You mean animals do animal things?
Woman appalled that cats kill disease carrying poop machines err birds. So, there’s a proposal for a leash law for cats. Now, I have two cats. And, while I’m new to this cat business, I’m guessing leashing one would not go well for me or the cat.
April 27th, 2012 at 8:59 am
Yeah, cats don’t generally do well being led around on a leash. You’d think even dumb politicians might know that.
April 27th, 2012 at 9:13 am
Just take you cat to the local politicians office and let him try to walk it on a leash.. After he pries it off his leg he might have a different view…
April 27th, 2012 at 9:20 am
“…To escort a cat abroad on a leash is against the nature of the cat…” -Adlai E. Stevenson
April 27th, 2012 at 9:20 am
And like this town in Massachusetts you have Coyotes.
If the problem is errant cats, Coyotes are the solution.
Of course people don’t like Coyotes because they eat their cats.
Nature ain’t a fucking Disney film!
April 27th, 2012 at 9:20 am
The man who sets about to carry a cat by the tail will learn something that will never grow dim or doubtful, and will always be of use.
Twain, I think…
April 27th, 2012 at 9:23 am
The lolcat people will not be happy. Cross them at ones own peril.
April 27th, 2012 at 9:28 am
What everybody said. Those little lions are feral.
April 27th, 2012 at 9:30 am
This is like the children’s story, “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,” only the ever-demanding mouse is replaced by a person who wants the world, and everyone in in it, to work exactly as she wants it to, despite reality or the inconvenience to everyone else.
How about SSS pest control? Shoot, shovel and shutup.
April 27th, 2012 at 9:36 am
I tried putting a choke chain and leash on a cat once. Just once was enough to convince me it was not a workable solution. The scars have faded and the nightmares come less frequently.
April 27th, 2012 at 9:44 am
I have a friend who walks her cat on a leash. But then again, she also taught it to use the bathroom toilet.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:07 am
One does not take a leashed cat for a walk so much as a drag, in my experience.
One of my sister’s cats likes it, actually, but he’s kinda odd as cats go.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:13 am
Dogs have owners, cats have staff. One does not leash a cat.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:27 am
Cannot. Stop. Laughing..
Thread of the year, right here.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:43 am
Unleashed/freeroaming cats make nice chew toys for my shepherds.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:48 am
I like my lizards, snakes, and songbirds unmolested. I like the boys sandbox unpooped. I don’t have much love for east nashvilles hippies who tell me about their “free spirits” so I understand where leash laws for cats comes from.
April 27th, 2012 at 10:52 am
I believe Tam has put a cat on a leash, but then again it Tam.
I place this in the same category as herding buffalos,
you can make a buffalo go any where they want to go.
Gerry
April 27th, 2012 at 11:00 am
My father owned a house that backed up onto a good-sized bean field. He once had to physically restrain the neighbor-lady from having at a hawk with a BB-gun (the only weapon that fell to hand, apparently) because she didn’t want the raptor to eat any of “her” songbirds.
Bitch thought she was hot shit with that BB-gun.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:05 am
You have to use the shoulder harness, not a collar, when leashing a cat, and you have to start ’em young.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:10 am
Cats can bond, and they do crave affection, but on their terms. They will “caress” you by brushing up against you while you’re filling their food tray, and they will scratch you jumping out of your arms when they’re tired of you cuddling them. I do get get a kick of watching them claw up a screen door.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:13 am
I have lived with something like a dozen cats, and only one was willing to wear a leash. And she didn’t like it.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:24 am
I’ll say it again: this story is not about cats, it is about the crazy lady who wants everyone else in the world to do her work for her.
Yes, cats kill small animals, birds and poop in sand boxes. This is well known behavior and reprehensible. Bad Kitty! Bad Kitty!
The solution is not to enforce a leash law. Leash laws for cats, like anti-gun laws, would affect only the law abiding cat owners.
What feral cat will ever be leashed? None
What criminal will ever obtain a CHL? None
There are MUCH better ways to combat feral cats than leash laws, just as there are MUCH better ways to decrease crime than gun control.
I have participated in the Austin, TX, program to reduce feral cat populations. It starts with live trapping of suburban feral cats. The cats are neutered/spayed by the city animal shelter, then released again where they were caught. This actually minimizes the feral cat population, as fewer kittens are produced and the mature cats control larger and larger territories individually.
Sounds strange, but is supported through cat population studies by those biologic scientist types around here.
I also knew an old south Texas lady who used to blast any cat she saw on her property with a 22 rifle. She liked her birds, just like the lady in the posted story. But she knew how best to protect her birds, unlike Ms. Leash Law.
April 27th, 2012 at 11:53 am
Never give a cat a leash. It is merely something expedient for them to strangle you with in your sleep.
My cat is an inside cat who very occasionally spends a couple of hours outside. He’s too fat to be a serious concern to the birds.
April 27th, 2012 at 12:04 pm
If you leash a cat, make sure to set up the HD video camera ahead of time. I want to see that video and laugh… and laugh… and laugh.
April 27th, 2012 at 12:15 pm
“I also knew an old south Texas lady who used to blast any cat she saw on her property with a 22 rifle. She liked her birds, just like the lady in the posted story. But she knew how best to protect her birds, unlike Ms. Leash Law.”
They don’t let us do that where I live. So I don’t mind efforts like this. Keep your furry shitball off my land, for any reason I choose. One of those is that it increases the possibility of MY inside cats getting sick which costs money.
Of course, this can by mitigated by a policy of live trapping cats, removing any identifying attachments such as collars, and dropping the unwanted kitty at whatever shelter has the highest kill ratio.
“If you leash a cat, make sure to set up the HD video camera ahead of time. I want to see that video and laugh… and laugh… and laugh.”
We do this with our cats all the time. They walk around, sniff and scratch things, and generally do cat things. It isn’t a big deal.
April 27th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
And, lest we forget:
April 27th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
“I have participated in the Austin, TX, program to reduce feral cat populations. It starts with live trapping of suburban feral cats. The cats are neutered/spayed by the city animal shelter, then released again where they were caught.”
BEST WORKING DEFINITION OF INSANITY I HAVE EVER SEEN.
April 27th, 2012 at 2:49 pm
I thought INSANITY, too, when I first read about it. I live in the county next door to Austin, TX. I have a rental house in Austin. The renter was having problems with feral cats because a neighbor left relatively infinite amounts of food out for them, and they were breeding like cats – about 18 called her street home, and they produced kittens in half dozens all spring.
I loaned her a live trap, and she started trapping them and transporting them to the animal shelter. After a few trips, they told her about this program. She started participating in that, and she also got the neighbor (with an assist by a pet control officer) to stop with the cat food bags dumped in their back yard.
One year, 2 dead cats, and ~10 neutered/released cats and kittens later, feral cats are basically invisible in the neighborhood, and lizards and birds again populate the back yard.
I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t read the reports done by field biologists and seen the results with my own two eyes. I would guess that a large part of teh cat reduction was removing the free food, but I am convinced there will be about zero feral kittens born in that neighborhood this year.
April 27th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
And again, the story is about a city government intent on DOING SOMETHING instead of actually fixing a perceived problem, in a rather parallel manner to gun grabbers who think crime will decrease if law-abiding citizens can’t have guns.
April 27th, 2012 at 4:00 pm
Spade: a woman in Eugene Oregon who was also on a crusade against feral cats had a simple solution to the “can’t shoot them” dilemma.
She was unable to get euthansia drugs without a state veterinarian license, or a fur trapper’s permit. She asked the county how they killed abandoned pets at the shelter. The answer was asphyxiation.
So she just set out live traps in her yard, and if the cat didn’t have an ID tag, the whole trap, cat and all, was submerged in a filled washtub for a half hour.
The PETArds went nuts over it, but there was nothing they could legally do about it.
However, the feral cats did go away. And the neighbors learned to control their pets after repeatedly having to pay to retrieve their pets from the pound.
April 27th, 2012 at 4:03 pm
So if you outlaw cats only outlaws will have cats? Just kidding.
I can see the benefits of this neutering program of which you speak. However, I believe it should be funded by charitable donations and not my tax dollars.
When these folk came to my city to ask the council for money with which to solve our minor, but sometimes noticeable feral cat problem the council politely declined to give them money. It was one of the few signs of fiscal restraint they have shown recently, but it was the right thing to do.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m not convinced this is it. Thanks, though, for the feedback.
April 27th, 2012 at 4:51 pm
We need a leash law for busybodies like that woman. Muzzle ’em too while you’re at it.
April 27th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
The first trick with cats is you have to use a harness, not a collar – as Socks the Cat proved with his Secret Service handlers, the little bastards will get the leash looped over a tree branch and try to hang themselves.
The second trick is to start them early. We have failed at this, unfortunately.
And the third trick is to just put the harness on (without the leash) and leave them alone for a day or two. Sure, they hate it, but they are going to have to eat at some point…
April 28th, 2012 at 3:19 am
I like my worms, and clean statues. We need more-cat laws to keep those bird populations in check.
April 28th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Vegans hate to see their narrow-minded philosophy trumped by carnivores.
April 28th, 2012 at 1:37 pm
Without further ado, I present the TrapCat Game!
http://www.austinhumanesociety.org/resources/trapcat
Trapping feral cats, sterilizing them, and releasing a small number to hold territories without further breeding is the best way known to reduce feral cat populations. If you kill all the feral cats in a neighborhood, there will be a similar number present the next year, overflowing from surrounding areas.
And teh idjits who want government to take care of the cats instead of doing it themselves miss two points:
1. It is 2x expensive to euthanize cats through a pound as it is to sterilize them through free work volunteer workers.
2. There are 3 non-government organizations in Austin working to reduce feral cat populations with sterilization programs.
Do it yourselves, you silly Connecticut people.
April 28th, 2012 at 2:06 pm
I see your TrapCat Game and raise you Kitten Skeet.
http://www.richsalter.btinternet.co.uk/cks1/index.html