OMG the clock is ticking! It’s life or death! That’s why we’re discussing it on a message board! Send help qui-- (too late, the cat suddenly starved her to death)
Well, if the clock really was ticking, she’s got a Purdue-edumacated gun-totin’ landlord who would no doubt be happy to oblige by putting a couple of rounds into it.
Most shelters and rescue places require a donation or deposit for the animal traps because otherwise people have no incentive to return them.
What the hell? I didn’t post and I most assuredly would not advocate shooting a cat.
I can tell you have no problem purchasing all the food you need. Anybody that has been in the situation where that food from the garden is very important wouldn’t have your attitude. Why don’t you send her some money to cover the food she won’t get from her garden. She has already put a lot of effort into growing some food to supplement her family. It’s a lot of work and it is a big deal. The bolding was so people would actually see the sentence and stop suggesting renting traps. She has said over and over she can’t pay anything for traps.
Does the cat always crap in the same place? My impression was that once a cat decides where a litter box is, it will use it. So you could abandon that particular 10 square feet of garden and plant elsewhere. Hopefully the little bastard won’t go looking for fresh areas.
In the same vein, if you dig out all the offending matter so it no longer smells like a litter box, that might also work.
And a scarecrow sort of deal might not be a bad idea. Anything that will flop around and make noise when the wind blows – cans on a string, maybe.
Finally, if Hav-a-hart traps are out of reach, there’s always the old “cardboard box propped up on a stick” trap. Only problem is that if you catch a skunk by accident, you’d wish you hadn’t.
Thanks for making me snort my coffee, hajario!
Cat-lover here, and this thread was making me feel pretty miserable until now. I hope the OP finds a solution to the problem of the feral, but I don’t think shooting at it, unless you’re a good shot, is a great idea. Shooting at it to in a way that would probably just maim it (using a slingshot/marbles, bow&arrow for example)=not good
ideas. After a while, you’ll be facing a pissed-off as well as pissy feral cat.
By the time you get good enough with a bow and arrow or a slingshot, the garden will be a thing of the past.
Animal Control would not lend me one; I had to go and buy it. It works well, though. I have trapped 12 cats so far and Animal Control comes and picks them up.
I just wish I could get my hands on the stupid human who has been leaving dozens of paper plates filled with wet and dry cat food behind the wall that runs behind all the houses on my side of the street. Who’s got all this money? And why the frak can’t they adopt the damn things if they enjoy feeding them so much?
I’m starting to wish I had a bear trap to snag the sonsabitches.
People don’t get that they’re not doing the cats any favors. Unless they’re doing catch & release and fixing the damn things, there’s just going to be more and more cats. And none of them are going to be healthy or happy.
Broomstick, I’m sorry there’s not a reasonable animal rescue group near you. I’m a cat lover (duh), but if it comes to it - shoot the damn thing and be done with it. It’s just a cat.
Probly meant Uvula Donor, who did.
I didn’t recommend Animal Control, and wouldn’t expect them to lend traps.
Oh, and Petfinder has a list of animal groups. Maybe you can find one that’s a bit more generous. I really recommend you don’t mention you might kill it. They tend to start foaming at the mouth at such things.
Oh good. So I can shoot the owner of the puppy who craps in my yard daily? Or better yet, I can shoot the owner who lets it?
Christ, where do you people live that you can shoot a gun without anyone at least issuing an expensive citation, yet have no probelm with deer, moles, raccoons, chipmunks, and all the other assorted critters who actually eat the tasty garden vegetables?
If you can find an Animal Control department that doesn’t respond aggressively to reports of a stray dog, I wouldn’t object to hearing you’d shot it on your property. The OP’s problem comes, in part, from the dichotomy between how the the authorities deal with reports of stray/feral cats and how it would deal with the same report of a stray/feral dog.
For that matter, if you know whom the owner of the dog you have a problem with you can usually get the police to issue citations for littering, or failing to obey pooper-scooper laws. (Assuming your municipality has such.) None of which recourse is available to someone who is dealing with the problems of a stray/feral, or simply wandering pet, cat.
I’m not one who has been screaming to shoot the cat, but I won’t condemn Broomstick if that’s what she ends up doing. The people I think deserving of your ire are all the various local rescue organizations that require fees that represent a significant fraction of the purchase price of a live-trap for cats. ISTR that the thread had Broomstick quoting fees (or non-optional donations :rolleyes: ) of $50-60 for the use of a live trap. Havahart sells cat-sized live traps for as little as $61.75.
Then I guess it would be helpful to you for me to repost the fact that it only costs $5 to rent a trap.
She brings in a credit card, they run it, but do not process the charge until you return the trap. If you catch the cat in 1 day, you are then only charged $5.00.
A hungry, feral cat can be caught easily in 1 day.
If she needs $5, and I mean this sincerely with no sarcasm whatsoever, hell, if she needs $50, I will gladly send it to her because I totally empathize with her plight, as I share it myself. And she seemed to feel she was out of options, so I was trying to help with offering a rather cheap solution based on my personal experience with the same situation.
I’m a massive cat-lover (lover of all animals, mostly), and I too would go with the “just shoot the damned thing” option. I am also from a farming community - when animals get to be problems, you take care of them quickly and humanely, and feral cats are problems.
No, it costs a $60 dollar deposit to rent a trap. Let me explain this slowly so that you understand.
$60 dollars represents 2/3 of the grocery bill for my family for a week. In order to obtain $60 I would have to cut back from 3 meals a day to 1. For a week. Do you understand the problem now?
No, that is not what you said. You said I would have to give a $60 deposit and when I return it the deposit minus $5 per day would be refunded. Meaning they have my money.
Also, why do you assume I have a credit card? How the fuck do you think I obtain credit when living on such paltry resources? How the fuck do you think I can afford to pay any interest at all?
Why do you assume this cat is hungry? For all I know some idiot down the road is feeding it. We have a lot of baby birds and bunnies this time of year, the cat could be eating very well. What if it’s not caught in a day? If it takes 4 days I’m permanently out $20 - that’s 1/5 of the week’s food budget.
I need A JOB that PAYS A LIVING WAGE. THAT’s what I need. I get up in the morning, look for a job for 8 hours, then come home and work a couple hours trying to get a garden going. Sometimes, I get work for a day or two. I have a part-time job selling candy but it’s minimum wage and no more than 15 hours a week. I have no health insurance. I have a husband who requires daily medication to remain healthy, but we pay retail for it, except for the one prescription a sympathetic doctor is giving to us from free samples pharmaceutical reps. He is supposed to have quarterly blood tests to monitor his condition and medication levels, but since the cost of those tests for the uninsured is 150% of our monthly rent he is three months overdue and, frankly, I see no way that we can ever get these done for him, barring me getting solid employment. I am trading maintenance labor on the building I live in in exchange for some rent relief. I have a college degree and 25 years of working full-time behind me and yet that is the best I’ve been able to get in 6 months. The economy sucks, OK? That is why I am trying to grow a little food, so maybe we can get a few bucks ahead. Not thousands ahead, just a few bucks ahead. It boggles my mind that people can NOT comprehend that yes, it really is possible to be so poor that even $20 is a major expense.
Your solution is “cheap” for YOU - consider how “cheap” it would be for you to give up 2/3 of your meals for a week. That’s cheap? Think about it.
I am not out of options. I am out of options that involve a live cat at the end of drama. There is one option left, and it’s too bad for the cat.
From the GQ thread:
She’s far enough out of the city proper that folks can fire off guns with reasonable impunity, but not so far as to qualify as “rural”. We have a lot of fringe areas like that here in Decatur, too.
Broomstick: You go, girl. Nobody here at this end has the slightest difficulty with a decision in which the cat does not survive.