People with outdoor cats should have their pets taken away

[elsporko]

People with outdoor cats do not care about their neighbors or their pets. Outdoor cats frequently cause a vareity of trouble from killing local wildlife, running into streets causing traffic accidents, uncontrolled mating, and destruction of property. In addition outdoor cats have shorter lives, are more prone to illness, injury and attack from larger animals.

In light of these truths you ask yourself "Why would anybody treat an animal and their fellow man to such consequences?" The truth is people with outdoor cats are lazy. It is easier to give into the cats natural desire to want to be outdoors then it is to actually train and care for a cat. They let the cat in when they feel like having it around and the rest of the time the cat is thrown out into the cold.

I think cats found outdoors should be caught by local animal control. Then one of three things happens

1. The cat is found to be feral and is put down.

2. The cat is tame but has no tags or identification tatoo, brought to a shelter. If the owner is found they are given a warning and have to get the animal tattood before bringing it home.

3. The animal has tags. If this is the first time the animal has been picked up then the owner is given a warning. Second time: Owner is charged the cost of catching the animal. Third time: Animal is seized and brought to a shelter. Owner is charged the cost of catching the animal as well as a fee for keeping it in the shelter.

This may sound a bit extreme but I think it is the best way to drive home the fact that animals are living things that shouldn't be ignored and made a problem for other people.

[Lace Neil Singer]

People with outdoor children do not care about their neighbors or their pets. Children frequently cause a vareity of trouble from killing local wildlife, running into streets causing traffic accidents, uncontrolled screaming, and destruction of property.

This may sound a bit extreme but I think it is the best way to drive home the fact that children are living things that shouldn't be ignored and made a problem for other people.

See the problem? All I had to do was swap round a few words in order to create a new issue. There are people who let their children roam around causing mayhem; does your vendetta extend to them, too? Just wondering, cuz round where I am, most people who have outdoor cats have queens and neutered toms who very rarely go beyond next door as far as roaming goes. I haven't heard a single complaint from anyone about cats causing damage... but a lot about children doing so.

[blas87]

Cats killing wildlife?

Ever heard of the foodchain? Oh, poor birdy, poor bunny. Boo hoo. Cats are predators by nature.

FatCat and Baby are indoor cats ever since we moved in '03, but we used to live in a very cat friendly neighborhood by a feedmill at our old house. There were always cats around.....never a mouse in sight. People were glad they didn't get mice in their homes.

[AdminAssistant]

All of my cats growing up were outdoor farmcats. They were well cared for and we never had a mouse problem. (We also grew up in the middle of the country so....there ya go.)

[protege]

Kitty was an outside cat. When he first came to the farm, his duty was to kill the moles, field mice, and other critters that were tearing up the yard or getting into the house. At the time, my grandmother had just returned from the hospital after her auto accident...and didn't walk around very well. She was afraid that she'd trip over him...meaning he was an outside cat. For the most part, he wouldn't leave the farm. Granted, he had 80 acres to play with, but still. What few times he did, he'd only go as far as the neighbor's field across the highway, and that was it. Oddly enough, he'd actually look *both ways* before crossing roads

When the farm was sold in 2007, I'd brought him to my house. Too many dogs and idiot drivers meant he was now an inside cat. Never mind that he'd spent the previous 10 years outside...he decided he didn't like being outside, and would get pissed even if he was on the porch!

[elsporko]

Cats killing wildlife?

Ever heard of the foodchain? Oh, poor birdy, poor bunny. Boo hoo. Cats are predators by nature.

FatCat and Baby are indoor cats ever since we moved in '03, but we used to live in a very cat friendly neighborhood by a feedmill at our old house. There were always cats around.....never a mouse in sight. People were glad they didn't get mice in their homes.

So if a woman likes having song birds in her yard, and puts out feeders in her yard, she should have to live with a cat driving the birds she enjoys from her yard because of somebody else's cat? The last time I checked owning a cat doesn't mean everybody around you gives up their right to wildlife. Keep the cat in your yard and let it kill all it wants. I bet if I let a huge dog into your yard and let it attack your cat you wouldn't be saying its okay because of the food chain.

See the problem? All I had to do was swap round a few words in order to create a new issue. There are people who let their children roam around causing mayhem; does your vendetta extend to them, too? Just wondering, cuz round where I am, most people who have outdoor cats have queens and neutered toms who very rarely go beyond next door as far as roaming goes. I haven't heard a single complaint from anyone about cats causing damage... but a lot about children doing so.

You make a good point that similar but unrelated issues exist in the world. I'm pretty sure there are already methods for dealing with unsupervised children.

All of my cats growing up were outdoor farmcats. They were well cared for and we never had a mouse problem. (We also grew up in the middle of the country so....there ya go.)

If they were farmcats then I'm guessing they lived on a farm, which likely was very large without nearby neighbors so only the cats were being harmed in this situation not the neighbors. If you keep the cat on your property its not an issue.

[Cat]

I have no issues with removing unsupervised children
Feed 'em to the cats

WHen I was still withe the 'rents, we had quite a few indoor/outdoor cats...the females were ruthless killers....never had a mouse problem. Sadly, we did lose two cats to the road and one (we think) to a coyote. I will NEVER have outdoor cats again, no matter how much land I own. Morgan and Riley are 100% indoor kittehs. I do more for my cats' saftey than any other concerns.

When(if) the bf and I get a place together, we are thinking of building a cat pen, so the cats will be "outside" without truley being outside.

[Lace Neil Singer]

You make a good point that similar but unrelated issues exist in the world. I'm pretty sure there are already methods for dealing with unsupervised children.

Are you sure you're firing at the right target, tho?

http://www.messybeast.com/ukferal.htm

An additional problem is the growing vilification and scapegoating of cats in general. They are blamed for the loss of songbirds, when the prime cause of this is destruction of habitat by humans (farming, house-building and industrial use). It is far easier to blame cats than for humans to modify their own behaviour. Dog owners often revile cats because cats have more freedom to roam and dogs are supposed to be on a leash (in fact Britain has a stray dog population which many dog owners prefer to ignore) or because cats do not show mindless deference to their owners. They are blamed for tearing open bags of rubbish, although foxes, badgers and magpies are just as much to blame for this. A root cause of cat hatred, and of attempts to promote or incite cat hatred, is often the fact that people have contempt for what they cannot control - be it animals or other humans. This means that the perceived problem is much greater than the actual problem. This is further fuelled by poorly researched surveys which set out to prove a "researcher's" foregone conclusion by using inadequate and unrepresentative samples.

[Hobbs]

I love my cat, Pepper. She's an indoor/outdoor cat, and pretty much controls our suburban neighborhood. A lot of our neighbors like her, and she'll visit her 'favorite' houses routinely during the day. She's fixed, so we don't have to worry about her getting pregnant. All in all, she's the most well-behaved cat we have.

[telecom_goddess]

snicker

Lace I love your counterpoints

Now as for me I have 2 cats that used to be indoor/outdoor cats. Then I was forced to make them indoor only cats when I moved to a different apt complex. Which results in the the cats SHOOTING their way out the door a couple of times a week cause they want to go outside! I do everything I can to keep them in but damn it's not easy.

I fully believe that cats should be allowed to go outside provided it's safe enough. When my cats when outdoors it wasn't because I "didn't want them around" they wanted to go outside. They came in when they wanted to come in. They need to exercise their natural predator instincts. I'm not saying they should kill birds but they can definitely go after the mice and the pests.

At least in the house mine eat the bugs

[Amanita]

Well said, Lace. We have two cats, a male and a female. Both are fixed. The female is primarily an indoor cat, but we do let her go out sometimes. The male is an indoor/outdoor cat- provided it's not raining, freezing, or snow on the ground, we let him have some outdoor time each day. He's got the kind of temperement where he can't stand to be kept inside all the time- he howls to get out, and that cat has lungs! So for his happiness and ours, we let him out to patrol the yard each day. He's an exellent mouser, which helps as well. And yes, we do have a birdfeeder, but we've rigged the post it sits on so that animals like cats and raccoons can't climb it.

As for ripped up bags of trash, in our area the worst offenders for garbage bag shredding are not cats, but crows! And my father and I have humane-trapped and released several raccoons in the last year. Those are far bigger pests than cats.
FWIW, we live in a sub-suburban area. If we were right in the city, the choice to let our cats out would be a different matter altogether. They might be leash trained, or have an enclosure built for them instead.

And I'm also with lace about the cat hatred thing- it seems that a lot of people who hate cats have controlling temperements in general, and don't take kindly to anything which doesn't slavishly follow orders.

[Stormraven]

Our cats are indoor mostly, and outdoor with supervision. We don't let them out every day, but occasionally will give them fifteen to thirty minutes outside, as they choose.

[jedimaster91]

We've got several feral cats in our neighborhood and I've lost track of how many times I've nearly hit one with my car. I know at least one female is not fixed because my hubby nearly ran over her kittens with the lawnmower.

I have the same feelings about outdoor cats as outdoor dogs (heck, my dogs are mostly outside dogs): responsible owners that keep their critters safely in their own yards don't bother me. It's the ones who allow their animals to roam unsupervised where they could get hurt or hurt other animals or people that make me stabby.

[Ree]

See the problem? All I had to do was swap round a few words in order to create a new issue.

Are you seriously comparing cats to children?

Nothing like a bit of apples and oranges to muddy up the debate a bit.

Yes, some children do run and wreak havoc in the neighbourhood, but I really fail to see a valid comparison between that, and someone complaining about people who let their cats roam.

For the record, I keep my cat indoors.
I do not believe in letting cats roam the neighbourhood, and it irks me when people let theirs roam.

Their cats shit in my flower beds and then dig to bury it.
They piss and spray all over anything left outside.
They chew my trash bags and get garbage all over my carport.

The health and safety risks are much higher for an outdoor cat as well.
There is a much higher risk for feline leukemia.

[Lace Neil Singer]

My main point was that where do you draw the line as far as saying "take their *** away from them."? A lot of people say that about kids roaming the streets/mall; I've lost count of the number of CS posts that say exactly that about kids. I wasn't comparing kids to cats; tho I admit I didn't make it quite clear.