From time to time, cats were highly useful in wartime scenarios. For example, they could fit through small openings and scale various walls using their nimble footwork and sharp claws. Other times, they might serve as stealthy messengers when enemy surveillance was high. They didn’t always wear armor, of course, but sometimes it was appropriate to the situation.
“Pinky” modeling an historic suit:
The duke De Boer (1481 - 1544) of what was called “The Low Countries” (modern day Netherlands) was particularly fond of such “battle cats,” employing a small contingent of specially-trained kitties to help him across various operations, sometimes ranging from open battle, or at other times, stealth missions.
Lots more historic pics:
https://www.google.com/search?q=historic+cat+armour&udm=2
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NOPE! This was just something I’d meant to post here 7days ago on April Fools, but something came up last Wednesday, and I forgot. Mea culpa!
Actually, as I understand it, there really is a Jeff De Boer of Alberta who created a series of these suits, tapping in to his expertise as a medieval armorer. More info below, altho you’ll need to use whatever your favorite tool is to bypass the paywall. [here’s one]
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/cat-mouse-armor-jeff-deboer
Ship’s cats, yeah, because vermin on ships is an issue.
But getting cats to do anything selfless is impossible.
Mascots can be beneficial, as is ratcatching, but OP definitely got me, I got outraged at “battle cats” before using even an inch of my senses.
Pfff. That’s simply not true. Not even remotely.
I’d agree that cats are not up to the level of dogs and maybe parrots upon that shizzle, but HELL YES-- examples of kitties saving humans are legion. Would you like to know more…?
Oh no way, a gross oversimplification on the Internet? Who would do such a thing.
No they’re not. Examples of dogs saving people are myriad. Cats? They exist, but they’re definitely not “legion”, despite the size of the world. You can see a lot of videos of cats “defending” people by attacking snakes or bears or whatever. But that’s the natural response the cat would have anyway, at least for what they consider their kittens. (And cats think people are just large non-hostile, inept, cats.
Oh hey here’s one where the cat isn’t attacking anything. https://www.pethealthnetwork.com/news-blogs/a-pets-life/hero-cat-saves-abandoned-baby-freezing-death
But it’s defending a baby, which has heightened characteristics of young’uns that cats recognise in us, like larger eyes and large head and whatnot. They’re pretty common in mammals. (Elephants also consider us babies afaik, because people keep large heads and large eyes in adulthood.)
But a cat doing a comparable stuff to dogs, which are actually domesticated and mysteriously adaptable. (We still don’t quite understand how there’s so much variance in dogs without any problems to crossbreeding)
I’m not trying to put down your relationship with any felines you might be friendly with, but I am pointing out that dogs are literally domesticated by people, whereas cats domesticated themselves.
It’s kinda how you could go to the worst prison imaginable and still pick up good deeds even violent offenders have done. And comparatively, you could go to a first grade class and the chances of finding violent offenders would be low, but obviously not zero. The violence would be rather different though.
Although that’s sort of a very strawmanny analogy, but it’s not for an argument, so it’s not a strawman. Especially because I very well recognise that some breeds of dogs are more violent than even a weirdly aggressive average-ish cat. That’s just because of the superb adaptation dogs have and the asshole people who practiced bloodsports.
So while some cats may have saved a few people, I just don’t see them being as capable of the type of love Sam has for Frodo. (And I’m not talking fanfics here.)
Wow.
Okay, mate, feel free to just enjoy your belief system.
I’d hate to unwantedly introduce any facts & reality in to the situation. Cheers.
Awesome!
I had not heard about those cats before, but it did remind me of one I did read about before, “Unsinkable Sam.” Supposedly he served on various ships during WWII, and three times(!) survived the sinking of his ship, clinging to wreckage and then later being rescued.
Now, chances seem high that at least part of Sam’s story is embellished, but on the whole, I think these scenarios help demonstrate how cats can indeed serve in military situations and can indeed survive various terrible predicaments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsinkable_Sam