I see that mlerose posted later and cleared up that the guy did take the cat in, but didn’t give any useful information about it, so at least he’s not guilty of complete abandonment. Which does happen. The vet I took my cats to when I lived in the city adopted out a kitten to me that had been dumped in a box on the clinic’s doorstep. York survived that, but the two much younger kittens in the box with him didn’t make it.
Overall, though, I’d say mlerose is correct to step away from this guy. Shaving an animal to punish it? Yeesh – gives me the creeps just to think about what else this cretin might be capable of if he got mad enough.
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Zabali_Clawbane, I owe you an apology. I was way out of line rude and mean to you in a Pit thread during the height of the subscription brouhaha. The things I said were cruel and hurtful, and I am truly ashamed of myself. Please forgive me.
I’ve recently come to like cats. And I love my wife for it. She’s like Ellie Mae Clampette with critters. We have two cats, Jane, a male, and Great Whore Jezebel, a female. We call her Jezzy for short.
Accepted. I don’t think anything more needs to be said about the matter, except, thank you.
On preview UncleBeer it can be inferred, in that he continued in his mistaken attempts to dominate the cat, instead of using better methods to teach it the house rules.
I guess I don’t know for sure, but I do know that a couple of weeks before all this happened, he told me she had been chewing on the computer cords. I asked if he’d rearranged stuff yet and he said no, he liked the arrangement the way it was, and she’d only chew the cords when he wasn’t home to discourage it. Then two weeks later I hear he’s dumped her at a shelter, and the shelter volunteer who told me related part of her conversation with him. This, coupled with his earlier treatment of the cat, led me to infer that he wasn’t willing to change the arrangement to keep the cat from chewing on the cords. I do know he didn’t ask me or my shelter volunteer neighbor for advice about the situation. Granted, I’m not a vet, but if he’d asked me I would have tried to figure out some better ways for him to arrange things so as to keep the cat away from the computer cords.
That sounds a lot like the situation my cat Abby was in before I got her. She wasn’t abused (I don’t think), but the guy was ambivalent towards her, and I know he often locked her up in his bathroom. He wasn’t really a friend, but an acquaintance. I saw him one evening and as I usually did, I asked him how his cat was. He said he had put her outside because “She was too loud”. I was shocked (I knew she was an indoor-only cat), and asked him if she was still there. He said yes, and I asked if I could have her. He said yes. Luckily she was still hanging around in the tiny yard of his apartment, which was very close to a busy road and the freeway on-ramp. Poor thing was in heat! He did stop by to see her once after I took her in, but she wouldn’t go near him.
On of my neighbors left their cat Froushco outside, and moved to Brazil. We noticed him outside and were shocked because we know that they sold their house and left the country, without taking it to a shelter or with them. Thankfully we took him in.
My family’s cat was given to us by some friends who found the entire litter abandoned in a plastic bag by the side of the road. He’s grown up into a wonderful cat, but the mind boggles at the thought of people who do such things.
My cat does that too. Little fucker has ruined my computer speakers, two modems, and three or four sets of headphones, etc. He’s lucky to be alive, god damn it, but not because I would hurt him, because of the ouch inside the wires. I wrote in to a pet advice column and they recommended (a) taping the wires down, and (b) coating them with nasty-tasting stuff – you can buy some at the pet store that is foul but not toxic.
I don’t have much to add to the real gist of the OP that hasn’t been mentioned, but the wire-chewing bit struck a chord.
I knew a cord-chewing cat once. Well, he had been a cord-chewer. When I met him, he had three-quarters of a tongue, had been renamed with the dual sobriquets ‘Sparky’ and ‘Lucky,’ and wouldn’t go near a cord if it were dipped in tuna juice.
We dropped our dog off at the shelter because she wasn’t a good fit. (It was a no kill shelter, so back off with the tar and feathers.)
We had her for several months, and she barked incessantly when she was outside and whenever it rained. Ivylad was in great pain from his back surgery, and would try to sleep during the day, but when it rained, the dog barked and kept him up.
We decided she needed another home, so we dropped her off and got another dog.
This guy sounds like a jerk, but I think the cat will be better off in a new home. Sometimes pets and people just don’t match up well. He could have dumped her off the side of a highway, or drowned her in the bathtub. Now, he won’t hurt her anymore, and she will hopefully find a new, happier home. I think, under the circumstances, he did the best thing for the cat.
I once came home to find my answering machine lying upside down in the middle of the living room, trailing a chewed-through cord. None of the resident felines confessed. I’ve had to replace the cord between the handset and the base on a couple of telephones because a Certain Large Orange Cat (you know who you are, Eddy) has a habit of munching on them till the wire inside breaks.
Boscibo, I’d say your acquaintance may not have physically abused Abby when he had her, but did so mentally. I gave a cat away to friends when it became plain she was miserable in my multicat household, and when I drop by the barn where she lives now, she’s all over me. If the guy had been kind to her, she’d still think kindly of him rather than avoid him.
ivylass, I agree you did the right thing for everyne concerned. Am I correct that the new dog was an adoption from the shelter?
cherry, when I lived in Boston I rescued a cat that had been abandoned by someone living in a nearby apartment when they moved out. I suspect it happens more than we’d like to think.
I always take a second look at cardboard boxes by the side of the road – you never know…
Yes, ETF, the new dog was an adoption from the same shelter. So, there was a zero effect on the resources at the pound.
I don’t think our old dog had any problems getting adopted. We actually got her from the same shelter several months before, and she was an unspayed Norwegian Elkhound with papers, which the shelter gave me, even though they weren’t supposed to encourage breeding.
We returned her with the papers, and last I heard, she’d been taken to a Norwegian Elkhound Rescue Society and probably had puppies.
It’s sad to say, but I was actually relieved that the guy just dumped his cat at the shelter. I was thinking that the cat was thrown away in a dumpster in a garbage bag. At least the cat has a chance at a better home now.
I threw away 3 of my cats. I carried them up to the waters edge then gave them a toss into it. At which time I quickly grabbed a net that could reach them just incase they could not swim. They all swam back, climbed up onto dry land, gave me a very dirty look, and earned their right to go outside on their own. I find this nessesary due to past cat loss due to drowning. I just have to know that they can swim and they know how to get back on land if they fall in.
My dad figured out decades ago that the cost of a few bullets once the litter is up and walking around is less than spaying or neutering your pets. One of my sisters recently released the lop-eared rabbit --which my other sister had abandoned to her care when she moved out of their apartment, as it was no longer cute and tiny – into the woods to either starve to death or be eaten by the local stray population.
Your neighbor sounds like a grade-A jerk, mlerose, and I think he’s earned the cold-shoulder from you, but at least he took his cat to the shelter. He cared about her welfare on some level or he wouldn’t have bothered to do that much.
I don’t think anything more needs to be said about the matter, except, thank you.