My sisters healthy cat went missing. I made a flyer with his picture describing how he will die without his life-sustaining kidney medication, we put it up everywhere. The people who scooped him up saw it and returned him.
I’ve known several separate cases where three different households have simultaneously believed the neighborhood cat was “their” cat. That little buddy was eating *good.*
I remember some study of outdoor cats where they put tracking collars on them and found that the average cat spent time in 6 different houses during a week. The researchers followed up and found that they were getting fed at all of them. It’s enough to make you wonder who domesticated who.
Veterinary studies have shown that [about 50% of cats are overweight and free feeding is named as a contributing factor.](https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/obesity)
But I do agree that a smaller percentage of cats are able to regulate their intake quite well.
I had an old ,tough ,well-traveled tomcat back in the mid-seventies who had at least 6 "owners" all over Southeast Atlanta, and must have fathered hundreds of cats all over ; the markings he spread were : grey/ white with pink noses ,no stripes and white "socks" on all 4 feet ! Nicholas lived to the age of 23 !
My partners cat just vanished one day.
I searched for months. Went door knocking, put up signs and posted in every single lost and found group I could find. Animals don't just disappear. There was no evidence of her getting picked up by a preditor and I know older cats will leave home to die but I searched high and low everyday for 2 months. I crawled throught the majority of the storm water system in our area. Surely I would have found her past away if that's what had happened. Someone has her and we get upset every time we think about it!
Please don't take in stray Animals. Have them scanned first before taking them. You may think you're being charitable but there's a high chance you just stole someone beloved pet.
I've seen the occasional small fox but no birds of prey big enough that I know of anyway in south west Sydney where I live. I figured if a fox had gotten her there be fur around because she is a big white/grey fluffy cat.
"Look at this perfectly clean, healthy, friendly, and well fed stray that I adopted off the street." Dude thats someone's beloved pet.
It double pisses me off because this shit happened with my cat. Some neighboor saw him walking around and she started leaving out food bowls for him, so of course the fat fuck started going over there more often. We didn't see him for 4 days until the squirlly rascal escaped and ran on back here, she chased him all the way back to my house insisting that it was her cat and she was going to call the cops. I suggested we both go the vet together and scan his chip and she shut down real quick.
Same exact shit happened to me except I was 11 in the 90s so no chip. Ended up losing the cat to the shitass neighbor because my parents started going through their divorce and neither wanted to help me keep my cat. I actually lost all my pets from that.
I’m so sorry to hear that happened to you. The rapport between a kid and their pets is so deep. Basically, adults forget how strong a kid’s emotions are or dismiss them as not real. Like, you’re too young to know real love or some shit.
Thanks. It took me a long time to get over my pets that even now as an adult with a child I haven’t adopted a pet since. It didn’t feel so hard at the time because I was dealing with so much other stuff I turned pretty numb for years.
In my defense (and I know you weren't talking to me) I had a cat start coming in my backyard for a few weeks, looking skinny, dirty, and had fleas.
I tried to re-home him and suddenly "missing cat" posters were all around the neighborhood.
I returned the cat and they still show up in my backyard, but they look much healthier, cleaner, and fed now so hopefully the owner learned to stop being neglectful.
My neighbors had their cat stolen twice in the span of six weeks. The cat was elderly and needed daily medication. He could have died.
They moved away shortly after these incidents and I don’t blame them. They sent the cat away to stay with family before they moved because he was a master escape artist and they didn’t want to risk him getting stolen again. They hated having to be seperated but they knew he would at least be safe and be given his daily medications.
I have taken in cats overnight that I knew had owners, including that cat, due to unsafe conditions outside such as weather or emergency vehicles that might scare a cat causing them to run off and get lost. But I always contacted the owners as soon as I could and let them know I had their cat and where we lived and that they could come pick them up.
I try to keep track of the cats I see in my neighborhood so I can get them help if they need it either through their owners, or if they are actual strays a local rescue.
I work at a hospital and we have a cat that hangs around our carpark and stairway all day. He had a collar and a tag and we have posters all over the area explaining who he is and that he had a home nearby.
He is a well loved and spoiled rotten cat. He had ended up at the SPCA so many times because people take it on themselves to report him as a stray.
He has a home that love him and he stays there until his people go to work and then he comes to the hospital and enjoys all the love and attention he gets from visitors.
I have seen people try and pick him up and carry him to cars. Security have literally kicked people out because they don't listen and try and take the cat away.
Two of my three cats will have nothing to do with a collar. One is quite the expert contortionist and either gets them off or manages to push his front legs through turning it into a belt, the other just lays down and howls until you remove it.
>the other just lays down and howls until you remove it.
bro you are getting played by a housepet lmao
and you're not nearly tightening the other one's collar enough.
if these cats go outside and you don't give a shit about their ID, you deserve a stranger picking them up and taking them home
They are all micro chipped. Re the howling, I tried leaving it on for a solid 12 hours and he literally would not let up, move or eat. Re the contortionist, I tightened it as far as was safe without choking him; he's just got mad skills.
this thread is full of examples demonstrating why a microchip isn't enough, not even against malice, just idiots with good intentions. one of mine took 3 collars to find one that worked and he hasn't gotten out of it since. and he's an indoor cat!
One of my cats has lost every single collar I’ve purchased her. It’s infuriating. She now only goes outside in a catio.
I have another cat that must go outside daily, but she just chills on our back porch and comes when I call her.
The other cat only wants to go outside occasionally and she also doesn’t go anywhere and just stays on our back porch.
Our feisty boy must be supervised outside at all times as he’s escaped the catio, escaped his harness and leash, and is generally ok until he sees a lizard and then he’s off on an adventure
As someone who worked in a shelter, while this is the ideal situation, it is not always a viable one. We adopted out a lot of cats who either due to personality, or previous living situation, need to be indoor/outdoor or outdoor only. We even had a “barn cat” adoption program, and most of those cats would likely be euthanized otherwise.
I try not to immediately judge outdoor cats without knowing the full situation.
Okay I haven't had mine checked for microchip but it was malnourished and had a runny nose and I checked all the sites. I guess I'm gonna take it in for a chip
Every third Ring Neighborhood Alert I get is someone posting about how they brought a cat that probably belongs to one of their neighbors to the pound.
In Latin America it’s quite common for families to leave their pets outside while they’re at work all day
The amount of times I’ve had to tell my gringo friends ‘go put that dog back where you found it’ is astounding
Do you have a collar on the baby? If you don't have a collar and you let your cat outside, you're an irresponsible cat owner and I have no sympathy if someone takes them.
Someone "adopted" my cat when I was a kid. He started getting fat (eg someone else feeding) and then came back once with a strange collar on him, which I removed because wtf, he's my cat. Next time we let him out he never came back. My parents just kinda shrugged about it, but I was devastated. Either someone stole him or he was dead, both sucky to think about. I had him from when he was a literal kitten - he was born under my bed!
All my cats as an adult have been indoor cats.
Seriously ! It’s baffling to me how many posts are about cats that seem healthy and that they encountered *for the first time*.
Before I take in a stray, I need to 1/ see them regularly, 2/ they need to look somewhat in « bad shape » 3/ check with a veterinarian.
But most importantly, I need to make sure I can shelter a cat, financially and everything… So many people on that sub seem ready to take a cat in at a moment’s notice, so why aren’t they adopting one ?..
There is this cat in my neighborhood that looks really malnourished, but she’s also very friendly and actually has shiny/groomed hair. This could very well just be a sick cat ! One of my cats looked on the verge of death for several months, bc well, she was actually dying. It was still our cat and I would have been heartbroken if someone decided to just take her.
I almost stole someone’s cat because they kept him outside. He was outside at all hours. I’d leave for work at 1am and he’d be sitting in my driveway. He was also skinny. I asked my neighbors if they knew where the cat lived and they both told me he didn’t have a home. So next time I saw him I took him inside. I decided to post on Facebook in my towns group asking if anyone who where he lived. I was sure he was abandoned but wanted to say I tried to find his home. Turns out he wasn’t abandoned, he just had shitty owners. But since I found the owners, I had to return him. They seemed annoyed with me because I brought him in. Like bro. Your cats outside at all hours of the night and in the rain and snow. Excuse me for thinking he was abandoned
Sounds like we have the same shitass neighbors. I spent 2 hours returning a beautiful puppy to her owners and the owners got annoyed I interrupted Sunday football. Literally half my neighborhood either chains their pet outside or lets them run loose all hours. This husky owned by a cop about 8 houses down has killed 6 cats over the last 3 years.
There’s a lot of people who shouldn’t own pets and your neighbor is one of them. My neighbors and I thought the cat was abandoned because a lot of people in the neighborhood move and just leave their cats outside. That’s what we thought happened to this guy because he was clearly someone’s cat. But because he was outside all the time, we assumed he was abandoned. My neighbor would let him inside and feed him every day because she thought he had no home lmao. She told me I should’ve kept him. But I didn’t want to risk them calling the police on me.
Animal control in that town wasn’t good. They didn’t deal with domestic animals and didn’t deal with wild animals. I have no clue what they actually did. If I called about this cat, I would’ve been told to kick rocks for sure. They wouldn’t do anything about dogs tied out all day in the summer so they definitely wouldn’t do anything about a free roaming cat.
Exactly correct. This morning I spoke to a neighbor while walking my dog and she was looking for her two cats that jumped out the window of the second floor that had an AC installed not properly unfortunately. By this afternoon she managed to get one of them. No signs of the other one. I'll be keeping an eye out for it and I hope she finds him. I can't imagine losing my big baby boy he would be lost and confused and I would have trouble forgiving myself, but that's just me cause animals are my weakness if you can call it that. A chip is a great idea my animals have them.
Mine got lost almost two months ago. I’m still wracked with worry and hoping whoever has him will eventually take him to a vet where his chip will be scanned. I scour the lost and found pages and apps daily looking for him. May you never lose your baby.
I can just imagine. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I can't fathom this ever happening especially after what happened to my beautiful St-Bernard a decade ago. I still think of him often and I feel guilty for what happened to him even though it had nothing to do with me I left him at my cottage for the week with my uncle and got the worst call of my life and I ended up finding him deceased about 10 km from my cottage on some lonely dirt road right in the middle of it.
It's best I don't know what happened cause I don't think I'd be able to not seek revenge.
Strong suspicions my uncle fucked up or idk something happened. My uncle died of an od a year ago.
Also sorry for late reply. Wish u the best and I can only hope you find your babe if not some solace. Remember time does heal.
I once had a friend who brought home a dog from the street. He was amazed by how well-behaved it was, even seeming to be trained. He refused to consider that he'd just stolen someone's pet that had gotten out.
Related, YSK domestic cats are the #1 most destructive invasive species in the world. Please, for the love of god, keep cats inside, or take them out on a leash, or build a cat patio, or at the very very very least, put bells on their collar so they can’t sneak up on and kill local wildlife, and make sure your cat is spayed/neutered.
It’s a huge issue, and it’s so preventable if people just do the right thing.
Sincerely, a zoologist.
Bells really don't do anything. I took care of a stray for a while before he was brought to a rescue, and the bell didn't slow down his gifts of dead birds at all. Loved my little buddy, but he was destructive.
Correction: Many cats, but not all, are masters of stealth. My girl went deaf as she aged and she got a little clumsy. Thump thump thumped down the stairs. probably never knew how loud she was.
Felines are the only predator that enjoys drawing out their prey’s suffering and death by playing with them. Also, domesticated house cats usually bring dead birds, moles etc as a gift for YOU, their favorite person. They never see you hunt so they want to make sure you’re eating. Essentially- “ah I see you are a shitty hunter, let me torture this small animal to death for you to eat!”
One of my fondest memories of my late cat was when she tried to teach me this lesson (and the mouse was uninjured). In a single pounce, she brought me a mouse. I was too slow to catch it, so she immediately herded it into a shoe. I took it outside and rewarded her with some canned food. She was an indoor-only cat, and we rarely got mice, but it was as easy as breathing for her. Fascinating to watch, but I was glad she didn't have time to play with it or hurt it, and I was able to bring the little guy out alive, while also knowing that my cat was trying to teach me what she considered to be a valuable life lesson!
I work at a vet, and I agree with this sentiment. My outdoor cat as a child died of diseases he could not have gotten if he had stayed inside. I have also seen too many cats die from being hit by a car. If you care about your cat's safety, keep them inside and provide an environment that will keep them active and entertained.
Same!
… my first cat as an adult that I kept inside for 12 years got out 3 weeks ago today and I’ve been beside myself trying to find him and in a constant state of stress and worry :(
If it's any consolation my 3-year-old snuck out when we weren't looking. We realized later that day and went looking everywhere, no sign, but at 2 am we heard her. Goofball was just meowing at the door like she just realized she was outside not inside.
Really hoping my boy finds his way safely back home soon. Three weeks is such a long time. He’s been spotted several times at the apartment complex neighboring mine but haven’t had any sightings in a week. They also took down all my signs so that doesn’t help :(
It’s been so tortuous knowing he’s so close, 1000 or so feet, yet so far :(
I did that for the first week and a half to two weeks but I’ve also read that’s not recommended because it can attract territorial stray/outside cats that can bully your cat and keep him from feeling he can safely return home 🤷♀️😭
Put his litter box outside! Also, walk around the surrounding neighborhoods. If he can smell you, he can follow the smell home. Hope he comes back! Keep me posted!
Thanks….. I have been doing all of this for 3 weeks. He’s been seen a handful of times at the complex neighboring mine but haven’t had anyone call/text about seeing him in 8 days :( I’ve legitimately spent 90% of time outside of work there sitting/watching/waiting for him. Setting traps, trail cams, talking to people that live there… it’s been…. Exhausting…
Thank you for caring 🥺
Idk how people let their cats outside without worrying. I've seen a cat get hit by a car. I've seen so many dead ones in the gutter on the main road by my house. If my cat was outside without me, I'd be an anxious mess. Luckily, he likes his harness.
I left my friend's house one time and saw her cat just chilling in the middle of the road. Freaked me out because I could have run over him. Or someone else could've. Texted her right away.
Yeah it seems crazy. When I was younger my roommate would let his (I guess our) cat out. After years of this finally I got to have the lovely interaction of a person from the church across the street coming over to tell me the cat had been coming in and disrupting service, knocking over candles, eating food at their charity events, etc. It was a Unitarian church so I'm sure they put up with it for way too long before telling us.
A Catio. My parents have one, it's more like a sunroom but with cat doors installed (none of which go outside, they just go from the house to the catio) and a bunch of cat trees. The cats love it!
Not to mention, so many horrible things can happen to the kitties. When I was a kid, my cat was tortured and shot with BBs by neighborhood kids. I would never let my babies outside without a leash!!
Seriously, just keep them inside or don't have one. It's so selfish and irresponsible to let our cats outside. People who do this are being a bad cat family, putting their family member at needless risk of countless horrible ways their life can end, and it puts all the other animals outside at risk of the same.
Be a decent person. Keep your cat inside.
Adding to this, please microchip your pets. I’ve taken at least six loose dogs who clearly had a loving family that missed them into a vet to be scanned, not a single one had a chip. They were eventually reunited, but it would have been much quicker and easier if they had chips.
Just be careful and recognise the difference between STRAY animals and FERAL animals.
Stray animals are comfortable around humans, may have been raised by humans at some point and are capable of being socialised.
Feral animals have not been raised by humans and revert to wild behaviour and can be unsafe to approach and can hurt you. In addition they have very little chance of being socialised.
Feral animals live in their own social groups eg cat colonies and it’s disruptive to remove them from their environment. People who know what they’re doing will go to feral animal colonies and capture them temporarily to have them desexed and Vaxxed if they can and release them back into their colony because that’s the most humane solution for the animal - to let them live out their lives without creating more feral animals.
A few years ago, a very affectionate cat started coming round the house and yowling for food. He was dirty, skinny, hungry, had tracks in his fur that looked like battle scars, and it was getting colder and colder out. I quarantined him in the bathroom away from the other animals and posted his picture in a few neighborhood groups. The general consensus is he lived at the local gas station and was basically left food by everyone around there. So I got him a health check, started on a few meds, and took him in before it got too dangerously cold. Turned out he needed several damaged teeth pulled, too. His fur filled in and he turned out to be quite handsome.
He's now a fat, fluffy, healthy, satisfied house cat.
“If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.” - Alfred North Whitehead
Microchip your pets. It should be mandatory. If you can’t afford it you shouldn’t have a pet. It’s not something to skimp on, same with heart worm meds.
Small birds (which I have 3).
Birds are extremely vulnerable to bleeding out and having a bad reaction to anesthesia (even young healthy birds have died getting any kind of procedure done) so most avian vets will avoid doing any kind of surgery unless absolutely necessary.
You can sometimes get away with microchipping the bigger ones like Macaws, Cockatoos, and African Greys cuz they tend to handle procedures a little better but for small guys like mine (cockatiel and smaller) many vets won't do it.
Or at least, the ones I've talked to wont.
Are you seeing avian vets? All seven of my budgies and both of my cockatiels were microchipped by their vet, and he never expressed concern over bleeding out. They didn't even have to put them under, it was basically the same quick procedure as when my dog got microchipped.
I will say I doubt the usefulness of the chips for my birds. Even if they were to get out and someone managed to catch one, the number of people shocked that my birds even have vet visits leaves me to think their first thought wouldn't be to take them to get scanned.
That is a fair point but yes, I am seeing an avian vet. Thanks for asking. :) She is even only 1 of like 2 or 3 in the state that are board certified so it's weird that we would get told 2 totally different things.
The money shaming bit is a little uncalled for and here’s why. The chipping itself is cheap enough I agree, but it also comes with an annual fee for monitoring which a lot of people don’t renew. When you have a lot of recurring maintenance fees and taxes due every year, the chip monitoring fee is sometimes the first thing to go. A good collar and tag with your phone number on it isn’t so bad and has worked pretty well for centuries. Sure, the collar or tag can theoretically get snagged on something and lost. But that’s where neighborly cooperation can come in handy. I happen to know my neighbors pets and their names as do they mine. Something to think about in the day and age of minding your own business to the extreme. I admittedly haven’t a lot of experience with cats because I’m allergic. But I do know that most dogs don’t normally venture far, especially onto busy cross streets.
Animals here aren't allowed to be off-leash, so we don't have stray dogs around. Plenty of cats on the loose, who knows whether they have owners or not.
When I was a kid we found a "stray" cat in our garden. We thought she was a kitten at first because she was so small but she ate SO MUCH that we finally figured she was malnourished.
Of course me and my sisters wanted to keep her so bad but my parents put up some posters in the neighbourhood and through a MIRACLE someone recognized their friends cat that had gone missing weeks ago.
Apparently, she was from a farm and jumped into a transporter going from there to our city. Then once they arrived she jumped out and was left behind.
Of course back then we were so sad but looking back now I am so happy we could reunite them. Just imagine the joy of getting back your cat that you probably thought was dead.
Just moved to a new location a month ago, and there's a beautiful black cat that keeps visiting us. We started feeding him, and now he comes multiple times a day. He wears a flea collar, but no other identifying information, my immediate neighbors have seen him but no idea about ownership, and his fur was shedding badly until I brushed him and pet him, etc., so I have zero idea if this is a stray someone stuck a flea collar on to be kind to, or a lost cat, or an outdoor cat.
I just bought a custom engraved tag to add to his flea collar asking if he belongs to anyone and if so, to please text [my number]. Not sure we can adopt him, given that we already have two cats and a dog, but I also hesitate to let the lovely guy roam about during halloween or with winter approaching...
This is unsafe advice. Just because it might come up to you casually doesn’t mean it won’t bite. The best thing to do is take pics and post them in your local social group or neighborhood group. Some animals aren’t gonna be nice to a stranger and if it’s a big dog that decides to attack your gonna have a bad time.
To clarify - I don’t mean pick up every stray and take them to the vet. I mean please don’t just keep one without checking. Like if you are going to get involved, do it the right way.
My cat is exactly as described and snuck out the door. He is not outside by my choice and I know that if he could get back to our door, he’d be very happy to be back home.
Everyone I know is convinced someone is going to find him and keep him because he’s a really beautiful boy.
I know him better and I know he’s an asshole to 98% of people so I find it highly unlikely anyone but myself will be able to pick him up so not especially worried about that. But I’m just saying. The entire point of this post is that not all cats outside are supposed to be outside. They might ne lost/missing.
Stop letting your cats outside unsupervised. There are some sick people out there that will capture them and torture them and kill them. My cat when I was a child was shot with a BB gun and had his body smeared through dog sh!t.
There are things they could eat that could make them sick. Bigger animals could hurt them or eat them. They could get stuck somewhere and starve to death and you’d never know what happened. They are easy for sick people to capture and torture because they generally trust people and are easier to access than wild animals or dogs. They can get hit by cars, or like you said, they could just be taken and adopted by someone else.. the list goes on and on.
If you care about your babies, please stop letting them outside without a leash/supervision
I’m a dog trainer in Austin. At MINIMUM 3 times a month I’m pulling over, squeaking a toy, crunching a treat bag and pulling out my friendly dog assistant and coaxing a nervous dog over. 7/10 times I’ll put the dog on a leash, give it some water and do a quick search on neighborhood/citizen/Reddit/Craigslist and find the owner immediately. 1/10 times the dog actually has a collar and accurate tag and can bring them directly home and call the owner. The other 20% are scanned and don’t have a collar and look like they need medical help so EVEN IF your local city animal shelter is not accepting new strays they CANNOT DENY a domestic animal that NEEDS MEDICAL TREATMENT. Make sure you really read that last part, feel me?
^ someone nicked my childhood cat. She escaped when we had some construction going on and I didn't find her until about 5 years later. I was sure it was her but by then I had a dog and she looked healthy so I just had to kinda let her go. I did follow her for a few days trying to find out which bastards nicked her (she was microchipped to us) but over time realised that she may have been passed on to someone else or who knows what.
I'm still pissed but didn't really have any viable options at the time. By the point I found her she had been out of my care longer than she had been in it and even if I did take her back I would have to find her another home in short order anyways. I was not best impressed they were keeping her as an outdoor cat either but what's a teen supposed to do?
By definition, those animals ARE "strays". As in 'they strayed from home'.
You're probably conflating the meanings of 'stray', 'feral', and 'wild'. They all have different meanings.
So the advice here is, what, to grab every cat around and take them to the vet? In case they have an owner? IDK where you live but I see at LEAST one cat a day. There's no way I'm gonna start grabbing them lol
No that’s not the advice, sorry that was unclear. For context I’ve been seeing videos of people finding cats and adopting them, which is awesome! Just not if they already have a family, you know?
We have a few cats. (We live in a neighborhood with a LOT of stray cats. Like, a lot. All our cats are former strays.)
Anyways, one of our cats leaves and comes back every 3 days, and we're almost certain that someone else has adopted him too, because he never seems particularly unhappy or hungry/thirsty when he comes back.
We're pretty sure our cat has adopted at least one other human family besides us.
You’re near a colony then. Probably 1/3 of them are fixed and released back into the wild let your local trap neuter release group know your have a colony near you.
F&Rs (or TNRs) usually have the tip of their left ear nipped off (eartipping). Either that or a small tattoo in one of their ears. Helps with quickly identifying feral/stray cats that have and have not been neutered/spayed.
We brought one into a vet to be neutered and released (we found him hurt) and they didn’t clip his ear or mark him in case we wanted to keep him. Like no lady he’s FIV positive and we have 2 negative cats at home. We will feed him but we cannot take him in sorry.
Only do this for dogs or obviously malnourished cats. A lot of cats roam the streets and return home after a couple of hours. (Or by nightfall if you're my cat. Bad kitty!)
PLEASE consider bringing in cats to get scanned for chips even if they aren't malnourished. Lots of indoor cats get out and don't find their way home. Yes it is obnoxious for owners to have to go pick up their cat from a vet or shelter because they let their cat roam, but as someone in the vet industry, I see tons of missing cat flyers come through. If we treated roaming cats the same way we treated roaming dogs, we could reunite a lot more families.
Edit: It would be helpful if outdoor cats could have their tags labeled as such, as well. If whoever is reading this has an outdoor cat, consider doing this to avoid the hassle of having to pick them up from somewhere.
Additionally, I've seen a movement to have indoor cats wear orange collars. I don't know how widespread it is, but I keep my cat in one just in case.
2nd edit: my phone kept autocorrecting car to car, so I was just fixing one I missed...
I have a cat who loves to sneak out and hop the fence. He’s usually back within 3 hours but I’m terrified someone is going to take him to the humane society so he has a shiny new collar with my cell number.
That sounds about right, and a good way to claim your outdoors cat.
We got our void boi solely because he lurked around our house for about 6 months and would sit on our doormat whenever we would step out for a walk. That was until one cold December day. I was getting the mail and he looked at me from the porch gate. I opened the door wider and he walked in.
The first thing I did was check for a chip and owner name. He was too big/old to be a kitten and too friendly to be feral. Turns out that the chip was still registered to an adoption center quite a few miles away. There was too much speculation on how this pretty boi ended up several townships away from the adoption center, without an owner registered to the chip, and wandering around for 6 months near our house.
Rather than driving him down to the adoption center to potentially become a perpetually un-adopted kitty, I registered my name on his chip. So he's been my boi ever since.
[Cat tax](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackcats/comments/ujgap5/pepper_does_a_sleep_mlem/)
If you do not have valid identification on your pets that are capable of moving by land or air you need to get that shit figured out because they won't remember the address or tell it to whoever finds them
I knew a guy who has a really cute tabby cat. When I asked if she was from an adoption agency he told me he found her in his neighbourhood. She was a neighbour's cat and he just...decided to keep her. It's fucked up.
My cat has been missing for three weeks and it is DEVASTATING.
I did a consultation with a specialist and I mentioned strays at the complex next to mine and she asked, “how do you know they’re strays?”
And I can’t stop thinking about it :(
I don’t know! They could be someone’s lost cats, too! Figuring out the best course of action on handling them right now because there’s a lot and several people here feed them.
But we shouldn’t want cats to be strays… we should want them at humane shelters where they can be cared for and adopted… I’m a big animal person, especially cats, but I have never and will never leave food out unless I’m actively trying to trap and contain. Stray/feral cat populations are not okay for the environment or for the cats. They’re domesticated pets. They don’t belong outside, unprotected and uncared for 24/7.
There's different types of microchips and the cheaper scanners can't do backwards reading (125 or 128 kHz non ISO chips - Avid being a big one). You'd need a universal scanner which can be very expensive. Plus, chips move often and a trained professional knows how to scan the entire body.
I had an ill-acting lost or stray dog I ended up calling animal control to wrangle (in that state and time, the local shelters only took in animals via animal control). The dog was erratic, but you could tell they were used to having people to take care of them. When animal control came to pick them up, they were able to scan for a chip on the side of the road. Unfortunately, this dog was chipless, so they were routed to the local shelter. I did ask my number be passed along with the transfer, and a couple of days later found out the dog had been started on doggie Xanax and had managed to wander away from their humans.
I had been guilt ridden about sending a dog to a kill shelter, but if I hadn’t, they would have never been reunited with their family. I’d have preferred a no-kill shelter, but it was out of my hands once animal control showed, as well as beyond my own resources to take in another dog, and I hope they would’ve called before it got to the point of euthanasia.
Regardless, happy story of a dog getting xanaxed and finding their way back home.
I agree to getting them scanned. But ultimately cats shouldn't be left to wander the streets alone. The moment you let your cat out "free range', you are accepting that anything could happen to them. You don't let your dogs out free range, so please stop doing it to your cats. You can leash train a cat. You can build it a catio. These are ways to let them outside. Cats kill so many animals. In the U.S. alone, cats kill 2.4 billion birds a year. This is only including birds, not even the other animals they kill. They are a danger to outside and the outside is a danger to them. If you have a cat outside, you don't have a cat you have a visitor. This is from experience, I got a cat named Cremecakes and the first day he went outside a car hit him. I was standing there with him. But he heard a loud noice and ran and then bam. I picked him and he cried to me as blood gushed out his mouth. He died a few moments later. I had never let a cat outside before, it is my biggest regret. Learn, before you lose them.
That’s what I’m thinking. People who let their cats live outdoors with no supervision are basically asking for either a car to hit them, or for them to get stolen. Not even mentioning the ecological damage domestic cats have on the national bird population. It’s incredibly irresponsible. I feel bad about potentially stealing someone’s beloved pet, but at the same time, by letting it roam freely, you aren’t really thinking, are you.
My cat wondered into my yard and he was obviously domesticated, he had also been neutered a couple weeks prior. I checked all the local pet missing groups, scanned for a chip, etc. I ended up keeping him, but to this day I still think about the possibility of his family being heartbroken from losing him :(
I don't know how long ago you found him so it might be too late for your situation, but places like NextDoor are a great way to try to help reunite pets with their families. I've seen a lot of success this way! I know not everyone is on NextDoor, but if someone is missing a pet they often post and check there for information!
I’m going through the same thing. My dog got out when I was at the hospital and a friend went to let my dogs out to potty. He’s obviously well cared for and healthy, well fed, shiny coat, trained, collar, chipped, but nothing. Posted everywhere and like 300 street posters with a $500 reward. No way whoever has him thinks he’s a stray or missed my postings or giant posters. They just wanna keep him because he’s a beautiful dog. Meanwhile I’m dying inside.
Wanna know how to avoid this? Keep your damn cats indoors. They destory the environment around them by killing birds, rodents and other wildlife to the point that they are responsible for making over 60 different bird species go extinct. Not only that, but they use their neighborhood as their damn litter box.
This little dude was taken from the mountains all the way to Denver. The news team help to reunite Morris with his home. [https://kdvr.com/news/local/ace-hardwares-morris-the-cat-kidnapped-from-granby-parking-lot/?ipid=promo-link-block1](https://kdvr.com/news/local/ace-hardwares-morris-the-cat-kidnapped-from-granby-parking-lot/?ipid=promo-link-block1)
https://kdvr.com/news/local/heres-why-morris-the-cat-was-found-in-denver/#:\~:text=Granby%20police%20said%20they%20picked,are%20so%20thankful%20he's%20back!%E2%80%9D
This not being current knowledge is the exact reason I don't let my cats outside, especially my runt with half of her tail missing and raspy breathing. 50% chance she'd get """saved""", 50% chance she'd get poisoned.
Also to add on this post, if you DO have pets, stop letting them outside of a controlled area without your supervision. That’s how they get stolen or adopted by a person that didn’t know they were yours, or get run over by a car, or killed by a coyote or other predator, or just reproduce with other animals like them and kill all the native birds. Stop letting your pets outside, they’re not wild animals they’re domesticated (hopefully)
This really pisses me off. I've had 2 cats go missing because other people "adopted" them. I even put a note on one of their collars saying they have an owner and to not feed or encourage them and he came back with a different collar!! In order to keep him I had to send him to live at my mum's.
"That's weird, I let my cat roam around wherever, in all weather, destroying local bird populations. They're not microchipped, don't wear a collar, and I don't consistently provide them safe shelter and a non-stressful environment...
But it's everyone *else's* job to know that they technically have a home and to ignore them on the street. Wait, where'd it go...?"
Also, please don’t automatically try to pick up every dog you see walking around a neighborhood off leash, collar or not. It is a very common occurrence for a dog to dig under the fence or escape through an open gate without the owner’s knowledge. That dog is simply sniffing around the neighborhood and exploring more often than not. Rather than pick it up, just walk behind the dog. I’m serious. 99% of the time the dog will lead you right to his house if he knows he’s being followed, he will know to go home.
This rule can MAYBE be applied to pets outside of cats and dogs. If you find a bigger bird, they may also have a microchip. The little ones unfortunately are too small/ fragile. And most shelters wont take in birds. If you find one, your best bet is to look at local lost and found groups.
Or just an outdoor cat that should be left alone. I know, I know in some countries cats are considered indoor creatures, but in the UK (where I am), for example, that’s the exception, not the rule. Despite this, you still get idiots trying to steal people’s cats on the basis that cat was outdoors (even when some are wearing a collar!)…
Oh wow, I didn't know traffic, predators, parasites and illnesses, bird populations at risk, fights with other cats, and malicious people who like to hurt animals were exclusive to the US.
My sisters healthy cat went missing. I made a flyer with his picture describing how he will die without his life-sustaining kidney medication, we put it up everywhere. The people who scooped him up saw it and returned him.
Haha, I have the exact same thing on my my dog's tag just in case (though I went with diabetic). He does not have diabetes.
This a fantastic idea
You should cross post this to r/cats So many posts there are “I found this cat outside, what should I name it?”
I’ve known several separate cases where three different households have simultaneously believed the neighborhood cat was “their” cat. That little buddy was eating *good.*
I remember some study of outdoor cats where they put tracking collars on them and found that the average cat spent time in 6 different houses during a week. The researchers followed up and found that they were getting fed at all of them. It’s enough to make you wonder who domesticated who.
“Dogs have a master. Cats have a *staff*.”
I love the idea of leaving little notes at your cats (breakaway) collar.
I've done this. Other humans just take it off with no response 😡
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Veterinary studies have shown that [about 50% of cats are overweight and free feeding is named as a contributing factor.](https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/obesity) But I do agree that a smaller percentage of cats are able to regulate their intake quite well.
Yeah. Some of my cats can't, but my previously feral boy is excellent at it.
r/PartTimeCat
This is so common in the UK there's a children's book called 'Six Dinner Sid' about a cat that does this 😂 everyone knows a Six Dinner Sid here.
I had an old ,tough ,well-traveled tomcat back in the mid-seventies who had at least 6 "owners" all over Southeast Atlanta, and must have fathered hundreds of cats all over ; the markings he spread were : grey/ white with pink noses ,no stripes and white "socks" on all 4 feet ! Nicholas lived to the age of 23 !
r/notmycat we see you too. I'm only subbed so I can downvote the constant comments of "she's your cat now 😻"
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My partners cat just vanished one day. I searched for months. Went door knocking, put up signs and posted in every single lost and found group I could find. Animals don't just disappear. There was no evidence of her getting picked up by a preditor and I know older cats will leave home to die but I searched high and low everyday for 2 months. I crawled throught the majority of the storm water system in our area. Surely I would have found her past away if that's what had happened. Someone has her and we get upset every time we think about it! Please don't take in stray Animals. Have them scanned first before taking them. You may think you're being charitable but there's a high chance you just stole someone beloved pet.
Do you have any birds of prey or coyotes in your area? Small animals totally do disappear around where I live.
I've seen the occasional small fox but no birds of prey big enough that I know of anyway in south west Sydney where I live. I figured if a fox had gotten her there be fur around because she is a big white/grey fluffy cat.
Wait, you're an *Australian* with an outdoor cat? Or did the cat escape?
Every time I post this on an "I found a stray" post, I get downvoted to shit.
"Look at this perfectly clean, healthy, friendly, and well fed stray that I adopted off the street." Dude thats someone's beloved pet. It double pisses me off because this shit happened with my cat. Some neighboor saw him walking around and she started leaving out food bowls for him, so of course the fat fuck started going over there more often. We didn't see him for 4 days until the squirlly rascal escaped and ran on back here, she chased him all the way back to my house insisting that it was her cat and she was going to call the cops. I suggested we both go the vet together and scan his chip and she shut down real quick.
Same exact shit happened to me except I was 11 in the 90s so no chip. Ended up losing the cat to the shitass neighbor because my parents started going through their divorce and neither wanted to help me keep my cat. I actually lost all my pets from that.
I’m so sorry to hear that happened to you. The rapport between a kid and their pets is so deep. Basically, adults forget how strong a kid’s emotions are or dismiss them as not real. Like, you’re too young to know real love or some shit.
Thanks. It took me a long time to get over my pets that even now as an adult with a child I haven’t adopted a pet since. It didn’t feel so hard at the time because I was dealing with so much other stuff I turned pretty numb for years.
Second that emotion.
Yassss for the microchip 👏👏👏
In my defense (and I know you weren't talking to me) I had a cat start coming in my backyard for a few weeks, looking skinny, dirty, and had fleas. I tried to re-home him and suddenly "missing cat" posters were all around the neighborhood. I returned the cat and they still show up in my backyard, but they look much healthier, cleaner, and fed now so hopefully the owner learned to stop being neglectful.
My neighbors had their cat stolen twice in the span of six weeks. The cat was elderly and needed daily medication. He could have died. They moved away shortly after these incidents and I don’t blame them. They sent the cat away to stay with family before they moved because he was a master escape artist and they didn’t want to risk him getting stolen again. They hated having to be seperated but they knew he would at least be safe and be given his daily medications. I have taken in cats overnight that I knew had owners, including that cat, due to unsafe conditions outside such as weather or emergency vehicles that might scare a cat causing them to run off and get lost. But I always contacted the owners as soon as I could and let them know I had their cat and where we lived and that they could come pick them up. I try to keep track of the cats I see in my neighborhood so I can get them help if they need it either through their owners, or if they are actual strays a local rescue.
I work at a hospital and we have a cat that hangs around our carpark and stairway all day. He had a collar and a tag and we have posters all over the area explaining who he is and that he had a home nearby. He is a well loved and spoiled rotten cat. He had ended up at the SPCA so many times because people take it on themselves to report him as a stray. He has a home that love him and he stays there until his people go to work and then he comes to the hospital and enjoys all the love and attention he gets from visitors. I have seen people try and pick him up and carry him to cars. Security have literally kicked people out because they don't listen and try and take the cat away.
They should keep their cat at home
Shouldn't let the cat out...
Why did your cat not have a collar with it's name/ your details?
Cats slip collars really trivially. And you want breakaway collars for them anyway as to not choke them if it gets caught.
Two of my three cats will have nothing to do with a collar. One is quite the expert contortionist and either gets them off or manages to push his front legs through turning it into a belt, the other just lays down and howls until you remove it.
>the other just lays down and howls until you remove it. bro you are getting played by a housepet lmao and you're not nearly tightening the other one's collar enough. if these cats go outside and you don't give a shit about their ID, you deserve a stranger picking them up and taking them home
They are all micro chipped. Re the howling, I tried leaving it on for a solid 12 hours and he literally would not let up, move or eat. Re the contortionist, I tightened it as far as was safe without choking him; he's just got mad skills.
this thread is full of examples demonstrating why a microchip isn't enough, not even against malice, just idiots with good intentions. one of mine took 3 collars to find one that worked and he hasn't gotten out of it since. and he's an indoor cat!
One of my cats has lost every single collar I’ve purchased her. It’s infuriating. She now only goes outside in a catio. I have another cat that must go outside daily, but she just chills on our back porch and comes when I call her. The other cat only wants to go outside occasionally and she also doesn’t go anywhere and just stays on our back porch. Our feisty boy must be supervised outside at all times as he’s escaped the catio, escaped his harness and leash, and is generally ok until he sees a lizard and then he’s off on an adventure
mine shredded his first one then lost his 2nd one
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As someone who worked in a shelter, while this is the ideal situation, it is not always a viable one. We adopted out a lot of cats who either due to personality, or previous living situation, need to be indoor/outdoor or outdoor only. We even had a “barn cat” adoption program, and most of those cats would likely be euthanized otherwise. I try not to immediately judge outdoor cats without knowing the full situation.
What a cunt, get your own cat.
Okay I haven't had mine checked for microchip but it was malnourished and had a runny nose and I checked all the sites. I guess I'm gonna take it in for a chip
Every third Ring Neighborhood Alert I get is someone posting about how they brought a cat that probably belongs to one of their neighbors to the pound.
In Latin America it’s quite common for families to leave their pets outside while they’re at work all day The amount of times I’ve had to tell my gringo friends ‘go put that dog back where you found it’ is astounding
One of our neighbors (we're 99% sure) catnapped our outdoor girl and took her with them when they moved.
Do you have a collar on the baby? If you don't have a collar and you let your cat outside, you're an irresponsible cat owner and I have no sympathy if someone takes them.
"Rescued this stray from my neighbour's front lawn, she seems to be in surprisingly good shape! Such a little hunter, strong independent kitty! 😭💪😼
Reddit likes to believe that life is a fucking Disney movie or something
Someone "adopted" my cat when I was a kid. He started getting fat (eg someone else feeding) and then came back once with a strange collar on him, which I removed because wtf, he's my cat. Next time we let him out he never came back. My parents just kinda shrugged about it, but I was devastated. Either someone stole him or he was dead, both sucky to think about. I had him from when he was a literal kitten - he was born under my bed! All my cats as an adult have been indoor cats.
Seriously ! It’s baffling to me how many posts are about cats that seem healthy and that they encountered *for the first time*. Before I take in a stray, I need to 1/ see them regularly, 2/ they need to look somewhat in « bad shape » 3/ check with a veterinarian. But most importantly, I need to make sure I can shelter a cat, financially and everything… So many people on that sub seem ready to take a cat in at a moment’s notice, so why aren’t they adopting one ?.. There is this cat in my neighborhood that looks really malnourished, but she’s also very friendly and actually has shiny/groomed hair. This could very well just be a sick cat ! One of my cats looked on the verge of death for several months, bc well, she was actually dying. It was still our cat and I would have been heartbroken if someone decided to just take her.
I almost stole someone’s cat because they kept him outside. He was outside at all hours. I’d leave for work at 1am and he’d be sitting in my driveway. He was also skinny. I asked my neighbors if they knew where the cat lived and they both told me he didn’t have a home. So next time I saw him I took him inside. I decided to post on Facebook in my towns group asking if anyone who where he lived. I was sure he was abandoned but wanted to say I tried to find his home. Turns out he wasn’t abandoned, he just had shitty owners. But since I found the owners, I had to return him. They seemed annoyed with me because I brought him in. Like bro. Your cats outside at all hours of the night and in the rain and snow. Excuse me for thinking he was abandoned
Sounds like we have the same shitass neighbors. I spent 2 hours returning a beautiful puppy to her owners and the owners got annoyed I interrupted Sunday football. Literally half my neighborhood either chains their pet outside or lets them run loose all hours. This husky owned by a cop about 8 houses down has killed 6 cats over the last 3 years.
There’s a lot of people who shouldn’t own pets and your neighbor is one of them. My neighbors and I thought the cat was abandoned because a lot of people in the neighborhood move and just leave their cats outside. That’s what we thought happened to this guy because he was clearly someone’s cat. But because he was outside all the time, we assumed he was abandoned. My neighbor would let him inside and feed him every day because she thought he had no home lmao. She told me I should’ve kept him. But I didn’t want to risk them calling the police on me.
Tbf negligence is a form of abuse and you can call animal control.
Animal control in that town wasn’t good. They didn’t deal with domestic animals and didn’t deal with wild animals. I have no clue what they actually did. If I called about this cat, I would’ve been told to kick rocks for sure. They wouldn’t do anything about dogs tied out all day in the summer so they definitely wouldn’t do anything about a free roaming cat.
Exactly correct. This morning I spoke to a neighbor while walking my dog and she was looking for her two cats that jumped out the window of the second floor that had an AC installed not properly unfortunately. By this afternoon she managed to get one of them. No signs of the other one. I'll be keeping an eye out for it and I hope she finds him. I can't imagine losing my big baby boy he would be lost and confused and I would have trouble forgiving myself, but that's just me cause animals are my weakness if you can call it that. A chip is a great idea my animals have them.
Mine got lost almost two months ago. I’m still wracked with worry and hoping whoever has him will eventually take him to a vet where his chip will be scanned. I scour the lost and found pages and apps daily looking for him. May you never lose your baby.
I’m so sorry… I’m dealing with the same situation. Has anyone seen him at all?
I can just imagine. I'm so sorry this happened to you. I can't fathom this ever happening especially after what happened to my beautiful St-Bernard a decade ago. I still think of him often and I feel guilty for what happened to him even though it had nothing to do with me I left him at my cottage for the week with my uncle and got the worst call of my life and I ended up finding him deceased about 10 km from my cottage on some lonely dirt road right in the middle of it. It's best I don't know what happened cause I don't think I'd be able to not seek revenge. Strong suspicions my uncle fucked up or idk something happened. My uncle died of an od a year ago. Also sorry for late reply. Wish u the best and I can only hope you find your babe if not some solace. Remember time does heal.
I once had a friend who brought home a dog from the street. He was amazed by how well-behaved it was, even seeming to be trained. He refused to consider that he'd just stolen someone's pet that had gotten out.
Related, YSK domestic cats are the #1 most destructive invasive species in the world. Please, for the love of god, keep cats inside, or take them out on a leash, or build a cat patio, or at the very very very least, put bells on their collar so they can’t sneak up on and kill local wildlife, and make sure your cat is spayed/neutered. It’s a huge issue, and it’s so preventable if people just do the right thing. Sincerely, a zoologist.
Bells really don't do anything. I took care of a stray for a while before he was brought to a rescue, and the bell didn't slow down his gifts of dead birds at all. Loved my little buddy, but he was destructive.
I've known some cats to learn to hunt around the bells, like they move without moving the bell. People really forget how much a cat wants to hunt
Yes, our old stray buddy was nicknamed Ninja because he moved so silently even with a bell. Cats are masters of stealth.
My maine coon is a master of canned tuna and not much else
Correction: Many cats, but not all, are masters of stealth. My girl went deaf as she aged and she got a little clumsy. Thump thump thumped down the stairs. probably never knew how loud she was.
Your cat: "I am become Silence, master of stealth. Nothing I do makes any noise anymore. I am a GOD!!!"
Had a cat with a bell and didn't stop it from butchering an entire family down the street and my uncle Trevor.
Fly high Uncle Trevor 🙏
Their movements are very sneaky!
Felines are the only predator that enjoys drawing out their prey’s suffering and death by playing with them. Also, domesticated house cats usually bring dead birds, moles etc as a gift for YOU, their favorite person. They never see you hunt so they want to make sure you’re eating. Essentially- “ah I see you are a shitty hunter, let me torture this small animal to death for you to eat!”
Actually, they're not the only predators to do that. Orcas and leopard seals have been known to play with their food before killing it, too.
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And some humans
One of my fondest memories of my late cat was when she tried to teach me this lesson (and the mouse was uninjured). In a single pounce, she brought me a mouse. I was too slow to catch it, so she immediately herded it into a shoe. I took it outside and rewarded her with some canned food. She was an indoor-only cat, and we rarely got mice, but it was as easy as breathing for her. Fascinating to watch, but I was glad she didn't have time to play with it or hurt it, and I was able to bring the little guy out alive, while also knowing that my cat was trying to teach me what she considered to be a valuable life lesson!
I work at a vet, and I agree with this sentiment. My outdoor cat as a child died of diseases he could not have gotten if he had stayed inside. I have also seen too many cats die from being hit by a car. If you care about your cat's safety, keep them inside and provide an environment that will keep them active and entertained.
My childhood was a revolving door of temporary companionship and trauma because my parents wouldn't let the cats stay as inside cats.
Same! … my first cat as an adult that I kept inside for 12 years got out 3 weeks ago today and I’ve been beside myself trying to find him and in a constant state of stress and worry :(
If it's any consolation my 3-year-old snuck out when we weren't looking. We realized later that day and went looking everywhere, no sign, but at 2 am we heard her. Goofball was just meowing at the door like she just realized she was outside not inside.
Really hoping my boy finds his way safely back home soon. Three weeks is such a long time. He’s been spotted several times at the apartment complex neighboring mine but haven’t had any sightings in a week. They also took down all my signs so that doesn’t help :( It’s been so tortuous knowing he’s so close, 1000 or so feet, yet so far :(
If you havent yet, try putting his litterbox outside. The smell could help him find his way back
I did that for the first week and a half to two weeks but I’ve also read that’s not recommended because it can attract territorial stray/outside cats that can bully your cat and keep him from feeling he can safely return home 🤷♀️😭
Put his litter box outside! Also, walk around the surrounding neighborhoods. If he can smell you, he can follow the smell home. Hope he comes back! Keep me posted!
Thanks….. I have been doing all of this for 3 weeks. He’s been seen a handful of times at the complex neighboring mine but haven’t had anyone call/text about seeing him in 8 days :( I’ve legitimately spent 90% of time outside of work there sitting/watching/waiting for him. Setting traps, trail cams, talking to people that live there… it’s been…. Exhausting… Thank you for caring 🥺
It makes me so sad whenever I see a dead cat wearing a collar on the side of the road. It’s just so preventable
Idk how people let their cats outside without worrying. I've seen a cat get hit by a car. I've seen so many dead ones in the gutter on the main road by my house. If my cat was outside without me, I'd be an anxious mess. Luckily, he likes his harness.
I left my friend's house one time and saw her cat just chilling in the middle of the road. Freaked me out because I could have run over him. Or someone else could've. Texted her right away.
Yeah it seems crazy. When I was younger my roommate would let his (I guess our) cat out. After years of this finally I got to have the lovely interaction of a person from the church across the street coming over to tell me the cat had been coming in and disrupting service, knocking over candles, eating food at their charity events, etc. It was a Unitarian church so I'm sure they put up with it for way too long before telling us.
A. Cat. Patio.
A Catio. My parents have one, it's more like a sunroom but with cat doors installed (none of which go outside, they just go from the house to the catio) and a bunch of cat trees. The cats love it!
Don't let your car wander around loose outside. It will live a much shorter life.
I'd say it'll only last the length of your driveway, give or take.
Well now I can't fix it or you'll look like an asshole
oh great another unfixed car wandering around spraying wiper fluid all the place
Thanks I was actually worried about that
Redditors have to look out for each other
Not to mention, so many horrible things can happen to the kitties. When I was a kid, my cat was tortured and shot with BBs by neighborhood kids. I would never let my babies outside without a leash!!
Seriously, just keep them inside or don't have one. It's so selfish and irresponsible to let our cats outside. People who do this are being a bad cat family, putting their family member at needless risk of countless horrible ways their life can end, and it puts all the other animals outside at risk of the same. Be a decent person. Keep your cat inside.
aren’t humans the #1 most invasive species?
We cause 99.9% of all invasive species (intentionally or not) but we ourself aren't classified as one Tbh, we should be but label is made by us so idk
r/im14andthisisdeep
Human bad!!!
Adding to this, please microchip your pets. I’ve taken at least six loose dogs who clearly had a loving family that missed them into a vet to be scanned, not a single one had a chip. They were eventually reunited, but it would have been much quicker and easier if they had chips.
Just be careful and recognise the difference between STRAY animals and FERAL animals. Stray animals are comfortable around humans, may have been raised by humans at some point and are capable of being socialised. Feral animals have not been raised by humans and revert to wild behaviour and can be unsafe to approach and can hurt you. In addition they have very little chance of being socialised. Feral animals live in their own social groups eg cat colonies and it’s disruptive to remove them from their environment. People who know what they’re doing will go to feral animal colonies and capture them temporarily to have them desexed and Vaxxed if they can and release them back into their colony because that’s the most humane solution for the animal - to let them live out their lives without creating more feral animals.
cats are total whores If they got you to start feeding them, they are working the whole neighborhood. Don't take it personally.
A few years ago, a very affectionate cat started coming round the house and yowling for food. He was dirty, skinny, hungry, had tracks in his fur that looked like battle scars, and it was getting colder and colder out. I quarantined him in the bathroom away from the other animals and posted his picture in a few neighborhood groups. The general consensus is he lived at the local gas station and was basically left food by everyone around there. So I got him a health check, started on a few meds, and took him in before it got too dangerously cold. Turned out he needed several damaged teeth pulled, too. His fur filled in and he turned out to be quite handsome. He's now a fat, fluffy, healthy, satisfied house cat.
“If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.” - Alfred North Whitehead
Microchip your pets. It should be mandatory. If you can’t afford it you shouldn’t have a pet. It’s not something to skimp on, same with heart worm meds.
We found a microchipped cat and when we tried to reach out to the owner, they unregistered his chip 😿
Not all pets cant get microchipped unfortunately. But I agree that all that can, should.
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Small birds (which I have 3). Birds are extremely vulnerable to bleeding out and having a bad reaction to anesthesia (even young healthy birds have died getting any kind of procedure done) so most avian vets will avoid doing any kind of surgery unless absolutely necessary.
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Thanks, I try really hard to keep them safe.
It would probably be difficult for betta fish. Luckily none of mine have tried to run away so far.
You can sometimes get away with microchipping the bigger ones like Macaws, Cockatoos, and African Greys cuz they tend to handle procedures a little better but for small guys like mine (cockatiel and smaller) many vets won't do it. Or at least, the ones I've talked to wont.
Are you seeing avian vets? All seven of my budgies and both of my cockatiels were microchipped by their vet, and he never expressed concern over bleeding out. They didn't even have to put them under, it was basically the same quick procedure as when my dog got microchipped. I will say I doubt the usefulness of the chips for my birds. Even if they were to get out and someone managed to catch one, the number of people shocked that my birds even have vet visits leaves me to think their first thought wouldn't be to take them to get scanned.
That is a fair point but yes, I am seeing an avian vet. Thanks for asking. :) She is even only 1 of like 2 or 3 in the state that are board certified so it's weird that we would get told 2 totally different things.
The money shaming bit is a little uncalled for and here’s why. The chipping itself is cheap enough I agree, but it also comes with an annual fee for monitoring which a lot of people don’t renew. When you have a lot of recurring maintenance fees and taxes due every year, the chip monitoring fee is sometimes the first thing to go. A good collar and tag with your phone number on it isn’t so bad and has worked pretty well for centuries. Sure, the collar or tag can theoretically get snagged on something and lost. But that’s where neighborly cooperation can come in handy. I happen to know my neighbors pets and their names as do they mine. Something to think about in the day and age of minding your own business to the extreme. I admittedly haven’t a lot of experience with cats because I’m allergic. But I do know that most dogs don’t normally venture far, especially onto busy cross streets.
I've never had to pay a cost aside from the chip itself 🤷 it's not "tracking", it's more like a luggage tag
Animals here aren't allowed to be off-leash, so we don't have stray dogs around. Plenty of cats on the loose, who knows whether they have owners or not.
Strays don’t care if there’s a leash law. They’re around, just not in your immediate area. A simple mistake can be the cause of an escaped pet!
When I was a kid we found a "stray" cat in our garden. We thought she was a kitten at first because she was so small but she ate SO MUCH that we finally figured she was malnourished. Of course me and my sisters wanted to keep her so bad but my parents put up some posters in the neighbourhood and through a MIRACLE someone recognized their friends cat that had gone missing weeks ago. Apparently, she was from a farm and jumped into a transporter going from there to our city. Then once they arrived she jumped out and was left behind. Of course back then we were so sad but looking back now I am so happy we could reunite them. Just imagine the joy of getting back your cat that you probably thought was dead.
A lot of these comment proving that all pets should be kept indoors or leashed
Yep! Keep them safe! And keep our ecosystems safe too.
Just moved to a new location a month ago, and there's a beautiful black cat that keeps visiting us. We started feeding him, and now he comes multiple times a day. He wears a flea collar, but no other identifying information, my immediate neighbors have seen him but no idea about ownership, and his fur was shedding badly until I brushed him and pet him, etc., so I have zero idea if this is a stray someone stuck a flea collar on to be kind to, or a lost cat, or an outdoor cat. I just bought a custom engraved tag to add to his flea collar asking if he belongs to anyone and if so, to please text [my number]. Not sure we can adopt him, given that we already have two cats and a dog, but I also hesitate to let the lovely guy roam about during halloween or with winter approaching...
This is unsafe advice. Just because it might come up to you casually doesn’t mean it won’t bite. The best thing to do is take pics and post them in your local social group or neighborhood group. Some animals aren’t gonna be nice to a stranger and if it’s a big dog that decides to attack your gonna have a bad time.
To clarify - I don’t mean pick up every stray and take them to the vet. I mean please don’t just keep one without checking. Like if you are going to get involved, do it the right way.
Pretty sure I lost a cat this way, its heartbreaking Heres another thing if its a long hair cat and has no matts, its prob got a home, collar or not
Keep it in your house then
My cat is exactly as described and snuck out the door. He is not outside by my choice and I know that if he could get back to our door, he’d be very happy to be back home. Everyone I know is convinced someone is going to find him and keep him because he’s a really beautiful boy. I know him better and I know he’s an asshole to 98% of people so I find it highly unlikely anyone but myself will be able to pick him up so not especially worried about that. But I’m just saying. The entire point of this post is that not all cats outside are supposed to be outside. They might ne lost/missing.
Yeah, i was a kid, i keep my cats in now
That I agree with. The way it was worded sounded different.
Stop letting your cats outside unsupervised. There are some sick people out there that will capture them and torture them and kill them. My cat when I was a child was shot with a BB gun and had his body smeared through dog sh!t. There are things they could eat that could make them sick. Bigger animals could hurt them or eat them. They could get stuck somewhere and starve to death and you’d never know what happened. They are easy for sick people to capture and torture because they generally trust people and are easier to access than wild animals or dogs. They can get hit by cars, or like you said, they could just be taken and adopted by someone else.. the list goes on and on. If you care about your babies, please stop letting them outside without a leash/supervision
I’m a dog trainer in Austin. At MINIMUM 3 times a month I’m pulling over, squeaking a toy, crunching a treat bag and pulling out my friendly dog assistant and coaxing a nervous dog over. 7/10 times I’ll put the dog on a leash, give it some water and do a quick search on neighborhood/citizen/Reddit/Craigslist and find the owner immediately. 1/10 times the dog actually has a collar and accurate tag and can bring them directly home and call the owner. The other 20% are scanned and don’t have a collar and look like they need medical help so EVEN IF your local city animal shelter is not accepting new strays they CANNOT DENY a domestic animal that NEEDS MEDICAL TREATMENT. Make sure you really read that last part, feel me?
^ someone nicked my childhood cat. She escaped when we had some construction going on and I didn't find her until about 5 years later. I was sure it was her but by then I had a dog and she looked healthy so I just had to kinda let her go. I did follow her for a few days trying to find out which bastards nicked her (she was microchipped to us) but over time realised that she may have been passed on to someone else or who knows what. I'm still pissed but didn't really have any viable options at the time. By the point I found her she had been out of my care longer than she had been in it and even if I did take her back I would have to find her another home in short order anyways. I was not best impressed they were keeping her as an outdoor cat either but what's a teen supposed to do?
By definition, those animals ARE "strays". As in 'they strayed from home'. You're probably conflating the meanings of 'stray', 'feral', and 'wild'. They all have different meanings.
Yeah was too many people on reddit bragging about how they now own a cat or dog they "found". You just kidnapped your neighbour's pet.
So the advice here is, what, to grab every cat around and take them to the vet? In case they have an owner? IDK where you live but I see at LEAST one cat a day. There's no way I'm gonna start grabbing them lol
No that’s not the advice, sorry that was unclear. For context I’ve been seeing videos of people finding cats and adopting them, which is awesome! Just not if they already have a family, you know?
We have a few cats. (We live in a neighborhood with a LOT of stray cats. Like, a lot. All our cats are former strays.) Anyways, one of our cats leaves and comes back every 3 days, and we're almost certain that someone else has adopted him too, because he never seems particularly unhappy or hungry/thirsty when he comes back. We're pretty sure our cat has adopted at least one other human family besides us.
You’re near a colony then. Probably 1/3 of them are fixed and released back into the wild let your local trap neuter release group know your have a colony near you.
F&Rs (or TNRs) usually have the tip of their left ear nipped off (eartipping). Either that or a small tattoo in one of their ears. Helps with quickly identifying feral/stray cats that have and have not been neutered/spayed.
Ideally, yes. Usually? Unknown.
We brought one into a vet to be neutered and released (we found him hurt) and they didn’t clip his ear or mark him in case we wanted to keep him. Like no lady he’s FIV positive and we have 2 negative cats at home. We will feed him but we cannot take him in sorry.
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Some places are crawling with feral cats. They find little places to hide during the winter.
Only do this for dogs or obviously malnourished cats. A lot of cats roam the streets and return home after a couple of hours. (Or by nightfall if you're my cat. Bad kitty!)
PLEASE consider bringing in cats to get scanned for chips even if they aren't malnourished. Lots of indoor cats get out and don't find their way home. Yes it is obnoxious for owners to have to go pick up their cat from a vet or shelter because they let their cat roam, but as someone in the vet industry, I see tons of missing cat flyers come through. If we treated roaming cats the same way we treated roaming dogs, we could reunite a lot more families. Edit: It would be helpful if outdoor cats could have their tags labeled as such, as well. If whoever is reading this has an outdoor cat, consider doing this to avoid the hassle of having to pick them up from somewhere. Additionally, I've seen a movement to have indoor cats wear orange collars. I don't know how widespread it is, but I keep my cat in one just in case. 2nd edit: my phone kept autocorrecting car to car, so I was just fixing one I missed...
I have a cat who loves to sneak out and hop the fence. He’s usually back within 3 hours but I’m terrified someone is going to take him to the humane society so he has a shiny new collar with my cell number.
That sounds about right, and a good way to claim your outdoors cat. We got our void boi solely because he lurked around our house for about 6 months and would sit on our doormat whenever we would step out for a walk. That was until one cold December day. I was getting the mail and he looked at me from the porch gate. I opened the door wider and he walked in. The first thing I did was check for a chip and owner name. He was too big/old to be a kitten and too friendly to be feral. Turns out that the chip was still registered to an adoption center quite a few miles away. There was too much speculation on how this pretty boi ended up several townships away from the adoption center, without an owner registered to the chip, and wandering around for 6 months near our house. Rather than driving him down to the adoption center to potentially become a perpetually un-adopted kitty, I registered my name on his chip. So he's been my boi ever since. [Cat tax](https://www.reddit.com/r/blackcats/comments/ujgap5/pepper_does_a_sleep_mlem/)
Gorgeous boy! Thank you for taking care of him!
I wish this were accurate for me. My indoor only cat has been missing for three weeks :(
A cat roaming the streets is bad for the cat and bad for the local environment.
If you do not have valid identification on your pets that are capable of moving by land or air you need to get that shit figured out because they won't remember the address or tell it to whoever finds them
It’s also a great way to get bit!
Yeah, you aren’t supposed to grab a dog that doesn’t seem friendly Take them only when they approach you at your call
I knew a guy who has a really cute tabby cat. When I asked if she was from an adoption agency he told me he found her in his neighbourhood. She was a neighbour's cat and he just...decided to keep her. It's fucked up.
My cat has been missing for three weeks and it is DEVASTATING. I did a consultation with a specialist and I mentioned strays at the complex next to mine and she asked, “how do you know they’re strays?” And I can’t stop thinking about it :( I don’t know! They could be someone’s lost cats, too! Figuring out the best course of action on handling them right now because there’s a lot and several people here feed them. But we shouldn’t want cats to be strays… we should want them at humane shelters where they can be cared for and adopted… I’m a big animal person, especially cats, but I have never and will never leave food out unless I’m actively trying to trap and contain. Stray/feral cat populations are not okay for the environment or for the cats. They’re domesticated pets. They don’t belong outside, unprotected and uncared for 24/7.
Tried this with 8 squirrels. Vet seemed cranky the last few times.
or just leave them alone..
Real LPT here: Buy a microchip scanner for $30 and scan between the shoulder blades. If they're owned and chipped, you can find out right away.
There's different types of microchips and the cheaper scanners can't do backwards reading (125 or 128 kHz non ISO chips - Avid being a big one). You'd need a universal scanner which can be very expensive. Plus, chips move often and a trained professional knows how to scan the entire body.
I had an ill-acting lost or stray dog I ended up calling animal control to wrangle (in that state and time, the local shelters only took in animals via animal control). The dog was erratic, but you could tell they were used to having people to take care of them. When animal control came to pick them up, they were able to scan for a chip on the side of the road. Unfortunately, this dog was chipless, so they were routed to the local shelter. I did ask my number be passed along with the transfer, and a couple of days later found out the dog had been started on doggie Xanax and had managed to wander away from their humans. I had been guilt ridden about sending a dog to a kill shelter, but if I hadn’t, they would have never been reunited with their family. I’d have preferred a no-kill shelter, but it was out of my hands once animal control showed, as well as beyond my own resources to take in another dog, and I hope they would’ve called before it got to the point of euthanasia. Regardless, happy story of a dog getting xanaxed and finding their way back home.
I agree to getting them scanned. But ultimately cats shouldn't be left to wander the streets alone. The moment you let your cat out "free range', you are accepting that anything could happen to them. You don't let your dogs out free range, so please stop doing it to your cats. You can leash train a cat. You can build it a catio. These are ways to let them outside. Cats kill so many animals. In the U.S. alone, cats kill 2.4 billion birds a year. This is only including birds, not even the other animals they kill. They are a danger to outside and the outside is a danger to them. If you have a cat outside, you don't have a cat you have a visitor. This is from experience, I got a cat named Cremecakes and the first day he went outside a car hit him. I was standing there with him. But he heard a loud noice and ran and then bam. I picked him and he cried to me as blood gushed out his mouth. He died a few moments later. I had never let a cat outside before, it is my biggest regret. Learn, before you lose them.
100%. RIP Cremecakes.
Stop letting your cats outside, problem solved.
That’s what I’m thinking. People who let their cats live outdoors with no supervision are basically asking for either a car to hit them, or for them to get stolen. Not even mentioning the ecological damage domestic cats have on the national bird population. It’s incredibly irresponsible. I feel bad about potentially stealing someone’s beloved pet, but at the same time, by letting it roam freely, you aren’t really thinking, are you.
My cat wondered into my yard and he was obviously domesticated, he had also been neutered a couple weeks prior. I checked all the local pet missing groups, scanned for a chip, etc. I ended up keeping him, but to this day I still think about the possibility of his family being heartbroken from losing him :(
I don't know how long ago you found him so it might be too late for your situation, but places like NextDoor are a great way to try to help reunite pets with their families. I've seen a lot of success this way! I know not everyone is on NextDoor, but if someone is missing a pet they often post and check there for information!
I looked and posted on there, no one claimed him. He’s my big boi now, love him too much to let him go lol.
Currently looking for my boy for this reason. Pretty sure someone took him thinking he was a stray. Nothing about him screams stray.
I’m going through the same thing. My dog got out when I was at the hospital and a friend went to let my dogs out to potty. He’s obviously well cared for and healthy, well fed, shiny coat, trained, collar, chipped, but nothing. Posted everywhere and like 300 street posters with a $500 reward. No way whoever has him thinks he’s a stray or missed my postings or giant posters. They just wanna keep him because he’s a beautiful dog. Meanwhile I’m dying inside.
Wanna know how to avoid this? Keep your damn cats indoors. They destory the environment around them by killing birds, rodents and other wildlife to the point that they are responsible for making over 60 different bird species go extinct. Not only that, but they use their neighborhood as their damn litter box.
100%
This little dude was taken from the mountains all the way to Denver. The news team help to reunite Morris with his home. [https://kdvr.com/news/local/ace-hardwares-morris-the-cat-kidnapped-from-granby-parking-lot/?ipid=promo-link-block1](https://kdvr.com/news/local/ace-hardwares-morris-the-cat-kidnapped-from-granby-parking-lot/?ipid=promo-link-block1) https://kdvr.com/news/local/heres-why-morris-the-cat-was-found-in-denver/#:\~:text=Granby%20police%20said%20they%20picked,are%20so%20thankful%20he's%20back!%E2%80%9D
This not being current knowledge is the exact reason I don't let my cats outside, especially my runt with half of her tail missing and raspy breathing. 50% chance she'd get """saved""", 50% chance she'd get poisoned.
I'm so sorry. I totally understand your pain <3
Also to add on this post, if you DO have pets, stop letting them outside of a controlled area without your supervision. That’s how they get stolen or adopted by a person that didn’t know they were yours, or get run over by a car, or killed by a coyote or other predator, or just reproduce with other animals like them and kill all the native birds. Stop letting your pets outside, they’re not wild animals they’re domesticated (hopefully)
This really pisses me off. I've had 2 cats go missing because other people "adopted" them. I even put a note on one of their collars saying they have an owner and to not feed or encourage them and he came back with a different collar!! In order to keep him I had to send him to live at my mum's.
Cats should stay indoors
"That's weird, I let my cat roam around wherever, in all weather, destroying local bird populations. They're not microchipped, don't wear a collar, and I don't consistently provide them safe shelter and a non-stressful environment... But it's everyone *else's* job to know that they technically have a home and to ignore them on the street. Wait, where'd it go...?"
I agree with keeping cats indoors 100%. Some pets just get out and get lost sometimes, it happens.
Also, please don’t automatically try to pick up every dog you see walking around a neighborhood off leash, collar or not. It is a very common occurrence for a dog to dig under the fence or escape through an open gate without the owner’s knowledge. That dog is simply sniffing around the neighborhood and exploring more often than not. Rather than pick it up, just walk behind the dog. I’m serious. 99% of the time the dog will lead you right to his house if he knows he’s being followed, he will know to go home.
We Had to put a collar on our cat because of this. She is an outdoor cat who sometimes sleeps outside.
Our cat lost 6 collars before we gave up lmao.
This rule can MAYBE be applied to pets outside of cats and dogs. If you find a bigger bird, they may also have a microchip. The little ones unfortunately are too small/ fragile. And most shelters wont take in birds. If you find one, your best bet is to look at local lost and found groups.
Or just an outdoor cat that should be left alone. I know, I know in some countries cats are considered indoor creatures, but in the UK (where I am), for example, that’s the exception, not the rule. Despite this, you still get idiots trying to steal people’s cats on the basis that cat was outdoors (even when some are wearing a collar!)…
Cats are invasive, etc etc. Not everyone is in America and the advice to keep them indoors is very much changeable based on location.
Oh wow, I didn't know traffic, predators, parasites and illnesses, bird populations at risk, fights with other cats, and malicious people who like to hurt animals were exclusive to the US.
Where in this post did they say this was specifically about the US?
I know your intention, but I’m just dying laughing at the thought of snatching up all the cats I see in whatever scenario to ship them off to the vet