On our farm we keep a bloodline of formerly feral cats to have around, and keep the voles out of the garden, and mice out of the barns. This bloodline is excellent, they even kill squirrels. They’re fearless, I have never seen any of them lose a fight with a dog, ever. They just run them off. I’d rather grab a chainsaw than one of them in fight mode.
Once my daughter’s favorite cat had a litter of kittens on the front porch, in a birthing box.
One afternoon a neighbor told me that a fox had grabbed him by the pant leg in broad daylight, so I knew there was a rabid fox in the area, and I was on edge.
About 1 AM the next morning, the front porch just erupted in literally a cat fight, with snarling and yowling. I grabbed my pistol, cut the lights on, and ran out. I didn’t see anything, didn’t hear anything, nothing. I waited 15 or 20 minutes, then got back in bed. Just about as soon as I did, pandemonium erupted on the back deck! I grabbed some pants, put them on, and realized when I was halfway down the hallway I had grabbed my wife’s jeans by mistake, they’d only go up about mid-thigh. I had a flashlight under my arm and a pistol in one hand, holding the pants up with the other so they wouldn’t come down to my ankles. I crow-hopped down the hallway, trying to get to the deck to help the cat. I’m glad there’s no video of that, I looked like a Hobbit trying to pole vault. I got to the door and realized if I couldn’t get a clear shot because of the cat, I was going to have to stomp this fox to death barefoot, with pants around my knees.
The cat and the fox were nose to nose, trading blows. He was trying to bite her, she was raking his face and snarling. I had to help her, she was so courageous. I cut the light on, he froze broadside to me, and I put one bullet right through his heart. It was a .38 caliber, and he dropped right there. The bullet is still lodged in the deck picket, it went completely through him.
I started talking to the cat, telling her it’s okay now, and she was still snarling, yowling, and raking at the fox. I couldn’t get her to calm down, then I realized she didn’t know he was dead. I poked him in the eye with a stick to make sure he wasn’t just stunned, and didn’t see any reflex. I grabbed him by the tail and threw him into the yard, and immediately she walked over and started purring and rubbing herself on my leg like, “Oh, that was fun, what next?!”.
Animal control had the body tested, and it was rabid. Although the cat was cut up, her shots were up to date and she completely recovered. We had to bottle-feed them, but all the kittens made it, too.
I definitely believe in people keeping a firearm around for any emergency that comes up, coyote or whatever.
The America I Knew 
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