Nothing new to add, just adding my agreement that I would not give Bob away either.
I love cats dearly, and I’ve had both indoor and outdoor cats over the years. (My current ones are indoor-only.) But a cat intruding on a dog’s yard is taking a risk, which unfortunately had consequences this time. I had outdoor cats die from cars, rat poison, and wild animal attacks, when I was a child. It was terrible, but you couldn’t blame the car driver, for instance, for accidentally striking them.
(I hate to say it, but it also sounds like the cat wasn’t bright enough to be allowed to be an outdoor cat. I had a couple who knew to look both ways before crossing the street, for instance.)
I also have a problem with the concept that it would in some way teach the neighbor’s son a lesson about anything. I guess the message is that your pets should be disposed of if they aren’t 100% perfect at all times.
Wow. I think I love your neighbors more than any pet I’ve ever owned out of basic automatic respect for their humanity. What ever happened to “love thy neighbor”?
Who is advocating that we have no respect for the humanity of others?
I didn’t take responsibility for my neighbors lives & well-being, nor have they been as instrumental in maintaining happiness in my home as has my dog.
There is no neighbor that I have had that I would trade for a dog that I’ve had. The neighbors could leave and I could generally care less. Ask me to get rid of my dog because your cat came into my yard? Umm no. That’s total BS. And they would be welcome to leave.
I’d say that Bob should be allowed to stay right where he is. Offering to get the neighbors another cat which would be kept indoors would be nice, but I’d be firm about the “I can’t be responsible for what happens to your cat if it comes into my yard”. That being said, it might not hurt to contact a local dog trainer to see if the cat-aggression can be trained out. I know they can aversion-train dogs so they don’t bother rattlesnakes. It should be doable to teach the dog that cats mean a shock from a collar. I’m not for arbitrarily shocking dogs, but usually that kind of training can be done quickly and has no lasting effects.
I own a pit bull who could probably kill almost anything he might encounter in the city. However, he has interacted with children and cats and big dogs and little dogs and birds and racoons and squirrels and has never shown the smallest sign of aggression towards anything. Other dogs often react aggressively to him - a Jindo, a German Shepherd, a Jack Russell Terrier and a Maltese have all tried to start something with him, and in each case (even in the cases in which his blood was drawn), his only response was to come and sit by me.
If he did decide to fight back against any of those dogs who attacked him (except maybe the GSD) he would have crushed them in a split second, and everyone knew it. However, since he’s a pit bull, and we live in Ontario, he would have been held solely responsible, and he probably would have been put down.
I accept that as a pit bull owner I have an increased responsibility for other people’s safety, even the safety of idiots who don’t know any better. Even though I know my dog will not hurt you, I will still be sensitive to your being nervous around him, and I keep him closely leashed unless everyone present is comfortable. I avoid other dogs when I walk him because I know owners freak out when their little kleenex box dogs fly off in a rage at my dog. In general, I refrain from taking him places where his presence might make people uncomfortable.
I accept that responsibility, but only up to a limit. Anybody who thinks I should get rid of my dog (whose only crime was acting like a dog), in order to please them, is no friend of mine.
When I’d walk with him and the mean little Maltese (referenced above), the Maltese would growl and bark his fool head off at everyone we met. He was a rescue dog and had a few behavioural problems, e.g. biting random people out of anxiety. I told folks this while I pulled him off them. Still, people would be more scared of MY dog.
Some people have unreasonable prejudices against dogs, especially big dogs. I will only go so far to accommodate those unreasonable prejudices, friend or not.
I can’t agree. Both situations were ENTIRELY the fault of the respective pet owners. Jim was entirely at fault in allowing his dog (known to be cat aggressive) into his neighbor’s yard. His neighbor was entirely at fault in allowing their new cat to go into Jim’s yard. It should also be mentioned that Jim was not harmed in any way by neighbor’s negligence, while neighbor was harmed by Jim’s.
Trying to be as clinical as possible, the solution is for each pet owner to keep their pets in their own yards.
However, emotions don’t necessarily allow the clinical approach to be the accepted approach. Jim’s neighbor has had two family pets killed by Jim’s pet. Regardless of who was at fault in which death, the neighbors and their son are going to be more upset by the events and may not be happy with the “keep your cats on your property and they won’t end up as lunch” solution.
You don’t care if your neighbors are happy? That’s fine. Nobody is forcing Jim to give a crap, just like nobody is forcing his neighbor to watch Jim’s son when he’s in a bind, or letting him borrow a tool, or just helping out when he needs help. If Jim wants to have a good relationship with them, I think he’s going to have to make some sort of concession. That said, I don’t think getting rid of the dog is a concession I’d be willing to make. My suggestion is to either figure out a compromise, or accept that the relationship is going to take a hit.
I am profoundly uncomfortable assigning all of the blame for any emotionally messy situation to one party. This is a deep-seated personal prejudice which has almost nothing to do with the details of this situation. It’s not that I disagree with you, or think your position is unreasonable, I’m just reluctant to paint the situation as that clearly black and white.
The cat was killed elsewhere, not in Jim’s yard or the neighbor’s yard, but somewhere out in the neighborhood. IOW, in that instance neither pet was in its yard, Bob because Bob had escaped (jumped the fence, hence the later fence reinforcement), Taffy because the neighbors let her roam free outside. Bob came home with blood on his head and chest and the cat was dead, so it didn’t take CSI to figure who was the culprit. But Bob was never in the neighbor’s yard. I think that would have been a very different and much less excusable situation.
Just to update: The neighbor wife sent Jim an e-mail last night asking him to consider whether it might not be better for Bob to go to a more appropriate home, or similar words that boiled down to “we want you to give him away.” Jim responded that he is very sorry for the situation but he does not think that it is reasonable to expect him to give the dog away. (And to address something else from earlier in the thread: Jim’s kids are very close to Bob. They’ve had Bob since my niece was 3 and my nephew was 1.) Jim awoke this morning to find the neighbors had staked out and flagged the property line between their homes. He is not taking that as a good sign.
I don’t see how it’s the dog’s fault, the cat should have enough survival skills to stay away from dangerous dogs.
Cats should roam free, but cats can and do get themselves into trouble. Just last week our year-old cat got ran over by a car in front of the house. Very sad, I’ll miss him, but cats like to roam and explore.
This puts a different twist on my original assumptions. Seems that every time something happened, their cat was roaming the neighborhood, that’s an inherently dangerous situation, cats are at risk when they roam, especially when they roam onto some other animal’s territory.
At worst, Jim is equally to blame for the first death, since both animals were roaming free. Jim took steps to keep his pet on his property, neighbors did not, and a second death resulted.
Cats can live a very nice life indoors (I have 4 of them to prove it) they do not HAVE to go outdoors and roam the neighborhood. If they do, you have to accept that they may get hurt by cars, dogs, cats, raccoons, coyotes, or whatever else is out there in the “wild”.
Actually, I was going to suggest they do just that, build a cat run in their yard that keeps kitty safe. Jim can offer to pay half. That’s as far as I would take it. The cat is at risk of roaming beyond the thread of Jim’s dog so the fenced run should be in the cat’s yard.
