Fangs. Killer claws. Hisses, grrrs...and later, yelps. Who is not familiar with cat-dog combats? It's a "hair-raising" party of limbs and tails and yes, the loser sheds most of the fur- mostly, the cat.

It was nighttime, and I was in the living room reading a tearjerker when I heard a throaty, prolonged and wavering wail. Instantly I dropped the book and rushed to the door with one thought in mind - my cat was under attack. The thought brought an ugly picture to my head. I feared an on-the-prowl Sparky or a hyperactive Caesar or worse...the Big Dogs on the Block (BDOB a.k.a. askal) were circling my Khufu in anticipation of tearing her apart.

So you could just imagine the shock on my face when I caught Khufu chasing Sparky, a dog two times her size. A dog. My cat had just chased a dog. I thought it only happens on TV.

"You were supposed to be helpless," I scolded Khufu, but actually I was torn between being proud of the cat and being afraid of it as it sat on its hind, licking its paws. Sparky had been completely forgotten.

But then my memory bank had retrieved from its archives a plausible explanation about what had transpired in the scene of crime. Said dog seemed to have a phobia with cats for once upon a time it received a blow from a cat's paw on the head. So maybe, I thought, my cat was just plain lucky. Sparky would avert from anything that meows.

But then another weird night came, and dogs were running for their tails. The militant cat had struck again.

Dogs -not one, but two. Dogs - definitely not puppies. One was Caesar and the other was a BDOB - both bigger than Sparky. I was impressed.

Perhaps it would happen again, perhaps not. But I wouldn't want my feline friend to make it a hobby or she'd drive all the dogs away.

Here's the norm: cats are to be chased by dogs. The poor cat must have gotten so tired of running for her life that she decided to make a brave yet an unthinkable move to alter cat life in our dog-infested neighborhood.

It seems she has gathered up her tattered pride and decided to charge, come what may, to make a statement in the name of the feline race. The statement would be: We cats may be soft, but we are not fragile.

How easy it is for us to run away from our fears or to give in to the unfairness of the bullies to avert the hassles and side effects of battle not knowing the possible victories we could achieve. Dreams stay as mere dreams.

But fear is fear. If only we could just throw it out of the window and have it locked out from our minds. Fear is a part of our existence. It is a psychological battle, a tug-of-war between yes and no. For me, it is not something we bulldoze in a day. I remember how my cat used to sacrifice her food to the dogs and be rooted indoors. It took her time to gain the courage to go against the norm we thought could never be changed.

Perhaps the passport to courage is to be sure of who we are, to believe, to act big no matter how small, like the cat that fought for its claim of territory and demand for respect with a personality bigger than a dog.

We all have our own dogs to chase to turn our "impossible" into a badge we can proudly wear. As for me, I'm not done with mine yet.