In addition, moving the cat outside simply makes the inappropriate excretion into a neighborhood problem. It’s unfair to force your neighbors to scoop catshit out of their yard because you can’t bear to have the cat inside.
I have never gotten the impression that Crafter_Man hates cats.
I just don’t think he’s particularly sentimental about them.
Seems more humane to put it down than to take an indoor cat and make it an outdoor cat, or have it live its life in a no kill shelter.
I’m no fan of outdoor cats, and in our neighborhood, its the same as putting it to sleep. Animal control will pick it up and take care of your problem for you. We have a leash law for cats like we have one for dogs. We also have reports of a coyote in the neighborhood. The blue juice seems a better way to go than getting torn limb from limb.
No kill shelters aren’t always an option either. Often they have limited resources and no room. They operate on a waiting list. In a house with small children and a pet who isn’t house trained, you may not feel you have the luxury of waiting.
My vet does this. And as he is also my brother-in-law, I am on his short list of foster homes. I admit it is somewhat surreal to get phone calls from people asking, “Are you the cat rescuer”?
But you might be surprised at how often people will refuse the option or become defensive about it. Some might simply be paranoid (thinking the animal will be abused or used for research), but there is also an element of pride (If I can’t handle this cat, no one can!).
I am willing to cut the woman who wrote the article a lot of slack - it can be very stressful to deal with a “problem” animal. But I do fault her for not considering the option of placing the animal in a different environment. Sometimes that is all it takes.
Well, maybe it was a particularly nasty hairball. Honestly, we all thought that since it was right after Christams, the cat probably puked on something really nice or sentimental and the owner was having a holiday-induced mental melt down. It was better than the woman who wanted to put down an entire litter of week old puppies. She bred her dog so her kids could see the dog give birth, but didn’t want to raise a litter of puppies. The vet told her that he would only do it if she brought her kids in to watch them die too.
Cats are naturally neat. If they don’t use their litterboxes, there is a reason. Some cats don’t like to share with other cats, some cats don’t like certain litters, some cats don’t know they have to pee in time to make it to a litterbox that is far away (ie, on a different floor), some are just stressed out by too much going on in the house, like other pets and kids. Unless they tried keeping in a different house without kids and other pets, they didn’t try everything.
Ask him about the neighborhood cats he used to take out and drown in cages some time.
xbuckeye, that is one of the most horrible thing I’ve ever heard of. What ended up happening to the poor wee things?
Sure, I could refuse. At that point some people would find another veterinarian to do it, some would take the animal home to shoot/drown/etc it (legal in PA), some would say I could have the animal. So what would I then do with the animal? I do not want it. My hat is off to veterinarians for whom their occupation is also their life. I put in a 60 hour week and am very good at what I do. But it is a job.
Tell you what, Guin. Email me and give me a number where I can reach you 24/7. When I have an unwanted animal that the owner will sign over ownership of, I will call you and you can come pick it up. 
In addition, when the animal is being euthanised because the owner says they cannot afford to treat the animal’s problem, if anyone out there wants to offer to pay for the animal’s care contact me and I will set up a PayPal account where you can send the funds.
I don’t understand why we must love other people so much. I understand loving people you have a relationship with, but people in general? Nah. People are mean and judgemental. They have giant egos and often fly off the handle for no good reason. They only get passionate over stupid things like football and soap operas, possess fleeting attention spans, and are greedy bastards. Some of them are funny, but most of them don’t possess a good sense of humor. They either take things too seriously or they are apathetic about everything. And they stink, especially under their arms.
I like a lot people but I only love a few of them. And I can only take a small dose of even the ones I love.
But cats? I’ve never met one I didn’t love right off the bat. I don’t have a rational justification for this, but then again love is rarely rational. In a world where one can love the most hideous human being without even wanting to, it doesn’t strike me as that off-the-wall for people to love animals so much.
[quote[If people would love their fellow humans as much as they love their damn pets, we would have a lot less problems.[/QUOTE]
It seems to me that pet lovers are usually loving people, in general.
We never put then down, the owner never came back with any of their animals, but we didn’t really need clients like that anyway, we had already broken 7000 in client numbers. I prefer to think that she raised them and found homes for them, but she probably found another way to get rid of them.
Maybe we were lucky or our area was unique, but we always found homes for unwanted pets that people left with us. Adults, young ones, problem animals…there is a home for every pet. Now, some met unfortunate ends, but they at least got a chance. There are no guarantees in life, but dead is dead. Some people should be allowed to have pets.
Also, potential liability issues.
You don’t want to get sued by the foster care provider when “the cat you gave up bit my kid and caused facial disfiguration.”
In our litigious society, I wouldn’t give an animal I knew was a problem away. That includes scratching or biting people (furniture isn’t a big deal) or severe litterbox avoidance.
I’m sorry. I know it can’t always work out that way. It’s just a shame that people take on animals they have no intention of taking responsibility for.
To my mind, that falls into the category of “paranoia” I mentioned before, but at the same time, you raise an interesting point.
I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think there is a solid legal basis for the problems discussed in this thread (and I’m not sure what you’d qualify as a “severe” litterbox problem). An animal with a known history of violence might be another story - I know people willing to take them, but I don’t feel up to it myself.
But now I am curious about potential legal liabilities, and will ask around. Have you ever heard of such a case being successful? I imagine thousands of animals are transferred between private citizens or given out for adoption all the time, but I’ve never heard anyone mention this as a concern.
“Pet lovers are usually loving people” yet you can’t see why people should have more compassion towards people? Perhaps you never met a cat you didn’t like because cats don’t have opinions, cats love you as long as you feed them and cats don’t understand a frigging thing you say to them.
That said I think putting a cat down because it pisses inside when you make it live inside is appalling. Cats are suppossed to roam. That is what cats do. I understand that some urban enviroments make that less then desirable but if you can’t cope with the piss inside then let the cat piss outside.
On a tangent I believe NO pet should be “put out of it’s misery” until we can give the same ‘privilege’ to the people we love. Yes we love our pets but ending their lives because they are in pain is a cop out. It means one of two things a) “We” care more about pets then we do loved humans or b) “We” agree pets are disposable.
I wouldn’t like to see a family pet in pain but I would never have a pet put down. Let them die at home or hospital (vet clinic) in the very same way a human member of the family would.
monstro may have been employing some of that irony stuff there.
What is this “irony” you speak of?
One thing I’ve learned is that people who take it upon themselves to rescue animals who might otherwise be destroyed don’t have a good sense of irony.
I consider myself to be a pragmatic. My husband jokes that I am “The Whale Rider” because animals are drawn to me. I have no idea why this is so, but I acknowledge that animals do seem to be drawn to me.
Maybe it’s a question of trust. Maybe it’s my smell (fishy? I bathe regularly, so I take exception to that!).
In any case, many animals seem to trust me, and respect my authority. I try to use that “gift” as best as I can.
A “non-animal lover” will never understand that. I’ve learned from experience that it doesn’t pay to try to debate the “whys and wherefores” with people who don’t care about animals. It is unfortunate that people like that will come to “own” animals, but it does happen.
Meanwhile, many of these people have not yet learned how to treat other people, so what should I expect?
Just to say that my expectations of how people might treat animals is very low, and I do whatever I can under those circumstances.
- “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”* - Mahatma Gandhi
I’m all about having more compassion. But Crafter_Man said “love”. Are they the same thing? (I’m not being snarky; I sincerely don’t know).
I don’t agree that cats don’t have opinions (they have preferences; isn’t this the same thing). Rarely does anyone love another person without some kind of string attached, so cats aren’t special in this regard. And is it wrong to love someone (or something) who speaks another language? Who maybe does understand some words, but just can’t articulate a decipherable response?
But yeah, I love my cats because they are simple and non-threatening. :shrug: I guess that makes me, I dunno, someone who loves simple and non-threatening things.
Just to be clear I don’t equate my love for my cats with my love for my family, but I’m not about to let someone on a message board put me down just because I love animals. I don’t think loving my cats detracts from my ability to love people. I don’t think that a person who only loves people is on a higher plane of righteousness than one who finds animals easier to hang out with.
Just to be clear this person on a message board wasn’t putting anyone down because they love animals. I love animals. I have never ever lived in a pet free zone, I would never want to. I adore my pets and always think their health is important but I do think we ‘should’ feel a greater affinity and sense of compassion to people then we do animals.
I work in a kindergaten, last week we had 2 lambs spend the day with us. All day I felt guilty that I love lamb chops. I won’t kill a spider but everyday I feast on some unfortunate animal.
I just think something is wrong when we afford more dignity in dying to pets then to family members.
Objectively speaking, Crafter_Man’s indifference towards the suffering of cats and seeing them as disposable commodities is no different than the way that I, a city dweller, view cows and chickens.
That being said, his views still really disturb me and I can’t quite articulate why.
[QUOTE=calm kiwiIt means one of two things a) “We” care more about pets then we do loved humans or b) “We” agree pets are disposable. [/QUOTE]
I hate to say it, but pets are disposable.
Every day, countless kitties are killed. If I put my kitty to sleep, and then go out and save a kitty from a shelter, there is no greater net loss of kitties.
A kitty has no fear of death- a fear of pain, sure. A fear of danger, yep. But death itself isn’t a problem. That is in part because a kitty has no sense of itself. It doesn’t know that it is an individual. It doesn’t know it has a life that continues and will one day end. It may miss having people or animals it knew around, but it doesn’t feel bad that they died. If you died, your cat would wait a scant three days before using your corpse as food.
My cat is part of a line that dates back thousands of years. It was bred for it’s mouse-catching and companionship. Beyond that, it isn’t more valuable than the cow I cooked for dinner or the gophers I had exterminated from my garden. Kitties arn’t exceptionally intellegent or worthy animals. We just happen to let them in to our homes and invest some amount of emotion in them. I work to prevent needless kitty deaths. I spay and neuter my animals and I keep them home where they are safe from dogs and cars. But there is a limit.
I know what you mean. I often feel this way myself. With the added confession that I have killed chickens with my own hands in the past.
Is it a case of a “slippery slope” POV (i.e., If he doesn’t care about the suffering of cats, then why should I think he would care about me, or my suffering?)???
A friend of mine has a theory that people who say these things do so primarily to taunt other humans (which makes sense in that the target animals can’t understand what is being said).
Why say these things in the company of people who obviously care about animals? To me, it’s the equivalent of saying, “Your Grandfather is only a burden now that he can’t control his rectum. Too bad you can’t kill him.”
IMO, it is somewhat sociopathic to really feel that way. It is a way for someone to condemn vulnerability and/or pain in others in an attempt to avoid feeling it themselves.
When I hear people talk about justifying destroying an animal simply because of elimination accidents and is therefore “not worth” keeping alive, I always think about cases where human beings cannot control their bowels or urinary functions, like my “Grandfather” example.