I had my wds out earlier as usual, lol and my bfs cat came by and at first they hid on the underside of my forearms then they came out and when the can rubbed on my legs they both ran down to my hands and puffed up their throats, ans sally opened her mouth real wide..were they being protective of themselves or me?

Protective of themselves or their territory. A couple of my dragons used to do something similar when we first got Napoleon (our iguana) and brought him in to "their" room.

Please be careful of cats and herps. If the cat attacked the water dragon it's teeth would break their soft skin, and since the cats teeth are narrow and needle like you would have a hard time finding the punture mark. The wound would seal over easily trapping in the bacteria from the cat bite. I've heard of a lot of water dragons that were attacked by curious cats, who apparently looked fine to their owners after the attack but died within a few days. Very dangerous. Please be careful.

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Tricia

Ditto that: not just for wd's: Cat bites are extremely dangerous: cat's have a lot of bacteria in their mouths /saliva and their bites don't usually bleed: the bacteria is "locked into" the tissue (usually pretty deep) and VERY nasty infections can result.

If you get a cat bite, you should call a doctor or go to a hospital. (NO joke!) My sister in law was bit in the thumb by her cat and just washed it and put some topical antibiotic cream on it... within 3 days the infection was so bad she had to have her hand and wrist operated on and was on IV-antibiotics for a long time!

PS-- I agree that they consider you "their territory" so they were, in a sense protecting both: you and their territory!

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Andrea

I have a book about wds and on one page the author talks about two wild caught and a captiv born waterdragons and he noticed that while the cat passed their terrarium the captive born and the wild caught both showed fear towards the cat,but towards the dog,both did nothing at all;they might have the instinct to fear a cat(maybe they have some cat like animals where they are from?)and they don't have a natural fear towards dogs.
Does someone know the natural enemies of a water dragon?
So your wds just showed the instinct of being afraid of cats and protecting their life(and yours ).
I read that wds do know their owners and can be shy towards strangers.It seems they are quite intelligent little guys,don't you think?!