I’m wondering if cats think of us kind of like how a person thinks of a friendly bull: aware that they could easily kill us, but not necessarily afraid of them; or more like a large Dalmatian: they could fuck us up, but most of us don’t really think about that unless they’re being aggressive.
I grew up with dogs and feel like I understand them a lot better than I do cats as a whole. I adopted my cat almost four years ago and I feel like I get her pretty well, but I don’t really have an idea of what she thinks about me. I also don’t really know any other cats, though I’ve gotten along with strays and friends’ cats a lot better since I got mine.
Cat tax:
This sounds like pretty aggressive dachshund and a very complacent housecat, and I doubt things would play out this way most of the time. Short legged dogs like dachshunds and corgis are bread for going into holes and burrows and dragging whatever lives down there out, while cats are climbers and jumpers that like to find a high perch. Plus cats are better sprinters than dachshunds with reflexes better than most snakes. I'm not saying that a cat would, "win in a fight," with a dachshund, that's a pretty human way of thinking about things, but the average dachshund would be lucky to get anywhere near an adult cat, much less kill it.
The dog and the cat lived together for years and the cat was bullying the dog all the time. Shit happens sometimes.
There it is, cat was complacent and let it's gaurd down. No offense to your neighbor, but if they had two animals that were fighting for years, they should have re-homed one of them.