Horse hockey.
Okay, let me try to say this more clearly. Cats are small predators. They can’t kill any of the pets that people usually let outside.
Dogs are a lot larger. Dogs can kill other people’s pets as well as non-pets.
I’m not saying that killing wild animals is a good thing. I’m not going to argue with the cats-are-better-off-inside crowd, except for unsual cases like Mystery. I’m just saying that dogs killing cats is a different magnitude from cats killing squirrels.
Okay, then. Don’t let your cats roam if you live in South Australia, or in the only nesting ground of a really endangered something or other.
[Gotta go to class- I’ll come back to debate later. Hmm, debate. Betcha five murdered squirrels this will be in GD by the time I get back].
Yet letting her outdoors risks her life. It’s your call. But numerous cats have made it into my back yard only to find escape a bit problematic with a Jack Russell, a Pit Bull, and a Rottweiler waiting for them. And it’s the Jack that does the damage. The others just help herding them, so to speak.
I’m disturbed that you know the details so well. I’ve owned dogs all my life, and I’ve never had a single one harm any neighbor’s pets, or, well, any creature. And any time I’ve seen anything even remotely going on, I’ve gotten in the way so that nothing happens.
I could maybe understand if it happened while you weren’t watching. But I don’t know how you could know what dogs were just choraling and which dog “does the damage” unless you were there.
See, I can play this gotcha morality game, too.
Once more, I’m glad I live in a city where cats are considered the dominant species (slightly above humans). Your average Tel-Avivite sees a dog wandering the street, they call the authorities; they see a cat lounging about, they go put out some food - after all, it might be hungry.
Americans have this weird notion that cats are a domesticated species.
If you know your Jack Russel has an incredibly strong prey drive and that your other dogs don’t, you could probably figure out what’s most likely. People get to know their dogs pretty well. That being said, just watching your dogs kill a cat would be pretty sick, but I doubt that’s what’s happening.
For cat owners who let their cats outside, what would your response be to your cat getting killed by dogs because it got into their fenced yard? The dog owner is obviously doing the responsible thing by keeping his dogs confined, and let’s say for this example (as is common) that the dogs aren’t aggressive at all towards people, only prey animals. Is it just bad luck then?
I’d say it’s Darwin in action.
Most cats I’ve known were much too smart to wander into a dog-infested yard. Those who aren’t… well, they’re doing the species a favor.
Moving thread from IMHO to MPSIMS.
Singing the cat to death?
Wait. First you say the dog was unattended, then you talk about keeping a dog “in a secure fence”. I thought the dog was in a secure fence?
Putting out food supplies not only cats, but also vermin. In my neighborhood - suburbs, plenty of trees but very tight density of houses too - you’d get not only cats, but the odd wandering dog, squirrels, rabbits, mice, foxes, raccoons, even coyotes and maybe the odd skunk. On average, cats are on the lower end of that scale in terms of fighting off the neighborhood competition, so I’d keep the cats inside - and any small dogs, too.
Most of these street cats aren’t “owned”, so there isn’t an inside to keep them in. Besides, I’ve never seen anything wandering the streets that the cats couldn’t take. The city is their turf - always has been.
I’ve seen the dogs in action. I’ve rescued several cats from them, as well as a groundhog and several possums. But it only takes a few seconds for a Jack to snap a cat’s neck. I’m not nearly as quick as she is. And it’s a big back yard, with lots of bushes and undergrowth.
So when I see a dead cat in the yard I assume the Jack did it.
I don’t know what this means. Can you explain it?
Dogs shouldn’t roam. However dogs belonging to responsible people who keep them leashed, fenced, and trained can get loose on occasion and wreak havok.
The woman in question was being an equally bad pet owner, IMO. If you want your feeble, deaf, defenseless old cat (or any cat, really - indoor/outdoor cats have extremely high rates of death compared to indoor cats) to keep on living, keep it the heck inside. Nature is red in tooth and claw, even in the suburbs.
I hope the police don’t trust the woman’s statement that this particular neighboring dog (that she saw IN THE DARK under extreme stress) was responsible for killing her cat. There is no evidence whatsoever that this is so.
heh, ive got a neighbor that keeps getting expensive dogs, not tagging them then sticking them in a kennel in bad disrepair from which they escape. If i find them in my yard, without ID they go to the pound. Ive actually had the local animal control officer talk to the guy because everyone in my neighborhood got sick of shoveling his new puppies off the road, so i don’t even feel guilty about it anymore. If The dogs enough of a problem, have it taken care of.
I do agree with a lot of posters it seems, keep YOUR cat indoors. As far as i’m concerned if its a stray, it can find its own food though.
Yea, that’s the part that got me. How can she be sure, in the dark, that that’s the dog which attacked her cat?
My old duplex neighbor had a dog that rarely went outside, except with a leash and constant supervision, because she would run away as soon as she was put outside. I can count with my fingers the times I saw that dog. But I knew she had it because the dog was constantly barking. It didn’t annoy me, having lived with barking dogs. Although I much prefer my barks only when a stranger knocks at the door or sees a squirrel dog.
Anyways, I do let my dog out, two or three times every day. She runs in the backyard, I see her, I call her, she comes running back home. One morning she had the misfortune of barking at a couple of squirrels. That same afternoon, I got a slip saying that my dog was accused with something along the lines of “constant barking”.
When I inquired, they wouldn’t tell me who it was, but I asked how they knew it was my dog causing constant barking, when both live in a duplex. The people on the other line didn’t have the answer, and admitted they didn’t know how the accuser came to that conclusion. A couple of months later, the neighbor moved, and nobody has complained about my dog since.