time that could get very interesting. A cougar isn't going to like that kind of treatment for long. It's possible a puma could be harrassed to death by a rough cur like this, eventually. The lugging would escalate and intensify in correlation with it's weakening state. I wouldn't like such a dog's chances with a large timberwolf though, I don't think. Archaic LGD is a totally different beast because it's much more powerful and durable and they can also have devastating jaws. They still are at risk of being stand offish, however, and then can't move so evasively so they may actually be more susceptible to a cat attack than the others mentioned. There are some cases of some pretty legit looking volkodavs falling to leopards. Probably by ambush, but either way. I don't feel they are ideal for cats. But if they DID press their attack, like perhaps a hardened fighting LGD might, I think the cat would be in trouble. I think they are better still equipped to take on a wolf, and in fact should be favoured to just overpower and maul the wolf fairly easily most of the time. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 16:57:29 GMT
@ajay I just realized something. We could compare these animals to video game characters. For example, big cats are like protagonists. Bears and mustelids are like special bosses. A mustelid would require a special upgrade (size) to beat, while a bear would need a special skill (ambush) to defeat. The basic level thugs would be canids. They can cause mild damage but are the easiest to kill. The next would be other predators like constrictor snakes and moderate sized crocodiles. Also this is one of the few forums that actually favors the lion over the tiger. That rings true and I also favour lion over tiger (at parity). I'd agree that compared to big cats canids by-and-large are basic level thugs, although including the whole cat family many canid are P4P superior to many cats. Although in general the sliding scale favours the cat family, like the best cat beats the best wild canid (possibly bush dog) by only a modest amount and the worse cat beats the worst canid (possibly maned wolf) by a modest amount too. But that sliding scale leaves for a lot of wild canid beating a lot of cats, in fact bush dog should be superior to 90% of the cat family. None of the pantherine though, not cougar either, but the rest yeah, and some of the weaker cat it's a shoo-in. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 16:58:47 GMT
I always forget to vote on matchups but remember this time  |
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Post by CoolJohnson on Feb 21, 2023 17:23:15 GMT
@ajay I just realized something. We could compare these animals to video game characters. For example, big cats are like protagonists. Bears and mustelids are like special bosses. A mustelid would require a special upgrade (size) to beat, while a bear would need a special skill (ambush) to defeat. The basic level thugs would be canids. They can cause mild damage but are the easiest to kill. The next would be other predators like constrictor snakes and moderate sized crocodiles. Also this is one of the few forums that actually favors the lion over the tiger. That rings true and I also favour lion over tiger (at parity). I'd agree that compared to big cats canids by-and-large are basic level thugs, although including the whole cat family many canid are P4P superior to many cats. Although in general the sliding scale favours the cat family, like the best cat beats the best wild canid (possibly bush dog) by only a modest amount and the worse cat beats the worst canid (possibly maned wolf) by a modest amount too. But that sliding scale leaves for a lot of wild canid beating a lot of cats, in fact bush dog should be superior to 90% of the cat family. None of the pantherine though, not cougar either, but the rest yeah, and some of the weaker cat it's a shoo-in. Which is why I stated this in an earlier post. The smaller cats are generally weak until you reach the Lynx genus. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 22:26:36 GMT
No, they're weak until you reach cougar. A maine coon would give all hell to the typical lynx species.
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Post by pat on Feb 21, 2023 22:34:48 GMT
No, they're weak until you reach cougar. A maine coon would give all hell to the typical lynx species. ocelots and fishing cats have a slightly lower robusticity to cougars and ocelots have been known to kill with skull bites. I'd put clouded leopards over both cougars and leopards p4p. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 22:37:39 GMT
No, they're weak until you reach cougar. A maine coon would give all hell to the typical lynx species. ocelots and fishing cats have a slightly lower robusticity to cougars and ocelots have been known to kill with skull bites. I'd put clouded leopards over both cougars and leopards p4p. Oh yeah, ocelots and fishing cats (how about jaguarundis and margays? Don't hear about them much) are much superior to the lynx genus, and then clouded leopards are just downsized jaguars. |
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Post by pat on Feb 21, 2023 22:42:52 GMT
ocelots and fishing cats have a slightly lower robusticity to cougars and ocelots have been known to kill with skull bites. I'd put clouded leopards over both cougars and leopards p4p. Oh yeah, ocelots and fishing cats (how about jaguarundis and margays? Don't hear about them much) are much superior to the lynx genus, and then clouded leopards are just downsized jaguars. Oh yea Jagarundis and margays are absolutely up there as well. A bit too small to do anything impressive but frankly ocelots and fishing cats underachieve predatory feat wise relative to the lynx genus and caracals which are definetely less robust but seem to be built for speed and explosion rather than strength. (With the ability to jump 10+ feet for bobcats and caracals). Never seen ocelots or fishing cats take down 100+ pound deer/antelope which bobcats and caracals have been notroious for probably because they don't have the speed to catch such a fast prey. I guess a fight could be interesting in that the ocelot/fishing cat can overpower the bobcat/caracal unless the bobcat/caracal catches it early with its superior explosion. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2023 23:12:10 GMT
Oh yeah, ocelots and fishing cats (how about jaguarundis and margays? Don't hear about them much) are much superior to the lynx genus, and then clouded leopards are just downsized jaguars. Oh yea Jagarundis and margays are absolutely up there as well. A bit too small to do anything impressive but frankly ocelots and fishing cats underachieve predatory feat wise relative to the lynx genus and caracals which are definetely less robust but seem to be built for speed and explosion rather than strength. (With the ability to jump 10+ feet for bobcats and caracals). Never seen ocelots or fishing cats take down 100+ pound deer/antelope which bobcats and caracals have been notroious for probably because they don't have the speed to catch such a fast prey. I guess a fight could be interesting in that the ocelot/fishing cat can overpower the bobcat/caracal unless the bobcat/caracal catches it early with its superior explosion. I'd suggest an ocelot or fishing cat would be too strong in the grapple and survive the initial attack. They seem too stocky and robust for a lynx or caracal to beat. Lynxes in particular have shown to be exceptionally underwhelming, falling victim to fishers, lone coyotes and losing to terriers half their size. I don't think an ocelot or fishing cat would go out like that. Ocelots and fishing cats have a wide array of small game to take out and fewer deer, I think if they tried they'd actually be doing it more frequently and perhaps evolve a little larger as a result. Lynxes are small game specialists which is why they haven't gotten larger to exploit deer as them killing deer is exceedingly rare. You should join the board... |
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