Fuck you, you disgusting abomination of a human being. Fuck you in the ass sideways with a fork. That was four hundred dollars I didn’t have. That’s several more hundred dollars next week that I still won’t have. That was a poor animal that never did a single thing to you.
Fuck you, you twisted shit eating rednecks from hell. I hope you die of alcohol poisoning, scrubbing the shit out of port-o-potties with your toothbrush. I hope Paul “Bear” Bryant comes back from the grave to give you syphilis. I hope a hepatitis-ridden aids carrying junkie bites you because they’re just that god damned crazy.
At the risk of rising your ire further, I’d like ask - was your cat on your property, or was it freely roaming through the neighborhood?
I am very sorry that your cat was hurt. I’m not advocating reducing the feral cat population by gunshot, either. But it’s no longer shocking for me to hear about people who get extremely frustrated trying to control cats on their own property and who then resort to illegal tactics.
I let the cats outside every now and then, and they roam the neighborhood for a little while, play with the strays, and come home. I suspect it was the neighbor with the bumper sticker that says “lost your cat? look under my tire.” But maybe he was just defending his property from my trespassing cat.
Perhaps your cat wasn’t telling you everything he/she did.
If (s)he’s like every other cat that roamed my neighborhood, (s)he also sat on people’s fences hissing and meowing at all hours, getting in fights with other cats (sometimes loudly enough to wake the neighbors and sometimes violent enough to leave blood somewhere else), pooping in other people’s yards (and in my case, right in front of my front door every day–they know enough not to mess up their own yards. . .very clean those cats), playing with drain covers and moving them to inappropriate places, killing birds, mice and lizard-like creatures and leaving them in other people’s yards to play with later, trampling on and killing plants, pissing all over to mark their territory, hissing at you when you want to go out in your own yard and lots, lots more if there’s a neighbor with bags to tear open or breakable things to knock over.
While I don’t condone anyone hurting an animal, sometimes when animals live these double-lives that their owners seem unaware of, things mysteriously happen to them.
Exactly what I was going to say. I have a lot of sympathy for the OP’s cat, but don’t let your cats outside! There are too many dangers to them out there, not to mention the annoyance they can cause to others in the neighborhood. Have you considered that the pregnant lady who’s never owned a cat could be exposed to toxoplasmosis by gardening if a cat has shit in her flower bed? I have nine cats - yes nine - who have their own suite in a converted double garage. They never go outside unless they are in carriers. Yet my Jeep smells like cat piss at this very moment because I had the gall to leave the doors off last night. Thanks, neighbor! Now if I put the doors back on, it’s going to smell really lovely when it heats up in the morning.
Keep your cats indoors and they won’t get shot. I feel really sorry for the cat, not so much for the OP.
I’m probably really stupid for having to ask this, but … did your cat survive or not? You don’t mention a name or gender either, but can we at least know the poor thing’s fate?
Either way, I’m so sorry. What kind of a horrible, uncivilized fuckhead would do such a thing to a defenseless animal? Jesus Christ.
I’m not going to get into the lecturing thing re: letting cats outside. This isn’t the time, it’s too raw. If your cat is still alive, I hope for all the best for his/her recovery. And if not, my thoughts are with you.
Well, in most places it’s not illegal to destroy an animal on ones own property. Discharging firearms is routinely illegal within most city limits, but in a lot of states, especially out west, pet owners are uniquely responsible for where their animal goes, meaning a property owner may shoot on sight any dog or other pet he sees on his property. It was not unusual for people to do so, in my experience.
I was writing a story on the local dog catcher once (it was actually an interesting job; loving animals was actually a handicap) and he told that in many jurisdictions cats actually have NO legal standing, meaning they could be destroyed by anyone, anywhere, if they were off the property of whomever owned them. Dogs at least couldn’t be destroyed if they were on PUBLIC property. A pretty fine distinction, if you ask me.
But still, I love cats (my posts on disciplining them in other threads notwithstanding.) Sorry about what happened to the the OP’s.
To those who are concerned, he’s alive, thankfully, but there’s a bullet lodged in his skull just above the jaw. He was shot with a .22 and it entered his face between the nose and the eye. It looks like he won’t be blinded in that eye, but we can’t be sure.
As clarification: I wasn’t thinking that trying to kill a feral representative of a pet species as being illegal. Rather that the two main methods I’ve read of people using to kill supposedly feral animals have been firearms or poison - both of which are problematical in urban areas. As you said, discharging firearms inside most municipalities is illegal and many states require a license to allow someone to put out ‘baits’ for poisoning problem animals.
Personally, if I were having a problem with a feral critter I’d go for a live trap, myself, precisely because of the problems with pet owners who think that roaming is perfectly legal and moral. I’ve seen the argument about wheter to allow cats to roam fought before on the Dope - it never ends well. All I’m going to restate is that it’s generally safer for a pet to be kept in controlled environments all the time. Quartz, while I accept that the UK doesn’t have a rabies fear, nor any natural predators that would go after cats (Though aren’t there a number of hawks native to the islands, and owls, both of whom will go after kittens and small cats?) that doesn’t affect the possibility of mischance with automobiles, nor from someone else’s dog within it’s own run.*
ForumBot, again, let me make clear - I’m terribly sorry for what happened to your cat, and I don’t believe that what was done to your cat was moral, whether or not it may have been legal. I’m glad to hear that he’s alive and the prognosis sounds good.
*My family’s first dog while I was growing up had been a German Shepherd/Husky mix, and as a puppy the neighbor’s cat came over, beat him up, and stole his food. This went on until Jay came to the realization that he was, in fact, now larger than the cat.
I found my old cat in the woods. It was a feral cat and a baby. No one could make that cat stay in. There was a beginning rat problem in my neighborhood that the city had mentioned as a problem. Spaulding solved it. Every day he left bodies on my lawn. Amazing how big they were, but he killed them all. Then every damn mouse in the area. We had a mouse problem a few years ago. He solved that too. No more mouse traps for us. Of course he also ate a few birds. PS no cats came around while he was here.
