Are the 'just one litter' brigade bringing cats to 'vermin' status?

[Strix]

Now lets all be sensible here

 

Following on from a cat poisoning warning on another part of the forum, I thought it more appropriate to bring the debate off that thread and into it's appropriate forum....

 

Cats once were a sparse feature on the residential landscape, and dogs were as likely to be seen trotting about the neighbourhood as cats were, but modern society has elected that dogs and cats no longer hold the same status, and our perception of their required care has diverged.

 

The cat shelters are full to bursting. Very few cat owners now have one cat (or at least if they post on this forum ), and neigbourhoods are reaching a point were non-cat owners have had enough of having their vegetable patches destroyed by digging cats, their sleep broken by catterwalling, their car engines and wheel arches sprayed, and their childrens' health put at risk from encountering their excrement.

 

Now I've said all that, we don't need personal anecdotes or further ranting ta

 

The big question is: Has the attitude of 'just one litter' brought us to this state, and what do you think will be the likely consequence of us continuing to allow this situation to grow?

 

It's a debate about the practical problems, so any plain cat-hating posts will be removed. Be gentle. They are forumers' pets

[bluesandtwos]

I dont think its so much a case of "just one litter" but more a case of people aquiring kittens either free or very cheaply and failing to get them neutered. it happens with dogs too, but cats differ in that they are more 'free ranging' than most dogs, so go out, get pregnant (much to the surprise of their owners) and produce more kittens. cats are prolific breeders and unchecked, produce a good few kittens a year without birth control. sadly, some people would rather let their cat produce kittens than have them neutered.

[sooz22]

Just out of interest how would you enforce the laws that apply to dogs onto cats? In order for it to work cats would have to be kept indoors at all times (or trained to walk on a leash?). You simply cant train them in the way you can dogs.

 

There is no way of comparing the two as they are totally seperate animals with completely different behavioural characteristics as is recognised by the law regarding their 'feral' status.

[Strix]

The laws applying to dogs are enforced by their capture

 

In other countries these pets have different status. In certain parts of the States it's considered cruel to allow a cat to roam, and lead training is something not all dogs take to easily - many cats are walked on leads.

 

None of this addresses the original question though...

 

If we allow this situation to mushroom as it is, how will it eventually be reigned in?

[bluesandtwos]

cats are certainly nigh-on impossible to confine. we have electified mesh around our garden, to keep in the dogs. Our breed are the houdinis of the dog world, and the fence works, but still does not keep in our cats. i have a fellow husky owner friend who had a very bad experience a few weeks ago. her dogs killed a cat that ventured into her 6ft fenced garden, where her 5 huskies play. she felt bad and she never managed to trace the owner. but ultimately, its hardly her fault someone elses cat entered her garden.

[sooz22]

Im sure the governement can dream up some charming disease to cull all the feral cats and cause long term population damage as they did when the rabbit population reached epidemic proportions.

 

Thanks to that little scheme we now have an extra vaccination to pay for and a constant stream of highly contagious infected animals suffering a horrific death.

[Jabberwocky]

It must be a Sheffield thing. Ive said it before on the forum, but cats are as rare as rocking horse turds in Leicestershire.

[Strix]

Do foxes eat them there or are you casting aspersions on curry houses Jabber?

[Jabberwocky]

Do foxes eat them there or are you casting aspersions on curry houses Jabber?

Im not sure. I cant see them being scoffed because theyre far too stringy, and the foxes here arent hard enough to take a cat.

Im tempted to drive to Sheffield, kidnap moggies and sell `em here, kittens go for 70 quid a time and I recently heared that adults sell for more.

[medusa]

An interesting bit of information here- do you know why cats used to be so 'rare'?

 

It was because the purpose of places like the Cats Shelter, in the days before spaying was common, was to humanely destroy the extra cats for which there were no homes.

 

They weren't rare at all- the extra cats were just killed.

 

These days we rehome 400ish cats a year. Back in the days when the Shelter was advertised as somewhere for humane disposal, just one shelter would put to sleep over 10000 cats a year. And no, I haven't got too many zeros in there- I really do mean ten thousand cats destroyed a year.

 

I agree that the 'just one litter' brigade don't do cats in general any favours, but the advances in the last 50 years of the cat world are just phenomenal.

 

Today's feral cats are a product of a couple of hundred years of treating cats as animals without worth, and I can foresee no way of ever applying any laws on controlled breeding to cats unless there was some way of eradicating feral cats (and I don't think that will ever happen because feral cats are just too good at existing where we don't see them).

 

The animal welfare message is slowly but surely getting through to most people, and I think we need to spend some time being thankful for that, before we concentrate on what we're still getting wrong.

 

Historically dogs have always been valued much more than cats, and therefore the dog world is in advance of the cat world on lots of issues, but a lot of the issues remaining are different issues for the two species, so I think we need to look at them as separate issues for the future.

 

Sorry for rambling on this one- but with regards to cats I really do feel that looking how far the species has come is as important as despairing of where it is now.