Agreed.
With all due respect to you and NC*, Tripler, I hope your only take-away isn’t that you failed to plan for irrational neighbors. These are indoor cats – as all cats should be – and they had no business being outside, not to “poke around,” not for anything. The cats should be restrained for their own safety, if by that you mean kept inside. The cat could just have easily run into a dog or a car, and come back with an even worse outcome, if she ever came back at all.
I have no problem deciding your neighbor is a homicidal alcoholic or a person who just momentarily exercised bad judgment, or wherever on the blame scale you want to place him. But since you are willing to concede this was “an unfortunate accident with shared blame,” it seems to be in the best interests of the cats to realize precisely where the error was that you guys made. IMO, it wasn’t in underestimating or misapprehending your neighbor; it was in not keeping an indoor cat indoors. Does that justify shooting the poor animal? Of course not. And I certainly hope the poor kit gets well soon.
Jeezopete, Tripler and Nawth Chucka. Here’s more best wishes for the kitteh.
I’m no great fan of free-roaming animals, but it’s obvious that that wasn’t the case here.
The neighbor is an assbeagle.
You have a point. There are some people who build “cat runs” for their indoor pets. Maybe Tripler could make one for NC’s kitties to enjoy? I dunno, maybe even one that can be easily taken up for lawnmowing and in the winter? That would let the cats be able to nibble grass and enjoy the fresh breeze and sunshine, while ensuring they never go on the neighbor’s yard again. Of course, I’d still NEVER ever leave them outside alone, given that arsehole might decide on some target practice…
A very apropos username.
Or, on further thought, what about setting up some kind of “baby gate” that you can put in to keep your cats on the deck? Would they jump down off the deck, or do they have to use the stairs? 
We successfully made a cat pen on a balcony once - it involved tall, fine mesh chicken wire with the top folded inwards so she wouldn’t get ideas about jumping over it onto the 2 inch wide railing. Cats can be penned outside, but it’s damned hard because they can get out of just about anything - jump over, crawl under, squeeze through, dig, whatever it takes.
I’m hoping to make a cat run in our back yard some day; if I succeed and my cats are out there enjoying the day, I will most likely start trapping neighbourhood cats at that point. My cats in the cat run would go insane and probably hurt themselves from trying to get at the free-range cats. Cats are extremely territorial, and my yard is their territory. No other cats welcome.
So long as you are not cruel to the critters, and give the pet owners a chance to reform before taking them to the pound. (And maybe finding a way to put out the word discretely that a cat fitting <this description> went to the pound, so if you cat is missing check the pound so the owners can recover their pet.) I’d also make certain your pound isn’t the kind that kills critters brought to it outright. The dog catcher in a town I lived in was taking flak because they shot critters brought to them within 24 hours. I believe the pet owners should be responsible, and if the statutes are such that cats are not allowed to roam, then the owners should abide by that.
Tripler, Nawth Chuka,
So sorry to hear about Pipsqueak. Looks like she’ll be fine, though. Could you do me favor and print out what’s below out and pass it on to your neighbor? Thanks.
Super-Advanced, State-of-the-Art Cat Eradication Procedure — 2007 Version!!!
Step 1: Extend arm, place gun on table.
Step 2: Extend other arm, place drink on table.
Step 3: Open both hands.
Step 4: Slam palms together with great velocity.
Step 5: Grin with satisfaction as ferocious feline scampers off.
So sorry your neighbor is such an asshat. I think you are handling things extremely well all the way around. Good luck.
I’m still getting over the ‘all cats should be kept indoors always’ comments. Culture shock or what!
Over here i doubt anybody expects a day to pass when a strange cat *doesn’t * walk through their garden. Cats roam free and their owners aren’t held responsible for where they go or how they behave. To scare them off with loud noises or whatever is commonplace but i doubt anybody here would even think of tougher measures unless there was a persistent problem.
I consider cats part of the wildlife, just so happens that these ones get fed by people and curl up on cosy beds to sleep. I sympathise with bird-lovers but by veiwing them like wildlife i just see the killing of birds as being one of those things.
Well, my big question is this: what kind of moron puts a bird feeder three feet off the ground? You might as well gather up all the local cats and say, “Look, kitties, I built you a buffet!” I mean, three feet is the height of a standard kitchen counter, fercryinoutloud, and how many cats can’t make that jump?
I’m not saying people who are all whipped up about their bird feeders should have to build a fence to keep other animals out. But it is their responsibility to make sure that the feeders are high enough to not be so much of a temptation to other animals.
Quick update on Pipsqueak - I’m having a celebratory Woodchuck, as she has come into the living room and laid down in the open for the first time since Sunday. Prior to that, she’d been under or behind something if she wasn’t at the water dish or litter pan. Being in the open earned her a half can of Fancy Feast and she ate about a half of that. There’s been no fresh blood since yesterday. It looks like she may have started to put weight on her right ‘rear’ and is hobb-waddling on the road to recovery!
She’s gone back into the closet now, where she’d pulled a wool skirt off a hanger with her shifting. It’s a bed now and I expect its days as a skirt are numbered.
Thank you to all the kind dopers who were concerned about my ‘middle child’, you’re good peoples.
I guess I’ll play the asshole here and say I see nothing wrong with what the neighbor did. If an animal is on your property, I think you have a right to use a BB gun to scare it off. Actually, where I grew up, if a dog or cat is on your property you are well within your right to kill it. I don’t go that far, but shooting a cat with a BB gun is not necessarily wrong. Cats kill birds, cats shit in flower beds, cats tear up stuff, etc.
This is not to say I’d do the same thing. The neighbor’s cat is always coming in our yard and, at most, all I do is freak it out by banging on the window loudly. I don’t really care if it tramps around here. However, I can see why some people would care.
I sympathize that it was an indoor cat that was mistakenly let out and did not have a history of doing this. However, the neighbor seems like a decent fellow and he was not doing anything inappropriate.
Point # 1: You should read the entire thread before living up to your username so well…
Point # 2: You’re fired, Renob.
Point # 3: This entire thread has become a trainwreck, and should be locked…nothing beneficial will ever come of:
“2+2=4”
“No way man, 6-2=4. I don’t care how you see it.”
Opinions are like a**holes, and this thread has become awfully stinky.
I did read it and found that most people here were whining that a person did something that was not inappropriate (shooting a cat on his property with a BB gun). I simply thought I’d add my two cents that perhaps people were over-reacting just a tad bit.
Clever. Quoting a catch-phrase from a TV show that was popular two or three years ago is pretty original
Well, that can describe the majority of threads on the SDMB.
Now I’m picturing where you grew up as the kind of place where people sat around on their front porch with a shotgun in thier lap. Are you within your rights to kill revenooers that come onto your property, too?
You’re not too far off. I grew up in a very rural area where people take property rights quite seriously. Most folks also have a small aresenal in their house, so it’s best to respect those rights.
I wish.
Where I come from a person’s right to shoot another is fairy broad, however. I read in the local newspaper about two folks in the area who were having a dispute over a fence. One shot the other and said it was self-defense. The prosecuting attorney agreed and did not file any charges. Another case involved a repo man who was shot while trying to take back someone’s truck. The guy shot the repo man and was convicted. However, his conviction hinged on the fact that the repo man had gone to the house earlier in the day and said that he was going to repo the truck. At the trial, the shooter tried to claim that he thought the truck was being stolen and it was within his rights to shoot the thief. The judge didn’t buy that the shooter thought it was a thief, but the impression was that this was a perfectly legitimate defense.
Except for the part where it was illegal.
I said “wrong,” not “illegal.” The two are not the same. There are plenty of things that are illegal that are not, in my view, morally wrong.
Furthermore, I’m still unsure whether or not the person who used the BB gun was doing something illegal.
Oh, morally wrong. Got it. So you just obey the laws you deem fit, and the hell with the rest? Suppose someone were to find nothing morally wrong with burglarizing your house? Would that make it OK?