(02-02-2021, 03:19 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote:(02-02-2021, 02:42 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: We have a fight between a cat and a Jack Russell terrier. It's not clear, but both may have sized each other as prey. One is convinced that as a cat it should reasonably expect to overpower and devour anything its size or smaller. The other is convinced that as a dog it should reasonably expect to overpower and devour anything its size or smaller. What one ignores is how cat-like dogs can be and how dog-like cats can be.
Both creatures are for all practical purposes miniature versions of tigers. Terriers are the most tiger-like of dogs. This fight is the sort that could have arisen in a Roman circus between a tiger and a bear, except involving far-smaller creatures. This is a fight to avoid. Try breaking it up with your hands and you will be mauled.
I'll take the nozzle of a spray hose and shoot both, thank you.
I'm not a cat and he's not a dog and all you would do is end up getting hurt by one of us or both of us.
More specifically I would spray both, even if one of the two combatants were one of my pets. Maybe especially. I have broken cat fights that way. I prefer that my pet get an unpleasant soaking to serious injuries and cost me big bucks at the veterinarian.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.