Maine Coon Cat Makes Epic Escape From Fox on Dock Thanks to Mom's Kayak Arrival

You know that old riddle about the person trying to cross the river in a boat with a fox, a chicken, and a bag of grain? The trick is that the person can only carry two of the items across the river at once, and can’t leave the fox with the chicken, or the chicken with the grain. But how does the riddle work if the items waiting for you on the dock aren’t a fox and a chicken, but a fox and a Maine Coon cat acting like a chicken?

That was the scenario facing this kayaker and Maine Coon mom recently, when she found her tabby cat, Louis, yowling for her at the edge of a dock, clearly fresh from an altercation with a local fox.

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Luckily Louis’s human mom and her boat came by at exactly the right time. In this video, the giant cat teeters on the very edge of the dock, yowling for help as a fox stands guard at the other end, ready to strike and probably thinking the cat has no other exit.

Related: Maine Coon Cat Has the Best Way of Making Sure He's Not Left Behind on a Walk

Thank goodness for a water rescue.

Do Maine Coons Like Water?

Just because Maine Coon cats are known for their (unusual for felines) swimming ability does not mean this guy wanted to dive off the dock. Put yourself in his place—would you rather jump into a mysterious creek, or get in a friend’s boat?

Precisely.

It makes sense that the cat here is waiting. He’s poised to jump, for sure, but with mom only a few strokes away, it’s worth it to hold off until he can simply jump aboard.

And what about the fox? It’s unclear if the animal in this video thought of the cat as an object of prey or a territorial trespasser, but it seems clear that the creature only stopped chasing the kitty when it was clear there was a person there to pick him up.

In the comments, people debate whether or not foxes eat cats (they do), and if that includes cats as big as a Maine Coon.

(Look, folks, I saw a fox hunt a fawn bigger than it was last week. They don’t care.)

Which is not to say that a cat can’t hold its own against a fox—in fact, many people argue that their chickens were much safer from fox predation when they had a cat in their yard. Cats are nothing if not territorial.

“Foxes are afraid of cats because they’re better fighters,” argued one person in comments.

But this cat does not look ready for a fight. Just a flight.

At any rate, the Maine Coon’s mom knows that fox, and knows that they were just squabbling over the food bowl. It’s still good for Louis the Maine Coon to keep his distance, though.

The Riddle

By the way, if you want to know the answer to that riddle, the trick is, you take the chicken across the river first, leaving the fox with the grain. Then you go back across the river and grab the grain and take it across. While on the opposite side of the river, you pick up the chicken and take her back with you. On the initial side of the river, you take the fox across, then make one more trip to retrieve the chicken.

In this case, however, I don’t think they came back for the fox.

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