Another vote for expressing sympathy to the neighbors, offering to buy them a new kitten, stressing need for cat to be kept indoors.
The dog has a right to be in its yard, regardless of whether it might attack a cat or other critter that gets in.
I’m not going to say you’re making that up, but I’ve had cats for 40 years and I have never seen a pet cat attack a person. Feral cats are not part of this discussion anyway, the OP was talking about pets.
We put a pet cat down who went after the kids when they were toddlers.
I just had a great idea. Instead of muzzling the dog, why doesn’t the neighbor hobble the cat before popping him out the back door? That way, he can’t get into Jim’s backyard, and the problem is solved.
So given this belief, you, of course, seriously considered putting down your cat when he killed birds and mice?
Cats and dogs are hunters (cats far more than dogs) and they will hunt and kill smaller animals - and sometimes bigger ones. A cat has no way to tell the difference between a wild mouse and the pet gerbil, and if the pet gerbil gets out and the cat is a mouser - goodbye gerbil. Likewise, a dog doesn’t understand the difference between “rabbit in the yard” and “cat in the yard” (unless you have a dog that’s been around cats).
We had guinea pigs and would take the piggies out into the yard. We had a little fence for them. And while they were out, we watched them like a hawk. Getting away from us, or having a dog or cat come into the yard when the kids ran into the bathroom could have been tragic. Smart rodent owners don’t expect dogs and cats to behave like anything other than predators around their rodents. Why do cat owners expect different?
I’ve had a friend that had a cat that I was afraid of. That cat would jump out at you and claw you, and not in that “haha, TAG, I got your ankle!” fun-cat way. That cat was out for blood. And it was an indoor cat, not a feral.
I’ve seen cats not back down from dogs, or who would go after a dog walking by. I was out walking a dog (a Chow mix) one day when we approached a cat. The cat puffed up and started walking TOWARD the dog. We veered over to the far side of the street. The cat still came walking after us, in a very threatening way. We walked quickly past, and the cat stalked us for a long time. I was actually frightened. I swear I walked backwards to make sure the cat wasn’t catching up to us.
Not every cat is a sweety snuggle-ums.
I can think of 2 different cats I’ve know who would not hesitate to attack a person. Both of these cats’ owners had no idea why we didn’t love their little snookums.
Dangerosa,
No. I value cats more than dogs and pets more than wild animals. And MY pet over Your pet.
On the other hand, it is the owner of the pet animal who is responsible for preventing the aimal from appearing to be prey.
Beyond that I am not going to discuss my position, because I really think posting it at all was more likely to be counter-productive than not.
I’m sure I haven’t read every post in this thread; but doesn’t it seem like you might be creating a dicey situation by buying the neighbors a new pet but with the stipulation they keep it indoors?
If I were the neighbors, that’d just piss me off more. Their feelings are clear on this point. They (wrongly in IMO) think their cat should be able to run free, and not be responsible when the pet gets harmed. Buy you buying them another pet with a stern warning… you’d be accomplishing nothing.
I’m a good driver but I still have to do something called Defensive Driving and watch for people not following the rules of good driving because there’s a lot of idiots on the road.
You don’t have to do anything. However lot of people aren’t crazy about the idea of their pet killing or injuring a neighbor’s pet. Even if the other pet is not leashed and their’s is on a leash and the law would be on the side of the leashed animal. The owners of the dead or severely injured pet may have a hard time accepting their own fault and blame or do things to your own pet because some people are just plain nuts. They may even try to sue you even though they legally may not have a leg to stand on. If it then comes out that your pet has killed other pets in the past and the neighbor raises enough of a stink your dog could get labeled dangerous.
An even worse scenario is what if in the ensuing scuffle of your dog biting the other dog the neighbor reaches in to save their dog and is bitten? His own dog may have bitten him and most likely did, but since your dog was technically the aggressor it will be the suspect. Now Animal Services or the police get involved because a human was bitten. They don’t call in CSI for dog bites to prove which dog did the biting, so your dog will be considered the bitter. Once a dog bites a human it is considered a dangerous dog. They will probably require a rabies quarantine and after that you may be required to muzzle your dog in public anyway. One more incident and your dog is dead.
Granted this is all a “what if” but this stuff can happen. If one doesn’t want to take steps to prevent the odd scenarios that’s their business and certainly it may never happen. But sometimes it’s nice to be warned of the worst case scenarios so it’s there in the back of your head and next time someone is out walking their dog and sees neighbor’s frou-frou pooch running loose, they’ll turn around and walk the other way, instead of thinking nothing can happen because their dog is on a leash. Maybe I am more sensitive to warning people about these “what if’s” because I’ve seen enough of the consequences of what can happen.
Again, you don’t have to do anything. Jodi’s brother doesn’t have to do anything. This is the opinion forum and I gave an opinion.
But what you’re advocating is far more than “defensive driving.” You’re advocating equipping your car with exterior airbags to prevent other cars that crash into it from being hurt. You’re recommending never driving more than 5 mph so that no one who impacts your car could possibly be injured. And your basis for those recommendations is that, yeah, the person who crashes into your car may be the one to blame and not have a legal or moral leg to stand on in terms of blaming you, but nevertheless they might be unable to accept their own fault or blame or, worse, might be just plain nuts. So you’d be better off with the external airbags and the 5 mph speed limit.
You’re absolutely right: A person can take extraordinary precautions in any activity they undertake, be it walking their dog or driving their car or using the toilet. But not all of those possible precautions will strike everyone as equally reasonable.
And you may have just tossed “potentially” into your discussion of dangerous dogs in an offhand way, so that IYO it is a matter of mere semantics. But at law in my jurisdiction (as in many) “dangerous dog” and “potentially dangerous dog” are both defined terms and they are not the same thing, so it is not a matter of mere semantics. A person who sustains a dog bite due to reaching into a dog fight is a fool, and it is IMO highly unlikely that one such incident would support having the dog declared a dangerous dog anyway.
I say get an alligator and a moat on the property line.
I’m not trying to be rude here, but you seem to have veered into the land of make believe. If my dog is on a leash and under my control, how is she the aggressor when an out of control dog rushes up to her? Honestly, I can’t believe you are serious. You’re just making shit up now.
Woo! This solves the animal problem and the kid problem!
Not trying to be rude but you certainly come off that way. I’ve done nothing but explain my reasonings for my suggestion, which was only a suggestion. It’s fine if you want to explain why you would not take my suggestions, that’s a normal discussion but insulting me is not. I thought this was a forum asking for opinions, I gave an opinion. No one has to take it. I am not trying to force everyone to put muzzles on their dogs. The dog is the OP has killed 2 small animals, it has already been shown that it can’t be trusted around cats and possibly other small animals, I only suggested that if a dog has a tendency to go after small animals it might be a good precaution to put a muzzle on it when outside of your own property because you may think you can control your dog but you cannot control the environment.
Now you accuse me of making shit up when I have said I have personally witnessed some of these scenarios. I don’t need to make this shit up, it happens. Once again, in 25 years I’ve seen a lot of things happen to pets that owners never thought could happen. Authorities will tend to believe the owner of the bleeding or dead pet before they believe the owner of the dog that did the biting, even if the other dog approached it aggressively first. So yes, the dog that did the most damage is going to be looked at as the aggressor. And if all the other dog did was run up to it, and the bigger dog bites then it is the aggressor. And yes again, when someone’s little pet is getting chewed on by a larger dog a hell of a lot of people will reach in there to try to save it, it’s stupid and they often get bit, but try to tell them at the time it’s happening that they shouldn’t do it. Hell, people have tried to save their pets from alligators down here, risking their own lives.
Why am I getting more ire for suggesting a basket muzzle on walks than the people who recommended getting rid of the dog? This thread asked for opinions, I gave one, why are you taking this so personally? You are reacting like I am personally insulting your pets. Since you find this suggestion so insulting that is it giving you a reason to be insulting to me, and looking for things in my posts to argue about I see no reason to continue to try to explain my reasonings to you or visit this thread. It was a suggestion, get over it.
There you go. That’s making stuff up right there. Authorities will tend to believe the more believable story. My dog was leashed, the other wasn’t. My dog was under control, the other wasn’t. I am a responsible pet owner, the other person wasn’t.
If the “authorities” where you live are so simple minded as to limit their investigation to weighing the dogs you have my sympathy.
No, it isn’t. The other dog caused the confrontation. My dog was just defending itself, and me.
Why are you telling me this?
There’s no ire on my part. I just think that you are inventing extremely unlikely scenarios, and then changing them to suit yourself. There is a park a block from my house. People walk their dogs there all the time. I have never seen anything remotely like what you described in ten years of walking my dogs there.
Let me ask you this. In these many instances of sweet little dogs getting mauled by big ferocious beasts, I assume you were treating the injured ones. Did you ever hear the other side of the story? Or did you just accept what the irresponsible pet owners said as gospel?
I’m 100% in agreement with you, and I’m really scratching my head at those advocating giving the dog away. I can see keeping him inside from now on, but only as an effort to appeasing the neighbors. I see absolutely no obligation for it. He’s done everything he could be expected to do, and then some.
The first cat, IMO, was 60% the fault of the cat owners. I say this because Bob’s yard was fenced. Bob jumped the fence. Bummer. But that’s one large step more that Jim took than what the cat owners took. The second cat was 100% the cat owner’s fault.
It almost seems silly to me. They are both animals. If I look over at the next yard and there’s an alligator in the fenced yard, I’m really going to think twice at letting my little puppy run loose around the neigborhood. Maybe the alligator finds his way out, maybe someone lets him out, maybe my puppy finds his way in. Bottom line, I take a precaution, just like the alligator’s owner took a precaution of putting the fence up. Once you let your animal out of the house unsupervised, you’re immediately at fault (whether it’s 10% or 100%) for anything that happens. Right now I’m thinking that if anything, the cat owners should be apologizing to Jim. They are distraught, but it’s not Jim’s fault that they have the prey as a pet. This entire scenario was created by the cat owners if you consider that they were at least equally at fault for the first death and entirely at fault for the second death and all the ensuing drama. Obviously, though, in the spirit of being good neighbors, I understand you can’t push that on the cat owners. TVeb’s solution isn’t bad, although I think springing for a new cat is going above and beyond.