Re: roaming cats

**l*@juno.com**

Tut, Tut Rich,

I lived next to a dairy farm for many years and the barn cats did not
come to my windows and goad my cat, nor come in my yard at all. I think
we are all speaking from our own experience and I concede that your
experience may be very different from mine. But that does not mean that I
am "insensible".  Au contraire, as anyone who knows me would tell you.

Yours for civilized debate,
Lois

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007 12:22:09 -0400 "Rich Pomerantz"
<rich@richpomerantz.com> writes:
> <Barn and estate cats are a different matter, I think. They are 
> needed to
> keep grains, large animal housing, etc. sanitary. But farmers 
> usually
> have enough property that their outdoor cats don't find it necessary 
> to
> use neighbor's flower beds and window boxes as litter pans.>
> 
> Now this is an interesting slippery slope you have embarked down. So 
> you
> would advocate my cats stay inside while the barn cats at the dairy 
> farm 300
> yards up the street from me or the others at the goat farm right 
> across the
> street from me, can roam free, goading my cats through the windows, 
> killing
> the birds that venture into their yard? This is so insensible it's 
> almost
> funny.
> 
> The animal control people in our town (all 64 square miles of it, 
> the
> largest town in this state) have their hands full dealing with the 
> regular
> gamut of issues. Dog leash law enforcement is very low on their 
> to-do list.
> Pass all the cat leash laws some city slicker utopian minds can come 
> up
> with, I'd bet they won't be enforced by any agencies around here or 
> in most
> towns.
> 
> I am sympathetic to the declining song bird issue, so let's advocate 
> an
> effective strategy for reversing that: habitat protection, serious 
> and
> radical development limitations, and educating the species that is 
> doing 99%
> of the damage: humans. Blaming cats is a distraction, IMHO.
> 
> Growing up we had an outdoor cat that was forced to live indoors  - 
> she was
> miserable for the rest of her life. Cat's are hunters more than 
> anything
> else, not toys or entertainment for us. It's nice that we can live 
> together
> when we can, but crippling them by ripping out their claws or 
> forcing them
> to live indoors for their entire existence changes them into 
> something other
> than what they were meant to be for our personal convenience.  
> Controlling
> feral cats is another issue entirely.
> 
> Sorry for the rant.
> 
> Rich
> 
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