In a video shared by user beastie25 (@bellieofthebeast), BGP the bulldog can be seen attacking a stuffed pig. However, when faced with Alex the tabby in the next clip, he cowers.
“My dog acting tough against his stuffed toy VS when the orange [cat] comes to take his food,” the poster wrote alongside the footage, which has received more than 565,000 likes since being shared on December 12.
Chelmicky/Konoplytska/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Is It Common for Dogs to be Scared of Cats?
Leigh Siegfried, CEO and founder of Philadelphia-based training school Opportunity Barks, told Newsweek that Alex the cat is definitely the boss in beastie25’s household.
“When the cat pushes in to hold the space and then bristles, and the hair comes up and the ear comes back, it’s absolutely communicating ‘yo move,'” she said.
“The bulldog yields, and moves out of the way, drops its gaze to the side, as if to say ‘oh s***.'”
Essentially, Alex is signaling that he’s in charge and creating distance, to encourage BGP to leave his “space.”
Is it common for dogs to be scared of cats? According to Siegfried, any animal with a presence can instill fear in a canine, regardless of size.
If your cat has lived with lots of dogs before, they are also less likely to be frightened of canines and take control of situations, while “cat-broke dogs”—dogs that have lived with cats before—are more likely to yield.
However, owners still need to keep an eye on the interspecies body language between their pets if they want to avoid fights.
“Cats don’t like it when dogs growl,” Siegfried said. “This can escalate to the cat teeth flashing, which is a warning.”
If you have a super-sensitive dog and a very confident cat, there are things you can do to “negotiate.”
“You may need to go into the cat’s space and ‘mediate,'” Siegfried said.
“If this is happening all of the time, you need to instruct the cat to move away, so the dog isn’t bullied into a corner.”
If you’re thinking of introducing a dog and a cat for the first time, there are seven mistakes to avoid, according to animal behavior experts.
‘Orange Cats Are Straight Gangsta’
The footage begins with BGP attacking a plush version of Pumbaa—the warthog from The Lion King.
However, BGP doesn’t seem so tough in the next clip, where the bulldog can be seen cowering from its feline sibling, a giant tabby named Alex.
A grumpy-looking Alex waddles over in the video, and BGP immediately jumps back, looking away and yielding.
In other videos, beastie25 refers to Alex as his “fat boy” and tells him off for bullying BGP and his other two bulldog siblings, Beast and Panchita. Unfortunately, Alex passed away in March at the age of 15.
TikTok users found the clip of BGP and Alex hilarious, with user elpsycongroo commenting: “its always the orange cat.”
“He know who the boss is,” Cynthia R posted, while @thatsnotaglowup wrote, “Cat looks like he could take him, [not going to lie].”
“Garfield ain’t playing,” joked Eddie Lopez, while Arya Nugraha commented: “Orange cats are straight gangsta.”
Newsweek has reached out to beastie25 for comment.
Although they’re known as rivals, cats and dogs can become the best of friends. A grieving dog sitting next to his cat friend’s bed after it passed away broke hearts on Reddit, while in October, a clip of a puppy waiting to play with the neighbor’s cat received more than 540,000 likes on TikTok.
Do you have funny and adorable videos or pictures of your pet you want to share? Send them to [email protected] with some details about your best friend, and they could appear in our Pet of the Week lineup.
