One of my friends has a huge cat who once got in trouble with the police, their neighbours called them to say that there was a cat in the garden chasing her Jack Russels.

Although it sounds funny though, I don't really think it is, its still one animal attacking another, cats have sharp claws, they hurt, but intent should be judged more the damage but then saying that I've also heard of a cat who scratched a dog in the eye, and that damaged the dogs eye, and if that happened to one of my dogs I don't think that would be a laughing matter, I don't think anyone would find that a laughing matter. To me its like people who think that small dogs are funny when they are aggresive, they're not.

I wonder if the law is different in Scotland, because in England a cat is classed as a "wild animal", and therefore this encompasses all manner of things. If you should unfortunately hit one with your car, you don't need to report it whereas you do for a dog; also, if anything should happen to someone else's cat on your property then it is not your liability.

Bearing this in mind, I would have thought that it works in reverse in that no cat owner could be held responsible (darn it) for whatever mischief or inconvenience it causes.

It doesn't work that way always unfortunately!
Parker is very cat-reactive (typical terrier) and he found one on the field that was just lying in the long grass sleeping and pounced on it. It scratched him on the nose and he lay down for a few minutes wimpering and wiping his nose with his paw. "Serves you right" I said "That should teach you a lesson!"

He still chases cats when he spies one on the field but he did actually stop last week when he was running at full pelt and came straight back to me when I called him so change is possible! We have done a lot of clicker training around nearby (though not too near) cats as we have lot of cats where I live.

Our previous dog, a lovely Cairn terrier called Badger wasn't bothered about cats but we were walking him past a house with a Persian cat sitting near the gates and the cat came strutting towards him and hissed agressively at him! Poor Badger-nasty moggie!

Lottie, my Mum's collie was attacked by a cat. They were walking her on a lead down a street and a cat came out from a garden and attacked her. It clung onto her belly with it's claws and was biting her - totally unprovoked and out of the blue. My Dad hit it with his jacket and it ran away. Some cats are just nuts! My Persian cat Casey is a bit of a sod. He terrorises all the local cats and has also attacked a Chihuahua and a Lhasa Apso. Don't really see what I can do about it though.

years ago we had a big black cat(talking back in the late 60's) and a neighbours dog x GSD would constantly chase our cat whenever he saw him, one day I was looking out the window, and saw our cat sat very still on the gate post, and walking past was the xGSD, I couldnt beleive my eyes when I saw our cat jump down, onto the dogs back and grip like mad, the dog went hysterical, running up and down the street with our cat on its back, eventually(before I could get downstairs and stop it, our cat jumped off and dissapeared, the dog had a few punctures from the cats claws, but apart from that ok, later I went out, and when I returned both the cat and this dog were lay next to each other on our front step lol, they remailed good buddies for the rest of their lives the dog regularly calling to our home, or our cat being found in the house of the xsgd lol neighbours thought it was so funny, having gained a cat lol.

mo

My greyhound was attacked whilst being walked on the lead down a residential road. The cat was hiding behind a bush and as we went past the cat just launched and latched on around my dogs neck. Sadly for the cat he chose the wrong dog on this occassion as by the time I managed to get the cat out of my dogs mouth he was very badly injured and didn't survive.
I was scratched to ribbons and so was the dog.
I later found out from neighbours that the cat was well known for attacking dogs and the owners used to find it funny!
Sadly the owners in my view knowing their cat did this failed to keep him safe and ended up costing the cat his life.
It was an accident waiting to happen and unfortunately it was me and my dog in the wrong place at the wrong time. I'll never get the images of the incident out of my head.

Edited to add:- my greyhound lives with a cat at home and ignores all cats when out on walks, so it wasn't a case of him being a cat hater, he purely acted out of self defence.

oh my word, i had better get my two in order.. they are constantly taunting my dog, and no doubt others in the area.
is the rspca issuing CATBO's ?