That Old Rivalry Between Cats And Dogs

Me and my boyfriend took a trip to the zoo this morning.  This zoo is fairly small, so you can do everything in one day.  Both the Lion and Tiger enclosures are huge because these big cats need a lot of room to run around.  The lion enclosure has two viewing spots: one is what one might call the main pavilion, which is large and has a lot of room to move.  The other is just a little ways down the hill and is a smaller pavilion with an enormous thick window.  
     The big male was not out today (he must have been resting inside; it was a tad chilly outside), but the lioness was more than active.  She was pacing up down in her enclosure when a woman with a service dog entered the pavilion.  The lioness took one look at that dog and charged, stopping right at the window.  Now if there had not been any sort of barrier, that service dog would have been lunch for the lioness.  As my mother put it when I told her later, the lioness may have thought the dog was a jackal.  In the wild, lions and jackals compete with each other for food.  So then it would make sense for the lioness to see the service dog as a rival.  She doesn't mind the scores of people that pass through and make noise at her.  That's something she sees every day.  But not only are dogs not something the lioness sees everyday, in the wild they are among her natural rivals.  So if she sees a dog enter on her turf, she will let him have it (she also would've killed several people if she nabbed the dog). 

It's never been a secret that dogs and cats are not famous for getting along.  But this afternoon's event seems to have taken that old rivalry and cranked it up to eleven.  Sometimes we can easily forget that where we see a loyal and helpful companion, another creature sees a rival and will treat it as such.