Rescue Cats, Contract Conditions, Houdini, Declawing, Pet Custody, It's All Here

[Chronos]

Letting a cat out won’t even necessarily shorten its life. My mom’s cats have all been wherever-they-please cats, and the last three lived to be 18, 21, and 23 years old. And there are currently three exclusively-outdoor cats living in the vicinity of her front porch, in various degrees of domestication, who are all over ten and going strong. One of them has made up her mind that she loves the whole “being a pet” deal, except for the part about living inside: She absolutely panics if she ever finds herself inside with a door closed behind her. Trying to keep that cat indoors would definitely be cruel.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Lemur866

…except maybe in places like Australia where feral cats are destroying endangered species.

Not just Australia. Also Hawaii and Central America, Florida, and California. Happily (?) this is less of a problem in certain state parks, because the barbarous furry-faced kitties run up against the dignified and wiley (E) coyote, who keeps things under control.

Another Hawaii link: https://abcbirds.org/article/articleendangered-hawaiian-gallinules-killed-feral-cats-kauai/

Chronos: Statistically, outdoor cats live shorter lives than indoor/outdoor cats, who in turn don’t live as long as indoor cats. Of course each group has its own distribution, but the differences in the means are substantial.
Cite: http://www.myminnesotawoods.umn.edu/2015/02/domestic-cats-their-impacts-on-wildlife/
3 year life expectancy for outdoor cat, 15 year for indoor cat.

(Interestingly young cats and male cats exhibit more risky outdoor behaviors than older cats and female cats: http://kittycams.uga.edu/other/Veterinary%20Record-2013-Loyd-vr.101222.pdf)

[Aspenglow]

@Dangerosa

Every year cats that do not have homes end up euthanized. This cat has a has a home - its owner may not be the best at keeping the cat inside - but the owner obviously loves and cares for the cat. The rescue agency should spend its time and resources on a cat that is less lucky and whose unnecessary death is a certainty rather than a “they MIGHT get run over by a car.”

This, exactly.

Rae Bees could have saved herself a whole lot of fuss had she just taken a few minutes to update Reggie’s chip information. I think if you give people the opportunity to become outraged, there’s a good chance they will.

I’ll be surprised if the contract is found to be enforceable.

[Chronos]

Quoth Measure for Measure:

Interestingly young cats and male cats exhibit more risky outdoor behaviors than older cats and female cats:

Hm, that might be relevant: Most of Mom’s cats (including the three longest-lived ones I mentioned) have been female. Or at least, formerly female: Do the statistics go into spayed/neutered cats, too?

[Jackmannii]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

I see no reason to think that this particular cat, were he able to articulate his desires, would rather live a long life stuck inside all the time than have an adventurous shorter life where he goes outside, explores, and encounters danger.

Owners of cats with such “desires” (assuming one is not anthropomorphizing on behalf of the cat) are supposed to be the responsible parties, and not give in to “that’s what the cat wants”.

The downside to Giving The Cat His Freedom is dead wildlife, spread of disease, and all too often a prematurely dead cat.

Maybe such owners would be better off with a fish tank. Occasionally one will leap out (expressing their “desires”?), but rarely do they get out the front door.

[Bryan_Ekers]

Well, maybe he’s a cat who lives a life of danger.

And to everyone he meets, he stays a stranger.

[Miller]

@Czarcasm

Are they somehow leasing the cats?
I’m trying to imagine this working with some other item for sale: “We will sell you this television set…but if you do not clean the screen on a regular basis and/or leave it running unwatched for hours at a time you must return it under penalty of law”.

Houses? Lots of HOA contracts have pretty detailed restrictions on what you are and are not allowed to do with the property you just bought.

[simster]

@Miller

Houses? Lots of HOA contracts have pretty detailed restrictions on what you are and are not allowed to do with the property you just bought.

Including in ours - that we are allowed only 2 pets and are not allowed to breed pets.

[Czarcasm]

@simster

Including in ours - that we are allowed only 2 pets and are not allowed to breed pets.

I should hope not. It is a strict rule in our home that the pets breed themselves.

[Measure_for_Measure]

@Chronos

Hm, that might be relevant: Most of Mom’s cats (including the three longest-lived ones I mentioned) have been female. Or at least, formerly female: Do the statistics go into spayed/neutered cats, too?

All 55 of the cats fitted with Kitty cams over 1 week periods were neutered.

I’m not sure how much protection demographics will give a cat over longer periods of time. My WAG is that the survival distribution is driven by local factors such as car traffic, unmeasurables such as genetic resistance to disease, and regular veterinary care including flea collars and the like.

Poison and disease are 2 underappreciated risk factors. Roaming cats get into a lot of trouble.

[Aspidistra]

@Jackmannii

Owners of cats with such “desires” (assuming one is not anthropomorphizing on behalf of the cat) are supposed to be the responsible parties, and not give in to “that’s what the cat wants”.

The downside to Giving The Cat His Freedom is dead wildlife, spread of disease, and all too often a prematurely dead cat.

Maybe such owners would be better off with a fish tank. Occasionally one will leap out (expressing their “desires”?), but rarely do they get out the front door.

What’s with the scare quotes? Obviously cats do usually have a desire to go outside, as evidenced by that’s what they do unless actively prevented by training them otherwise. As distinct from, say, having a shower or eating watermelon, which are not generally feline desires. Though I expect there’s some weirdos out there…

We may or may not choose to allow it, based on our superior human knowledge, but they’re not exactly blank slates.

If the owner got her cat as an adult then she’s not the one to blame for whether or not he’s used to being let outside - and who knows how hard he made it to retrain him? Could have been anywhere from ‘he looked at her with puppy dog eyes once and she caved’ to ‘incessant whining for weeks on end and repeated rushes for the door.’

Cats are willful.

[Justa]

The rescue holding Reggie is Feline Friends Chicago. I have heard they “pull” purebreds and younger cats from other areas of Illinois…instead of the city pound licated in Chicago. Just tbe cost of transporting those cats could be put towards actually saving more cats. Its a small rescue and sometimes small rescues have a dictatorship like mentality. So many homeless animals needing homes

[UltraVires]

@DSYoungEsq

To clear up some of the confused points being made:

1. Presumably, the organization believes that the owner is intentionally letting the cat outside; the cat is not truly “escaping”. If that is true, then the owner would be in violation of her representation that she would endeavor to keep the cat inside. Proof, as always, is in the evidence adduced (not the pudding, sadly; as an attorney, I always thought it would have been better simply to taste each side’s pudding and use that to determine who had proved their case).

2. It matters not how execrably poor the language of the contract is; the contract is enforceable if it establishes offer, acceptance and duty. One of the things courts do is interpret poorly written contracts; casebooks on Contracts law are filled with examples.

3. The language on page 2 of the document is merely an informational page which is used to establish which cat will be allowed to be adopted. If you wish to be pedantic, it can be considered part of the “offer” of adoption. That’s why it raises a possibility of “subsequent adoption contract” (i.e.: the actual contract formed when the offer is accepted by Feline Friends".

From a legal point of view, the organization probably has a tall mountain to climb here. To establish that they are entitled to reclaim the cat without returning the adoption fee, they would appear to have to prove that the owner mis-represented her answer to one of the questions on page 2. Now, that can be done circumstantially, say, by evidence that the cat from shortly after adoption was being let out of the house by the new owner. But unless there is some other portion of the “contract” that indicates that letting the cat get out of the house (intentionally or otherwise) would entitle the organization to redeem the cat without repayment of the fee, it seems unlikely that the organization’s attempt to establish a right to reclaim the cat exists. And that’s without consideration of the poorly written nature of the contract, which probably will be interpreted against the organization (as they wrote it and applied it as a form to all adoptions).

But contrary to the opinions of several posters, this is not an open-and-shut case (although Reggie certainly seems to have managed to make it seem otherwise as to the door! ).

I agree with this. I think to construe the answers to all of those questions as contract terms would make the contract unconscionable.

What about the question about describing the household as “active,” “noisy,” “quiet,” or “average”? If the adopter said that his household was quiet, but the agency felt that there was really too much noise for its tastes, could they take the cat back?

[Ignotus]

Rescue Cats, Contract Conditions, Houdini, Declawing, Pet Custody, It’s All Here

That’s just too much. Let’s take the subjects one by one, okay?