I had a cat that had that instinct
It had a few large dogs scared and they would walk on the other side of the street, ran a neighbors pitbull back into it's house and they had to ask me to keep her out of their yard
If I opened the door and said get em she would confront anything regardless of size
It was a 15 lb brindlecoat female and she had a mean on her whole life, was pretty funny. Young kids were scared of her simply due to her markings/face and piercing brindlecoat eyes. Great cat, kind of a dog type of personality.