Cat owner complaint

The BBQ Pit
1

I just spent the last twenty minutes trying to track down the owners of a poor cat I found. I was coming back home, and saw a black cat frozen in the middle of the road, a blood stain, and a possum running under a car. At first, actually, I thought it was my roommate’s cat; both are black, but it wasn’t. I knocked on a couple doors, seeing if anyone knew who’s cat it was…he was declawed and pretty friendly, so I was fairly certain he wasn’t a stray.
I finally found someone who directed me to an apartment; unfortunately, they weren’t home, but the cat seemed content to wait on the porch. <sigh> I didn’t know what else to do, so I left him there, and I still feel bad.

So, WHY is it that some cat owners let their cats out like that? It wasn’t even wearing a collar. I have seen too many cats wandering around; across busy streets, into dark corners, frozen in the middle of the road in our faily busy neighborhood. I don’t get it; if you insist on letting your cat out, when there is no fence, couldn’t you at least put a collar on it?!
The blood stain apparently came from a cat that was hit and killed by a car earlier this evening. Gah!! Take care of your cats! It seems fairly common for people around here to let their cats out unsupervised, but even the most intelligent, loyal cat who stays close to home could get hurt. (Yes, I understand that pets can run out, but since I did find a neighbor that knew the cat by name, I’m guessing it’s been out before.)
It’s just really sad, I think. I’m getting a kitten in a few weeks, and I can’t imagine ever letting her go outside unsupervised.

Not a rant up to Pit standards, I know, but I find this more sad than anything else. :frowning:

2

ps…I just noticed “Pet related rant”…this would have fit in well there.

3

I’ve had four cats at the place I live now. None of them wore collars, none of them were restricted to the house, none of them were hit by cars, mauled by raccoons, or in other wise injured because of it. Two of them were put down due to illness, one died in his sleep, and the fourth is still alive. Cats are capable pets, for the most part they can take care of themselves. Yes, sometimes they get hurt. But I think its crueler to keep a cat locked in your house all day then to let it out and take a chance that it might get in a fight or hit by a car.

BTW, its not a good idea to put a collar on a cat. They can easily hook it on something and strangle.

4

errm…yeah, that’s why I thought you were to use the safety-release kind…?

5

Well. My guys are rehabed strays.

They do what they want and we feed them. They want to go out at whim. (One for days at a time, the other doesn’t go off the property.) They don’t want to wear collars. They want to rip collars off their furry little heads.

So we could strap collars on them so tight they can’t talk, or we could let them go collarless.

As for keeping them in… you can try. We prefer our doors intact as well as our skins.

I understand this is dangerous for them. I really do. The odds of them getting hurt increase amazingly when we open our door and let them sprint for freedom.

But the odds of me getting hurt increase when I leave as well, and I too would go nuts and eat people trapped in my house.

Quality of life counts. If they were born as our housepets and never went outside I would be fine with keeping them in. If they were happy inside all of the time, I’d keep them in. They were street cats and I’ve seen the wanderer attack a German Shepherd. He likes being outside. He can take care of himself out there. I can’t keep him in. Even ‘for his own good’.

So there’s my reasoning.

6

I have to agree with Medea’s Child. You just don’t understand until you have a cat of your own, who wants to be let out, and refuses to quit wailing at all hours of the night until you open the door. There is no shutting them up.
I’m sure the owner understands the danger. But there must be a sense that keeping some animals inside is crueler than allowing them out, and I am a huge advocate for quality of life.
Also, you mentioned quick-release collars as a method of keeping the animal identifiable and safe at the same time. They do not always work, and think of how much that must cost to replace collars every time they are removed by the cat. They’re not stupid. I know from experience that it is an invaluable learning experience the first time that collar hooks on something and kitty gives a sharp tug. Voila! From now on, every time you put the collar back on it is just a matter of time before they run to the nearest suitable object to rub the collar off.
All in all, I think that the owner surely knows the danger, remember you aren’t the only one who sees the fresh roadkill on your neighborhood streets. Keeping stubborn cats inside is a lot more difficult than keeping a stubborn dog in. You just don’t know until you’ve been there.

7

I had a cat that you couldn’t keep a collar on even if you used duct tape to attach it to his furry little body. He’d have that sucker off before he got out of the driveway. he aslo would go out and kill dinner for himself if he was getting bored with kibbles. Sometimes he hunted down things that were bigger than himself. He would force himself to eat the whole thing then be misrable for three days until his feet could reach the ground again. :smiley: He died in his sleep.

Cats are smart. They rarely get hit by cars. You sure as hell never see one chaseing a car.

8

A couple more things to add…
This cat wasn’t your responsibility. You didn’t need to take it around looking for it’s owner, animals don’t easily become “lost” in a real sense. This cat knows where it lives, and you didn’t need to meddle.
Is your rant about cat owners not keeping collars on their pets? Or is it about cat owners releasing their animals to the outdoors? I for one would like a little more clarification, so I know what questions to answer.
I’ve got 6 cats, 2 strays, 2 kitten-strays, one housecat from birth and one SPCA rescue. I can answer just about anything you need to know from experience. Don’t judge until you’ve been there. Believe me.

9

Well I’m going to chip in here to see if I can get the cat owners to see some good reasons for not letting cats out, no matter what the cost.
Let me say straight out that I like cats. My housemate has a cat and I love it. It’s a sweet natured Burmese. It never gets out unless it’s on a leash. We’ve built a fenced-in sun-room for it, and it has free run of both the living area of the house and the downsatirs rumpus room/garage. What I can’t abide is other people’s cats being nuisances. Consider the following.

1)If you beleive the insurance companies’ stats, people swerving to miss pets is a fairly major cause of car accidents. Yeah I know a lot of these are dogs, and a lot of them are probably made up to explain stupidity. The issue here is not whether the cat gets hits by the car. They’re fast animals built low to the ground. They probably won’t. That’s great. But what about the driver, his car and the car he swerves into? Bringing a mobile traffic hazard into an area where it didn’t exist before and letting it run free is not the most civic minded act I can imagine.

2)These cats are digging up my gardens. They’re killing plants I paid money for. One of them killed a plant that I literally can not replace because it isn’t commercially available. To replace it I’d have to travel about 1000 miles and be there at the exact time of year it sets seed, and thats about every 5 years. Yeah its only a plant, but it got killed because your cat decided my garden bed is a shithouse.

3)These cats are scratching the shit out of my fly screen security door. The fucking thing cost me $170. Yes our cat is a queen, but the fucking thing is desexed and locked inside. Your fucking cat wants to talk to, fight with or fuck her and you don’t want it scratching the shit out your door. Great, shoot your cat, de-claw it, lobotomise it. I don’t give a fuck so long as you don’t disturb me with the details. Just don’t let the bloody flea-bitten animal destroy my fucking property.

4)Which brings me to the next point. Fleas and worms. Tobi is wormed regularly, she’s powdered regularly. I’ve sprayed the entire house and her basket with Army strength Permethrin. There’s no bloody way she should have fleas or worms. For some reason every time we let her out onto the veranda she starts scratching. Take a look and shes got fleas. Fleas spread worms. For Crom’s sake at least keep your fucking cat clean if you insist on letting it roam.

5)My flatmate’s car is covered every second morning in muddy foorprints. Wait, it’s not mud, it’s at least partially catshit in all probability. We just washed that car. This house has a carport for a reason: so she can wash her car and it will stay clean. Your cat is really pissing me off now,

5)My carport is not a litterbox either. Yes it’s dry. It’s meant to be. That way the car stays clean and we don’t have to walk through mud wheneever we get out of the car. Yes it’s paved with crushed bluemetal. It helps keep it dry. The odour of catshit and urine is not pleasant. We don’t want to walk through it.

6)My neighbour. Geoff’s a nice old man. He’s 67 years old. He’s retired. He’s got a nice shadehouse. It only cost about $400. Your cat thinks its a great game to swing off the shadecloth and rip it to shit. It’s now almost to the stage that it needs replacing. Yeah so its ten years old and the cloth is perishing in the sun. If your cat wasn’t hanging off it it wouldn’t tear.

7)My flatmate’s lovebird. Yes it’s supposed to go under the house at night. Occasionlly we forget and it stays out on the verandah. We don’t get many snakes here. It should be safe. I don’t want to wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of her screaming at your cat because it’s got its paw stuck in the bars of the cage and is frightening the bird to death. If it had been any slower getting free this problem wouldn’t have occured again I assure you.

8)Fights. I work out of town a lot. I don’t sleep well in motels and swags. I tend to spend Friday nights after I return with friends/GF catching up. I stay out late. I like to be able to sleep when I do go to bed. I like to be able to sleep saturday night too. I don’t want to be woken up at 4am by your cats fucking or fighting on my lawn. They are screaming 9 feet from my ear. I like fresh air, I live in th tropics, I leave my window open all night. It’s fucking niosy and it disturbs my sleep. You think your cat screams and hisses when you try to keep it in. Do you know what noise it’s making on my fromt lawn?

9)The wildlife. I keep my cat locked up. I plant my garden with native plants, I’ve even installed a frog pond. It’s great. I’ve got half a dozen species of lizard, three species of frog, countless birds and even a dragon using my garden. I like that. I’m a country boy at heart. I should be able to enjoy what little wildlife I can in the suburbs. Your moggie is killing these animals. No, it’s not natural. You are feeding this predator. If it doesn’t kill it goes home to a bowl of Kirt-E-Kat. It then has the strength to kill ‘my’ frogs tommorrow night. The density of predators in this area is probbaly 100 times what would be natural anywhere in the world.
Of course in this part of the world cats aren’t natural at all. When I find a pile of feathers where some honey-eater has met an untimely demise in my back yard I tend to get a little cranky. Sure it probably makes no difference in the greater scheme but I paid for this yard. I enjoy watching wildlife. What fucking right do you have to deny me this because you want a semi-feral introduced pest?

So I’m pissed off with your cat. So I spent about 4 hours and about $30 of my time and money and I built a cat trap. I’m proud of it. It works. I spend about $10 on cat food. I catch your shitty cat. Hell I catch 5 of them in a week. I take them to the council pound. You go looking for the cat, pay a $25 fine and get the moggie back. Doesn’t worry me, until the folowing week I notice cat shit, fleas, dug up gardens etc. “Oh Ho” I think, “another cat has moved into the territory. Now worries, I’ll just trap it and take it away. She’ll be right.”
Like hell she will. There’s one new cat all right, and then I catch two of the same fucking cats. You’ve got the fucking thing from the pound and let it out again.
Well one has a collar. I attach a sample jar to that collar, and in the jar I place a brief note to the effect that next time I get this close to this cat’s neck I will be doing somehting other than attaching notes. I let the animal go. It’s never seen again. Gee you can keep the little disease factory inside if you want too.
The other re-capture has no collar. Now if I take it to the pound the owners are just going to let it go again, and I’ll have to aste money trapping it again. Added to this even a moggie this dumb will learn to avoid the trap eventually. What a dilemma. Fortunately I have a petrol engine, an old plastic shower curtain and a deep hole. I don’t feel good about this but I’m not losing much sleep either.

I know that not all of the above criticisms will apply to all cats or all act owners in all parts of the world. But please be aware of the potential nuisance value of your cat. Keeping your cat inside isn’t just about your animal’s happiness, or your happiness, or the preservation of your property. You bought that animal, it’s your responsibility as a good citizen and a decent human being not to let it become a nuisance. If you can’t do this get rid of the cat. I shouldn’t have to have my property and happiness destroyed because you want a cat.
And at least in my neck of the woods if you want to see your cat alive I strongly recommend a collar.

10

Gaspode,
9.5

Comments: Not enough use of words like ‘bat-noodling fuck-piece’.

11

Okay, look. I have three cats, a mother and two of her children. We took them in, and three more of the mother’s kittens, as strays several years ago and they have been strictly indoor cats ever since.

Every cat is different. Every once in a while someone will leave a door open and one or more of the cats will go zipping outside. We hunt them down (they don’t go far) and bring them back in, and if we’re lucky they haven’t gotten fleas. They all wear collars mainly because we’re worried about what may happen to them when they escape. Sure, they objected for a while, but now they’re quite used to them, and they’re the safety release variety.

Some cats won’t abide collars. Some will mew and meowl at the door for hours wanting to get out. The decision of what to do with one’s cat is different for every situation. However, I can’t imagine coming home to find out that one of my cats has been hit by a car or eaten by a coyote.

(An aside on coyotes – cats in general don’t stand a chance against them. The only way a cat can escape a coyote is if they’re close enough to a tree when they spot them. If you live in coyote territory then please please bring your cats indoors at night.)

So … I can’t tell anyone what to do with their cat. There are valid points on either side of this debate. But you really have to think hard about the cat’s safety.

12

My first cat (may she rest in peace) was uncollarable – she was worse than the dog in that kid’s book who keeps ditching his hated rose-patterned sweater.

When I adopted my current cat he was already desexed and declawed, and the Toronto Humane Society had a microchip inserted into his shoulder. If someone finds him and turns him in, the shoulder is scanned like a can of peas at the supermarket, and my name and phone number comes up. Have any other Dopers heard of this process, or is it a local thing?

13

Oh, yes; microchips are all over. Alvin, my cool flock buddy, has one.

14

What Gaspode, you think you have it rough. First of all, let me state that I am a proud cat owner (as well as the owner of the world’s smartest large dog) and I take good care of my kitties. They are all healthy well-adjusted, de-sexed (well, ther third will be when she’s old enough), and 100% indoor cats since one is declawed, one is too fat, and the other is too young.

My next-door neighbor (the 75 year-old widower, not the 29 year-old hottie) goes out every morning and puts out food for his cats. A lot of food, and a lot of cats. About 15. He puts it on top of his storm shelter, which is right outside my bedroom window. Every morning at 7:00, all three of my cats walk across my bed to get to the windowsill so they can watch the other cats, waking me up if the cats outside haven’t already been fighting while waiting to get fed. I don’t have air conditioning in my bedroom. I have an attic fan, so I have to open windows to cool the house. I don’t want an air conditioner in that room, because I like having fresh air flowing freely into the house and I save a pile on electric bills. I cannot leave the windows down on my truck or the damn cats get in it. It used to be my brother’s work truck, so I don’t give a rat fuck about the pawprints, but turds on the floor mats are not, shall we say, kosher with me. I also own a classic 1985 Toyota Celica GT-S Convertible, a rare car that has all the good things a sports car should, without an exhorbitant price tags. In the spring, summer, and fall, I love top-down motoring. I used to leave the top down just about all summer long, except when caught out in a rain storm. Here, I can’t even get out of the car without putting the top up before the damn cats get inside the car to get at my stash of Starlight mints (they know where they are, now). I’ve had to get a car cover to keep the fucking cat autographs off the hood. My canvas top is also covered in fucking cat hair. The cover is such a giant pain in the fucking ass to remove every time I leave and put on every time I want to go that I don’t even drive the fucking car any more. My step-mother came over last spring and helped me plant a couple of flower beds to make my house look good. Everything in them is already dead after four fucking months. I spent over $100 on those flower beds and now they’re ruined. There’s so much cat shit in them now I’ll have to dig up the soil if I want to grow anything again. I tried trapping the damn things, since they’re all strays that just hang around for free food. He feeds them so they’ll stick around and kill the mice in his sheds. For every one I trapped, I’d see two or three more take its place. I’ve tried complaining at the town hall, but they no longer have a dedicated animal control officer. If a dog becomes a nuisance, one of the police officers comes and gets it or shoots it with a tranquilizer, if necessary. For cats, they won’t do a damn thing. I did get one of the Town Trustees to get an ordinance considered that would limit the number of animals one can keep, but it probably won’t get passed for a couple of months while they chew it over. I’ve just about given up. There are times I think about crafting a silencer for my .22 and sitting on the porch at night, but violating a federal law is probably too extreme. Trapping is such a pain in the ass because the nearest shelter is 18 miles away and keeps really odd office hours. I’d poison the damn things, but I just don’t have the heart for it, yet.

15

There are very good arguments for keeping cats indoors. All kinds of horrible stuff can happen to them outside and they annoy other people.

They’ll live longer if you keep them indoors.

However, I’ve never had an indoor only cat and never will. If the cat wants to go live the dangerous life, so be it. I’ll feed it when it comes home and pet it when it sits in my lap.

If it gets run over by a car I’ll be sad and then go get a new cat. If it gets mauled by a dog and get it patched up and let it decide if it wants to do that. If it contracts feline AIDS I will buy it a box of condoms and pay for its protease inhibitors. If it calls me at 3am from the pound I’ll go bail it out.

In 27 years of outdoor cats we’ve only ever lost one, to a car. The others tend to die younger (10-11 years) but I think they live happier and what’s life without having the cat occasionally give you with a robin?

16

“gift you with a robin.”

17

<ducks stones>

To ladyfoxfyre’s comment…

Ok, and seriously, I’m not trying to be sarcastic here, but then why are there ‘lost cat’ signs all over my neighborhood? Does that just mean that the cat ran away? Stuff happens. I live in a smallish city, and I got lost here for the first few months… :slight_smile:
Secondly, I feel I did ‘need to meddle’. You’re right, it wasn’t my responsibility, but I was worried. The cat looked exactly like my roommate’s, and there was a puddle of blood on the road…I didn’t know if it had been hurt or not. I picked the cat up, not with the intention of meddling or as a criticism of the owner’s business and choices, but out of concern. If that makes me a worrywort, so be it, but I was genuinely worried about the cat.

Ignoring the more philosophical aspects of ‘you can’t know unless you have experienced it’ argument, I agree with you in this case. This will be the first cat I own as an adult. I don’t know how she will behave. I also understand that every cat is different; ** Medea’s Child** has cats that were strays, and it’s likely they have different needs than a kitten raised indoors by a breeder that will be a housecat (like mine). But, I was not (and if I wasn’t clear, I’m sorry) talking about such cats. The cat I found was declawed. If your cat has grown accustomed to being outside, then obviously you must deal with that.

Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the risk of letting them out into the open (a fenced-in property would seem safer). The collar comment was made because I feel that if people are going to take the risk of letting their cats run around on city streets (and declawed, at that!), the least it seems they could do is put a collar on them, so that if they do wander off, they might be found.
I can’t tell you what I will do if my kitten yowls incessantly to go out. I have a sun porch, will get her a leash, not declaw her, and hope that she is content with it. I still just can’t fathom letting her onto the street (there are no front yards in the neighborhood, and my backyard is a parking lot) without keeping an eye out. I guess I’m just missing something…

18

Gaspode - you killed somebody else’s pet?

Are you aware that people see their pets almost as children? I can’t even begin to describe the horror I feel at your inhumanity.

pan

19

I have two indoor only cats. They have been that way since birth, so there isn’t even an issue of them really wanting to go out, despite being highly active indoors. I’m sure they’d love going outside. Unfortunately, they’re not going out, for several reasons.

Both cats were obtained from shelters that required me to sign a contract stating that I would keep them indoors at all times. I realize that this contract is unenforcable, but the principle is there: I knew what I was getting into when I signed the thing, so I’m going to stick to it.

The shelters that made me sign the contracts (a different shelter for each cat) had very good reasons for this requirement, and they have surprisingly little to do with the cat’s well being:

  • First and foremost, they don’t want to be wasting time, energy, and money on “recycling” cats that have been adopted, allowed outside, and have gone stray again. The recidivist rate at these shelters is pretty high, and this costs money, and defeats the purpose of finding them adoptions in the first place.

  • Cats are an ecological disaster to local wildlife. This happens in two ways: cats that hunt “for pleasure” while remaining domestic, and cats that become feral (particularly unspayed/unneutered cats). Housecats are incredibly adept predators, and I for one am not concerned about the cat’s safety, rather the problems inherent in letting a disproportionately skilled predator loose on an unprepared ecosystem. Feral cats are even worse, as certain regions (ie, Australia) have especially bad problems with feral cats (formerly pets) destroying the local habitat.

I’m not passing judgement on the majority of cat owners who let their cats outside, and I realize I’m in the minority. But there are excellent reasons to keep a cat indoors that fall outside the realm of the cat’s well being.

20

If the cat you found was declawed, then I will reverse myself and say that, if anything, you didn’t go far enough.

A declawed cat should never see the outside world. This is an animal that can no longer effectively run away (can’t climb), can no longer effectively defend itself, and can no longer effectively hunt.

This is why I refuse to declaw a cat, even if it were to be an indoor cat (which is likely as my wife and I have different feelings on this issue) I can not guarantee that it will never slip out. If it does I don’t want it to be defenseless.

If the owner of the cat you found intentionally let it go outside then that person should not own the cat.