Apparently he is, since he keeps saying that the lady caring for the ferals did EXACTLY as I advised, and neutered and vaccinated all her cats. That’s logical, right? Right?!?
Just wanted to say that this is the most ridiculous debate I’ve ever seen.
Why do you hate cute kitties and insist on killing them? Heartless Bastard!
Why are you such a moron?
Sorry.
My IQ has dropped 40 points from reading your pointless drivel.
Yeah, I’m sure it’s my fault that you are constitutionally incapable of understanding or accurately representing my argument, one which you yourself have actually espoused, without seeming to realize it. No, I think it’s congenital. You have my sympathies.
The cat in question was a street cat (analogous to the OP’s neigboring cats) which the woman captured and brought to the clinic to be neutered and vaccinated. It obviously became infected before she picked it up, during its time on the street.
Rabies can be transmitted before the symptoms show. Had it not been in a clinic when the disease manifested itself, the cat might have been handled by other people, unknowing, on the street. These people might have actually contracted the disease, because they would not have known that they were exposed. That is the danger posed by outdoor cats.
Just as an aside, vaccination has zero effect on an already exposed cat.
As for **Rubystreak’s **whole rant about me and the bubble I wish to live in, and my supposed dislike, even hatred of the outdoors, animals, and especially cats and wildlife, I can’t think of a larger joke. If you only knew where I live and what I do all day!! Now I’m really laughing out loud.
As for my opinions, well, as it happens mine are professional opinions from this very field. But I didn’t just offer my unsupported word, since no one would know that; I provided cites instead. I haven’t seen you do the same.
So you’re not going to answer my questions, eh? OK. Because my point is, all animals who live outdoors can be disease vectors. Any of them can come on your property. You have to assess your risk. If there is a stable population (no new drop offs, no kittens) and the cats are up to date on their vaccines, what the hell is your problem? I seriously don’t get where all your hostility and negativity is coming from. It’s inexplicable to me.
Is it your professional opinion that the OP should not consult with his neighbor to find a solution to problem that is amenable to both, if possible? Because that’s my position. Can you clearly articulate why you’re so dead set against this course of action?
Luckily, someone decided to pick the animal up and bring it to a clinic, otherwise it would still be out there, infecting more animals, and acting as a dangerous vector.
This is the problem with your “kill em all” solution, who is going to do it? You’re not going to get people like this woman who voluntarily put in time and effort to observe and manage the cat population. You have to pay animal control officers, do you know how much time it can take to catch 6 random feral cats? It takes days, multiple trips to the location, multiple traps, letting go all the non-cat animals that get trapped.
On top of it, the officers won’t even know the cats exist without someone tipping them off. So you’re relying on people being willing to finger an animal for destruction before you can begin the costly control project.
I know, probably better than you, what Animal Control (AC) does and does not. There are two AC vans in my driveway even as I type this post. Oh, one is leaving now.
Please show me where I advocated “kill[ing] em all”. I never did so. I have encouraged the OP to continue his conversation with the neighbor to seek a resolution acceptable to him and his wife. I did though argue that merely neutering and vaccinating the cats does not solve the problem (as the OP defines “problem”) of them intruding on his property, for whatever reasons he cares to deem significant. It is still his property.
I said that, if the cats continue to intrude despite his pleas to the neighbor, and despite the discouragements he has purchased, they should be trapped and handed over to AC. Depending on the jurisdiction, this may be handled in different ways. The OP could buy a trap or traps himself, and call AC to pick it/them up when a cat is captured. Or AC may set its own traps. AC departments usually perform or encourage either of these, in response to citizen complaints. They typically do not engage in wholesale trap-and-kill of cats, but do take notice – and take action – when a citizen has a particular problem.
Trapped cats are typically available for the owner to claim, usually after payment of a fee or fine. And they are usually required to be neutered and vaccinated for rabies before being returned, if they are not already, again at the owner’s expense. (“Typically” is what I personally know to be the system at at least a dozen of the larger metropolitan ACs across the US.) Unclaimed animals are evaluated for suitability for adoption. Those deemed unadoptable, and those not adopted after some period of time determined by local policy, are humanely euthanized.
If the neighbor lady wants to claim these cats as hers, she could jump the hoops and get them back. If she continues to let them roam, now neutered and vaccinated, they could be trapped yet again on the OP’s property if he wishes. Neighbor could claim them again, and even again if she’s a glutton for punishment, but the fees/fines are usually increased for “repeat offenders”. And it is the “free ranging onto another person’s property against the wishes of that property owner” that is their offense, not “existing without neutering or vaccination”. As long as they continue to be a “problem” to the OP by his own definition of problem, they can and should be trapped and dealt with by AC.
If the neighbor lady does not want to take full responsibility for these animals, including preventing them from trespassing on the OP, then they are indeed uncontrolled street cats, and the OP has every right to have them removed from his property.
Where is any of this unreasonable, or evidence that I hate animals and want to kill them all?
This may be part of the source of our disagreement. Our SPCA is a no-kill, so they are often at or over capacity. Therefore, unless there is a public health risk, or a hoarding situation where the cats are being treated inhumanely, they will not go out and trap cats. They do TNR, but only for large colonies, on a volunteer basis (the animal control officer doesn’t do it). I asked what would happen in a situation like the OP’s, and the answer, as I suspected, was very different from the one you outline.
They have a waiting list for accepting cats. They won’t just go out and trap the neighbor lady’s cats simply because they are coming on your property, esp. if they are neutered and vaccinated, and seem mostly healthy. Additionally, you can’t just capture the neighbor lady’s cats and bring them in. They won’t take them, and then what? You’d have to get on a list. How practical is that?
Thus, my sense of the situation, which is that, if the cats are vaccinated and neutered, and no new animals are being added to the group, you might just have to do the best you can to keep them off your property and call it good. Or take the CrafterMan route and just shoot them and hope you don’t get in trouble for it.
Personally, I think it’s unreasonable to want to trap and have destroyed (because likely, that’s what would happen in your scenario) cats that pose no material threat, only annoyance. You disagree, but I don’t think that makes me unreasonable either. I live with all sorts of animals on my property who are much greater risks to me than those cats would be to the OP. So we may just have to agree to disagree.
An SPCA which operates a shelter isn’t the same as an Animal Control (AC) organization. Charitable organizations (like Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) that choose to care for animals as their mission can make choices about the circumstances under which that care is given-- like the decision to be “no kill” and only accept a limited number of animals. (And it begs the question of what to do with an animal that really needs to be put to death, like a rabid one, or one suffering from grievous and intractable pain, or infected with feline leukenia, etc, etc. How practical is that, indeed.) These are generically characterized as “humane organizations”. But that differs from an organization with legal enforcement power.
It may be that there is no actual AC in your jurisdiction, but that would be highly unusual. Most places find it necessary to provide enforcement of whatever animal regulations they have, at the city, township, or county level. As a practical matter, there is almost always someone empowered to catch and impound the dangerous dog. An agency to register (license) animals, and to record their rabies vaccination status.
Some jurisdictions contract with humane organizations for shelter space and grant them enforcement powers. But I am unaware of anyplace (at least anyplace that could be described as a ‘neighborhood’) where there is no kind of official enforcement available at all.
And so I still maintain that the OP has the right, should he choose to exercise it, to be rid of an unwanted nuisance that intrudes upon his property. He may know full well the likely fate of the cats if they do indeed go to AC. But that must be his decision. If he chooses to accept the tresspass rather than possibly causing these cats to be put to death, he may do so. But if he decides otherwise, deciding that his own property is to remain his and his alone, then he also has that right. And I believe, almost anywhere in the US, he also has that ability.
I am not an advocate for indiscriminate destruction of animal life. In point of fact, I’ve worked almost my entire life to prevent exactly that. It is not merely my avocation, my hobby, the cause to which I send money. It is my vocation, my profession. It’s what I do every day, where I go every morning, where I sit in this office right now overlooking literally several hundred wild animals. So stop accusing me of “wanting to kill” or being indifferent to the killing of these cats.
The cats surely aren’t at fault, but then neither is the OP. I believe that sometimes a human’s quality of life may fairly and reasonably take precedence.
We may indeed agree to disagree.
Our SPCA has the contract to do the animal control as well. The “dog catcher” is part of our organization. I know for a fact that they take a stray dog on the loose much, much more seriously than they do cats.
Clearly you lack an understanding of what a “no kill” shelter means. It means able-bodied, adoptable animals are not euthanized, no matter how long they are in the shelter, even ones with some behavioral issues. Incurably sick, untrainably vicious animals are. We don’t euthanize FIV+ cats, but do euthanize FeLV cats, for instance. “No-kill” does not mean “never kill.”
You might want to read this. My attitude towards feral cats is in line with this policy. Yours is not. But if you think I’m an idiotic crackpot, well, I’m not alone. Our shelter is run on this belief system, and it’s the official county shelter and has the county animal control contract. So agree to disagree we must, because obviously there are different schools of thought on this matter, and not one correct one, and there are people who agree with me who, like you, do this for a living.
Perhaps this is where our disagreement lies. You and your AC would consider the OP’s situation worthy of official enforcement action. Our AC would not, if the animals in question were neutered and vaccinated, not dangerous, and otherwise in good health. They might put the OP on a waiting list if he wanted to bring the cats in himself. Otherwise, no dice, unless there was a public health risk. Does this shed light on our differing attitudes towards this problem?
He may and he may not. Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean you should do it. This is why risk is an issue for me. If the cats were infested with parasites, unvaccinated, dropping kittens everywhere, etc., then I would agree that they have to be dealt with and possibly removed. If they are just regular cats who happen to live outside, then I would say, live and let live, for the sake of neighborly peace. You wouldn’t. This may, again, be an “agree to disagree” situation.
If all accusations, going in both directions, could stop, that would be awful nice, now wouldn’t it?
Many folks in this thread, not just me, have questioned how much the OP’s “quality of life” is really being affected here. Yes, we’re allowed to do that, considering that he opened his issue up for public scrutiny and debate. One man’s intolerable intrusions are another person’s no big fucking deal. That’s the world for ya, full of people with different points of view.
Great post CannyDan
And thanks for all of your work for the benefit of animals. I for one really appreciate you and those you work with. I also respect the knowledge that you have, both of animal behavior as well as the legal and ethical structures in society. Sorry you sometimes have to deal with people who either don’t understand, or are simply argumentative.
Awwww, it’s too bad other people have different points of view and the nerve to post them! Why are you still reading my pointless drivel? You can’t have too many more IQ points left to lose.
Thanks Euphonious Polemic.
I know the Pit is often all about winning and losing, and I see an element of that in this thread. But this is a hot button issue with serious ethical implications, especially for the OP. And it cannot be resolved in some simplistic “love all the animals or hate them, save each of their poor pathetic lives regardless of circumstance or kill them all” fashion. This isn’t about winning an argument or losing it, nor about black versus white wrong versus right. These are complex and highly personal issues, as are all moral and ethical choices. There isn’t one “correct” answer.
So I (bog forbid in the Pit of all places!!) tried to bring some rationality and some pure facts into the discussion. Oh, it being the Pit, I indulged in a bit of snark too. That’s what makes this a fun place, after all.
Yes there are people whose ethical choice would be to preserve the lives, and even preserve the vagabond lifestyle, of these kitties regardless of their implications for the OP. Indeed, it is easier to advocate this choice if one also denigrates the magnitude of the OP’s perceived problem. And we’ve seen this here.
I continue to disagree-- not that the above is an unacceptable choice for some people, but that it must be the only acceptable choice for all people, including the OP.
The OP should know that there are potentially significant dangers to that course of action, which he may discount if he wishes. And the OP is entitled to the quiet enjoyment of his own property, if he so chooses, regardless of the implications for these unowned and (mostly) unwanted cats. He should not be chided to “think of the neighbors!”-- if the neighbors really have any stake in the issue, they can adopt the cats themselves. Otherwise the opinions of the neighbors are merely idle gossip.
I think the take away message for the OP remains – It is ***your ***choice. Make it using your own moral sense, your own evaluation of the situation as it affects you and your family, and the full measure of factual information available. You’ll do fine.
I agree with this. Also, if you decide that you do want animals to be removed, check with your local animal control first before you do anything. Obviously, CannyDan and I have very different AC facilities and policies about removing feral cats in our jurisdicitions, so it might help for you to know exactly what your options are before you make any decisions.
Well that’s not really the issue he opened up for scrutiny and debate. His question was never “how badly is this affecting my life?” because that’s not a call that anyone else can make. People can question how much his quality of life is being affected here and all that’s going to come down to is a bunch of people who have never even seen his home deciding from a remove that he shouldn’t be bothered by something because, by a textual description, it doesn’t sound like something that would bother them. That’s completely useless.
The whole thing is useless, really, isn’t it? What can we are do for him either way? It’s a thread in the Pit. People are going to opine, not always on the OP’s side. If you don’t want commentary that disagrees with, doubts, ridicules, or is potentially useless to you, then the Pit is not the place for your thread, is it? Several folks have concluded that the OP is a big whiner. That’s not “useful” to the OP, but it’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it? People have also opined that maybe he needs to get a little perspective on things, which he could get from the differing opinions if he were open to them. Or not. It’s not necessarily the job of the SDMB Pitizens to be useful to the OPs of threads.
What happened to the thread closure? Did you decide to keep it open?
For anyone still interested, my Scarecrow sprinklers came and they did a reasonable job of keeping the cats out of the yard this weekend. Thanks to whoever gave that tip.
And we socialized a bit with the neighbors this weekend, so the relationship is still intact. (I was worried they were going to see the placement of the sprinklers as passive aggression and get all standoffish on me.)