Grab a cup of coffee... this could get long.

Whoever coined the term "Cats have 9 lives" must have been talking about Mia.   She just used another one of her lives yesterday.

Last time she got out of the house (she opened the screen door by grabbing the bottom edge with her nails and pulling) was when the puppies were still young.  In fact, they lost a couple baby teeth in her fur.

The "Puppies" are now just over a year old... and have full mouths of adult teeth.

Mia has been having an issue with FLUTD (urinary tract/ bladder issues).  Happens to her a couple times a year.  We move her into the garage until it's gone.  

Yesterday morning I woke up at my usual 5:30am and took the dogs out to go to the bathroom by walking with them to the potty area.  Mika always gets done first and runs around the corner so when she ran around the corner this time, I didn't think anything of it.  Turns out, Mia, the cat, got out of the garage and into the backyard.

Max and I came around the corner of the house and Max bolted over to Mika.  Mika was trying to get a hold of Mia and, like a good pack-mate, Max wasn't going to let her have all the "prey".  Took me a second to realize what was happening and I ran over there and grabbed both dogs by the scruffs of their necks to try to separate them.

Max had Mia in his mouth and Mika was nipping at her ripping bits of fur.  At that point, I realized I only had two hands and no way to get Max to drop Mia.  While my authoritative "LEAVE IT!"  "DROP IT" commands sounded good to me, Max didn't hear a word... or didn't care.  I tried kicking him in the butt but didn't want to do anything too drastic or use too much force since they were really running on instinct at this point.  And, in the end, it's my fault as the owner for letting this happen- whether I left the garage open or whether I've been lax in the training, they were just doing what high-prey dogs do.

I dragged all three of them to the kennel and got Mika in and closed the door.  I straddled Max and, while I knew there must be a better way, I tried to pry his jaws open.  At that point, Mia (the cat) bit me on the hand and sunk a couple claws into my knuckles.  Trying to free my hand from her was sort of odd... considering I was trying to save her when she grabbed a hold of me... but she didn't understand of course.

Max started whining (not sure why still) and, luckily, let her go.  I put Max in the kennel and went to find Mia.  Walking around looking for her, I started noticing blood on the ground and feared the worse.  Only thing, though, was the blood was following me.

Turns out the blood was from one of the wounds on my finger.  Odd how such a small puncture can bleed so much.  Dogs were locked in the kennel and I found Mia in the garage with no apparent issues, so I took care of my hands.

With that done, I went to see Mia again and she looked "fine".  Dog slobber all over.  Some tufts of hair pulled out, but wasn't whining, let me pet her and when I pushed on various parts of her body, she didn't wince etc.  Crazy.

Back to the dogs... Max has two or three puncture wounds on his snout... about 2" from his eyes.... so we lucked out there.  And the only blood on him was from my hand.  Mika was just wondering what all the fuss was about.

Tally for the morning:  9 punctures in my hands, three on Max's snout and another life used by Mia.

Like last time, it was also all caught on the security cameras should I ever want to relive the experience.

Wow, I can't believe you didn't have a dead cat to go with the wounds to your hands. I always worry someday Khali will get out and the huskies will be in when it happens. She lives in the back bedroom. While she has met and is fine with my GSD mix, my female, Kenzi, would kill her in a heartbeat. Kye I think would more want to play but would make an accident of her fairly quickly. Cats are amazingly resilient. And fierce. Not many go down without a fight as you and Max got to experience this morning. Glad all are mostly alright though. I would have a heart attack.

Ummm...probably want those wounds looked at. Cat bites are notorious for causing infection. And - when was your last tetanus shot?

Sure glad kitty came through ok!

https://www.aafp.org/afp/2014/0815/p239.html

Will be watching my hands... Can't remember when my last tetanus shot was so it's probably been too long.

I think the only reason the cat is alive is because the dogs couldn't shake her. I've watched them with gophers before. They don't crunch into them as much as they grab and shake them first. I'm still surprised she doesn't have internal injuries... which I suppose is still possible. We'll be watching her closely too.

My wife watched the video and said Ginger looked like she was trying to get Max to let go. Interesting considering how passive/ submissive she is.

My first husky used to catch mice and voles in the field - she flipped her head, they went up alive and came down dead. When Ami killed the raccoon, the autopsy showed its neck was broken. And had rabies. I found the raccoon next to the tree where Ami's dog house and line are - looked fine. Well, except dead. I do believe its the "shake" that does the critters in...

While the shake often does the trick, it also disorients the prey, affording the dog less chance of injury and more time while making the kill.

Glad everybody's (mostly) ok! Kona likes to chase our cat, but outside of a few nips at his tail, likes to herd him into the bedroom (maybe some shepherd somewhere back there?).

Our little dog Latte' will sometimes intervene when the above happens - funny to watch a 16yr old, toothless, 8 pound dog back down a 80 pound Husky - but that's how our pack is structured!

Releasing prey - I was debating on putting this out - it's probably not the safest method, but in a pinch it works: When Kona has something he doesn't want to give up, I've found that getting a finger in his mouth and depressing his tongue (not hard) to the floor of his mouth causes a near instant release. - just uncomfortable I guess. But - I'm always conscious of the fact that I have my fingers in a large predator's mouth!

I used that trick not to long ago when spider had squirt by the throat and was just holding her waiting for squirt to pass out. Squirt almost died that day and bit me 4 times and needed 90 something stitches but spider let go when i stuck my hand in her mouth. It was risky considering ive seen what spider can do to a cow femur and my hand is not that hard but in the moment i just didnt want squirt to die. And i also get the small dog thing splinter my 18 lb and overweight 6 yr old terrier acts as the peace keeper and can send both spider and the german shepherd running. Im glad the cat is ok. I had cats until squirt killed them

The last time I hauled something out of Ami's mouth that he had picked up on a walk, I had mittens on, stood up, brushed my hair out of my eyes.  Only to realize what her had picked up was a pile of critter poop...

Wow, crazy stressful!

And it seems like out of everyone, the human got the worst injuries...
take care of that hand!

Mia is very lucky.

My dog caught a possum once and was holding it in his mouth...we said, "Cheese! Treats! Let's go in and eat Treats!" and he dropped it in the grass and went happily to the door. I think the possum helped us a lot, because he went limp and played dead, so he wasn't "fun" to chew. After Rumo dropped him, he just laid there like a stuffed animal...we went to check later, and he was gone. Smart critter!

Im pretty sure squirt needing almost 100 stitches was way worse then the 4 bites i got that time but the last 6 fights either someone has had to go to the vet or ive had to fhe dr