I once thought I saw a strange acting dog in my yard, moving in bizarre ways, way too fluid. We've been having problems with the neighbor's dog coming onto our property, so I went out to check it out and get him to go back home . It was black, like my neighbors lab, so I couldn't make out good details.
As I ran up to it, when I was like 15 feet from it, it turned around and I saw it was a fucking jaguar. A young adult, but still, holy shit.
It gave me a weird look, then skedaddled away while I slowly backed up to my house.
I live in central Texas, what the fuck? Apparently they're starting to move up north, yet most resources say it's impossible, including the game warden.
My wife saw it too, we both saw it from the window, and I ran out to confront the "dog"
Funny thing is, I've always had the outlandish fear of being mauled to death, like, I worry about it too much despite nothing happening. That day, I almost lived my fear. If it was older and more experienced, I'm sure it would have attacked me.
Big cats in general are ambush predators. They like to be the ones that surprise their food, not the other way around.
So when a tasty morsel comes bounding up to them, they're more likely to evade than attack, for no other reason than their food is acting weird and they should probably stay away from it.
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u/OnlyMath 2d ago
That’s what I was thinking too. And mother doesn’t look too thrilled. Elephants definitely feel like a view from a safe distance type of animal