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Back for a good old Moan.
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24-05-2009 4:44am#1
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Ah BlackCat, it'll take time but eventually we'll get there, where most of the owners who own cats make that mindshift toward vaccinating, neutering and not allowing their cats to roam.
If you think, 20 years ago nobody neutered their dog and it was always allowed to roam and hardly ever saw a worm tablet, so maybe the cats are close behind. You can but hope!
(Maybe if the breeders start making the domestic cat bigger and they start eating small children there might be a rethink about letting them roam?
- That's a joke, by the way, before anyone starts on me for being irresponsible. You have to admit, the summer of the rottweiler and the tabloids in the UK did a huge amount to change the public attitude to dog care.) 0 -
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However I can not afford to chip all of these cats & why should I when most pounds & rescues do not have a scanning machine?
Well, if they're not yours, I'd say you don't have to chip them to be honest. You've done enough already by having all of those animals neutered when your'e not even a rescue.
The purpose of a microchip is to allow an animal that's been lost be reunited with its owner - which is pointless in your case if they're feral ("Thank you Mr Ranger, for returning this feral cat to my property, you rock.")
Do most pounds in Ireland really not have microchip readers? I know there's an inequality between the care afforded to dogs and that afforded to cats but I'd still expect a pound to have a chip reader for the dogs... (if you know what I mean - e.g. they bought it with the dogs in mind, but can use it for the cats as well.)
The woman who runs the shelter I help with has something ridiculous like over 30 years of animal welfare experience. She used to work at domestic shelters and pounds, then couldn't take the deliberate cruelty dealt by owners, so moved to wildlife rescue. After a long time in wildlife rescue, she decided to dedicate her life to championing the underdog as it were - the domestic cat. She reckoned no other animal had so few people sticking up for it, because the cat is so hated in Australia - and it's hated because it's uncontrolled, uncontained, spreads disease, kills the wildlife, craps all over people's gardens and breeds like a rabbit.0 -
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Well, again, all you can do is keep plugging away.
Most cat owners aren't mental like me, and stick to one cat at a time, not five with four or five more fosters on the go. Their experience is one to two cats at a time and they're indoctrinated with the "cats need to roam, cats need space, cats need freedom".
The might have one cat that lives to 12 years and one that gets hit by a car at two years, so that 50/50 split encourages them to keep going as they have been.
Because I work with a shelter, I see constant streams of cat injuries, cat cruelty, feral cats, un-neutered cats, unwanted kittens, huge vet bills, tiny vet bills because people don't bring the cat to the vet, so on, so forth. Hence I'm converted, so I keep scratching away at other people (and miaowing loudly) to convert them too. 0 -
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In fairness I don't get involved with the worst of the cruelty and injury cases - I'm not the one there all the time who takes in the carpet-covered skeletons and the sore-covered feline aids cases and so on and so forth.
I just donate time and money and clean up crap and get the fosters that come in like hissing toilet brushes and hopefully leave as well-adjusted snugglies who no longer assume all people are evil.
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Now I have 7 very spoiled masters!! 
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