Pages

Friday, January 20, 2012

Just a fact

Being a cat-sitter, I am often asked questions about cats and their behaviour. I have come to learn over the years that the one thing that will get a cat a one-way ticket to the animal shelter is aggression. The second and third most often reported reason is that they spray the home or urinate outside the litter box. Hands down, the 3 things that people will not tolerate from a cat.  And I can tell you from experience of visiting and handling many of the cats at our local animal shelter that most come in there over a year of age and they have not been spayed or neutered. The female should be spayed. The male should be neutered. Once they reach 6 months, all cats should be fixed. Our local animal shelter is a 'no kill' shelter so the kind people there work with these cats and do their best to find that forever home for them. But, every one of the above behaviours can be caused from not sterilizing the cat. That's it....no getting around it. It is the answer to the over-population of unwanted cats and will provide you with a much happier cat in your home.
 Right now, our shelter houses almost 200 cats that are up for adoption. That is not counting the cats in foster homes like our Annie and little Audrey. That is one little shelter in the middle of no-where. Multiply that by tens of thousands in this country. People have to wake up. People have to become more responsible. Sometimes I just want to scream.

I have many homes where I am cat-sitting this week. Two of those homes have asked me to also put food out for the stray cats that come to their door every day. One lady has a heated water dish for them to always have fresh water with their generous portions of cat food. Caring, loving people trying to help cats that at one time lived in a home in this town and have been lost or abandoned.
Where do they stay to get warmth? It is winter here. The shelters are packed and really, there are so many in this situation around these parts that it is mind-boggling.
So you do what you can do. I put food out for them and fill up the water dish. They are no where to be seen because they are scared of people. God knows what their story is. Then I drive to the spot where I feed the ferals and place more food there. I haven't seen a cat there all winter but the food goes every night. But then, everything is starving, right?

I can't see them starve.

hugs, Deb

10 comments:

  1. Aunty Deb,
    My Mama is trying to convince the population of an island to agree to neuter all of their kitty population. Breaks our heart to see the condition of some of them. At least there's no winter here. purrr....meow!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Makes me think of Bob Barker's closing line from The Price is Right for all those years. so true.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Deb,
    There is a good story about Disney World in California. You can google it. Anyways, they found a colony of 100 feral cats in Sleeping Beauty, or someone's palace. That was 25 years ago. Now there are 200 neutered and vaccinated ferals in the park. They are not socialized, but have 5 feeding stations thru the park and come out at night and control the rodent population.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Same problem in Sweden with people who doesn´t spay or neuter there cat´s :(
    My mom got me neutered when I started to have nightly serenades.
    I am a much moore happy cat now without my balls :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. It's sad. And it's the same situation here in Brazil, where we are aggravating the lack of laws to punish mistreatment, neglect and all.
    Thanks to people like you there is hope.

    ReplyDelete
  6. 200 cats in the shelter...wow...that is heart breaking. And this is everywhere. If only people would spay and neuter their animals.

    Audrey is so cute!!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I'm quite afraid that if I were to see a kit come by, I'd not only feed it, but get it checked out and bring it in. It's so, SO cold here!

    ReplyDelete
  8. I made the mistake of changing my son's diaper on the couch a couple of times when he was a baby. He peed on the couch. I didn't put him into a shelter! It's sad when people give up on their animals when their behavior changes. It makes me sad.

    xo Catherine

    ReplyDelete
  9. I can't stand the thought of these lost kitties going hungry and being cold. It is so sad. You are such a great advocate for cats!

    ReplyDelete
  10. You do a lot for the kitties, Deb, and I"m glad you're out there helping them. It's so painful to think of all the suffering cats (and other animals) i the world. And so unnecessary, if people would just make the smallest effort. I keep looking at little Emily and marvelling that she survived in the -22C temps, a tiny little thing like here No wonder she's so happy here next to me on the couch. But what about all the little cats that don't make it? I could scream too.

    ReplyDelete