They also avoid fighting with a pack of yapping dogs, regardless of the dogts size. That is how they can be chased up, and held in a tree by hounds. The Cougar is quite capable of dispatching a human if their decision goes that way. They are also capable of defending them selves from dog packs. In the aforementioned issue of Outdoor California, a Cougar hunter relates an the experience of having a treed cat come down and kill 6 dogs in less than 10 seconds.
Cougars are exclusively solitary with exception of brief mating periods, or when female has kittens.
They carry this singularity to the point of being a danger to their own kind. Large males will fight to the death, and injured Cougars are fair game for any other Cougar. Under these circumstances a Cougar cannot accept injury for the sake of a kill. No one will help the injured Cougar, in fact it may become a prey animal itself. It is not cowardice that stays the Cougar but merely prudence.