Great story and glad you came out OK.

Just something to consider which I taught when teaching escape and evasion to some troops which works on Dogs and Cats.

If you can get hold of the Back legs and push them apart,
it breaks the Spine / Hip and immobilises / kills them.
In an emergency it could probably be done with the front
legs as well.

When teaching it to Soldiers, we used to demo the Dog grabbing your (protectied) forearm - and I know this would be harder to do with Cats but it may one day be an option.

Anyway, thanks for writing the story up.