Community Chat

[x Hedge]

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@truffle wrote:

In some cities too many animals inside the home requires licensing and then you'd be in the wrong zone as it's considered a business. Don't know what happens after that if you continue to have more than the limit. 

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@truffle, In my city the limit is 4. If you exceed that you are running an unlicensed business. They will remove your animals and fine you.

[x Hedge]

Thank you @Sweetbay magnolia, @Pearley,  @SuzyQ3, @Happycat01, 

Agile maneuvering @SunValley. 

I know we're all 'wired' differently, and because of that some posters welcome it as "natural" when they see, or they themselves post (for instance) movie reviews or lawn care tips woven as a separate ongoing conversation between friends, into a totally unrelated thread or forum. 

I can and do generally waive that stuff aside, roll my eyes and keep going, but today it was 3 threads in sequence;  bing! - bang! - boom! 

@noodleann, @JillyMarie,

@hckynut, she wandered thru last month, visably pregnant and starving.

She was going door to door crying for, and getting handouts. She has an excellent temperament and were it not for the 2 indoor I would've taken her inside permanently weeks ago.

She's completed her pregnancy with shelter from heat and rain. She's had all the cat food and fresh water she desires. She's very much the well behaved lap cat, climbing up whenever I sit down.

In my city ferals are euthanized almost immediately. Strays are supposed to be given 10 days to be claimed before most would be euthanized, tho I kno of one case where the technician rushed the job forward by 9 days. Only an exceptional stray would be moved forward to be adopted. 

But 'pets' that are surrendered are housed and put up for adoption.

While I have been cultivating future potential adoptive homes, if necessary, my contingency plan is to be able to surrender 'pets' that are used to human contact, litter box trained, have been examined and received initial medical care, etc. and therefore will be cared for until they're adopted.

As for Miss KittyBoo, I have my eye on a neighbor 2 doors down who's had a stroke and would benefit greatly from adopting a well behaved lap cat a few months from now.

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[Kachina624]

@x Hedge  I assume when you see inappropriate or misplaced posts you report them to the mods?  They can't be everywhere at once and I imagine they appreciate the help.  I agree some of the things I see posted do tend to bring out the prickliness in one's disposition. 

[hckynut]

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@Noel7 wrote:

I don't understand why anyone has an outdoor cat unless it's restricted to a fenced yard and their person is with them.

A recent PBS show about cats said they are much more domesticated now, we're not talking about wild beings.

Saying we don't know what happened to an outdoor cat usually means it was something bad, like being hit by a car, being used for dog fights, getting wounded in a fight, on and on. 

@Noel7, Hi to you,

I can only tell you "the why" of our outdoor cats for my wife and I, not for anyone else. Princess, our last outdoor cat, which we had to euthanize, showed up on our East side deck on our home. She was maybe 3 or 4 months old, a kitten.

At the time there was also a tuxedo male, semi-feral we fed and did the best we could. He would not let anyone, neither myself or my wife pick him up, would stand next to us and if we used 1 hand, let us pet him. Bend over with 2 hands? He was out of there in a split second.  

I trapped him humanly when he started hanging around. Took him in and paid our vet to neuter him, his took a special surgery because of not completely dropped male parts. He was at our vets close to 4 days because we wanted to make sure he was healed enough to be put back outside.

At the time we had either 12-13 indoor only felines, and with either myself or my wife seeming to always be in the hospital with serious issues? How would we add a semi-feral to our other felines? We couldn't. Take him to the Humane Society in a trap as a feral and what do you suppose would happen to him? 

Him and Princess got along sharing the food and giving each other space. I of course trapped her in our humane trap, took her to our vet, and paid to have her spayed. Like the Tuxedo, she would not let you pick her up. Somewhere over that time Tuxy disappeared and we have no idea what happened with him or to him.

What is there we could do, as we saw no option other then sentencing him to sure immediate death at our humane society. Princess on the other hand got better with us. She would lay on her back and liked belly rubs, but try to pick her up? Not without protective gear.

She got better so we were going to bring her inside, hoping she would gradually change. She got along with Tuxy, so we felt she would get along with the remainder of our non-euthanized/once numbered 13 indoor only felines. We put many to their final sleep during that time because we did what was best for them, not us, but them.

We took her to our vet to do a complete blood workup, the works. Well! She turned out to be HIV Positive! Now with our dwindling number of indoor only felines, we were not willing to risk infecting all of them to what is a deadly disease. So Princess remained our outdoor sweetheart. It broke our hearts when we had to euthanize her about a month ago, less than 2 weeks after having had to euthanize my wife's baby Ozzie, our youngest.

You know I could go on and on with how many litters we raised, born outside to mothers that "castaways" on our highway. Got adopted out, 30-40-50? Yes, we with the help of our vet, found homes for at least that many born outside our home. When we moved here we had 6 indoor only, and then we had 7-8-9-10-11-12-13! Why, because we kept a few because they did not get adopted.

Why others let their cats outdoors? You will have to ask them. We did everything we felt humanly possible to help all these felines, and sometimes for us, that was not enough. That is why our "outdoor cats" were outdoors, and that is how/why and whatfor they disappeared. If only others woule just keep their "indoor cats", indoors.

hckynut(john)

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[blackhole99]

 All our cats were strays, we live on a lot of property in the woods and there are farms all around us. The farmers do not keep their cats inside and do not feed them cat food or have them spayed or neutered. When they are over run with kittens they simply dispose of them, if you know what I mean. Our old cat Moe was a stray kitten from the farm below us, his mother brought him to us one brutally cold January. Moe is 13 years old and has been an inside/outside cat his whole long life. Cats in our area are mostly killed by people hitting them when they run out in front of their car when they are chasing vermin. I don't care if people post stuff somewhere that's unrelated, so what!

[AuntG]

@x Hedge have you always let inconsequential things bother you?  I have a friend who writes on Facebook about people who don't use their turn signals, those that block aisles with their shopping cars......and the list goes on.  Sure it's annoying, but you can't change people and confrontation could escalate to somedthing far more serious. Please try to shrug it off - I find far more good on these boards than bad.

[JillyMarie]

@x Hedge, you seem to have issues. I'll avoid you going forward.

[HappyDaze]

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@Noel7 wrote:

I don't understand why anyone has an outdoor cat unless it's restricted to a fenced yard and their person is with them.

A recent PBS show about cats said they are much more domesticated now, we're not talking about wild beings.

Saying we don't know what happened to an outdoor cat usually means it was something bad, like being hit by a car, being used for dog fights, getting wounded in a fight, on and on. 

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@Noel7 I always roll my eyes and cringe when I see "lost cat" posters around my area. We live in the forest. I can guarantee your "lost" cat is not lost. Your "lost" cat was either eaten, taken to animal control, hit by a car or shot by a neighbor. Sad but true.

[x Hedge]

Enjoyed your post @hckynut.  My 2 indoor were both born feral, and showed up in that magic window of time after they're weaned but before they're hardened against human contact.

My little female is also Tuxedo, and turned 13 this year. Male is a Tabby, 17, and loved having me all to himself until she moved in with us.

Outside, 'Good Mama', looking very Siamese, showed up in Oct 2004 with 3 nursing kits and an adolescent from her previous litter in tow. (Guessing on that, but that happens where one stays on and hunts with the mom.)

Good Mama, also a lap cat, became Mamacita, and was adopted. Her 3 kits were absolutely wild and unfortunately completely unadoptable. They were euthanized.

The adolescent stayed on and became my first 'outside' cat. I could pick him up, carry him short distances before he balked. He enjoyed being combed all over with a flea comb while he ate. He was with me for several years, refusing to be adopted by the nice couple accross the street.

I swore off having another outside cat after that, but the next one was a young adult male with a crushed wrist. He was skin over bones, could barely stand, had been reduced to 'bug hunting' only slow crawlers.

He stayed with me as an outside cat, got stronger and had a decent life although he never regained much use of that paw, so needed some accommodation for his physical issues. He died 2 summers ago.

Enter Miss KittyBoo, looking like a pregnant adolescent runaway. 

[occasionalrain]

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@AuntG wrote:

@x Hedge have you always let inconsequential things bother you?  I have a friend who writes on Facebook about people who don't use their turn signals, those that block aisles with their shopping cars......and the list goes on.  Sure it's annoying, but you can't change people and confrontation could escalate to somedthing far more serious. Please try to shrug it off - I find far more good on these boards than bad.

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Personally, I'm against accepting the unacceptable. It's true that people won't change unless, until they find it easier, more beneficial for them. Those who shrug it off are guilty of complicity.