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Monkey Monkey is my- name, and- droolin's my- game
Purred: Sun May 11, '08 10:42pm PST
I thought I would interject this as I never considered this before now...
My neighbor has a very loving very friendly cat that he has gone out of his way to put on a "diet". The cat's name is Domino...
Domino is the cutest most loving cat I've ever seen as an indoor/outdoor cat. He knows NO strangers and believes ALL love him and care for him LoL
We live in a complex of 225 units. It is not possible to know all of our neighbors. That being said, Domino has this forlorn and empty sounding meow that just begs for love and FOOD! Soooo all of the "loving" neighbors who could? Fed him! And he was getting porkier and porkier!
The short cure would be to lock him up in the house and never have him as an outdoor cat again... But that is not an option for a cat owner that has let his cat spend 6 years outdoors as he pleases. God only knows what the neighbors were feeding the poor guy!! Domino's dad feeds him Solid Gold... I doubt the rest of the people went out of their way to have that on hand LoL
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that while you should always keep trying to help those poor babies in need; you should also be aware that one or more of those "starving homeless" loveables... Could be just like Domino!
I'm sure those of you who have stepped in to care for strays are probably more aware of this then I was... but I'm such an indoor pets only kind of person that I never thought about it...
I am an indoor pet person also. No way would I let them just run free to be fed who knows what, be picked up by a stranger or get hit by a car. BUT I know that a lot of people do that. I know someone that has inside cats and outside cats, some stay indoors all the time and some stay outdoors all the time. The outdoor cats look HORRIBLE! One just died of what I think was aids and the other one looks like she is on her way to the same fate. When I see a stray cat (or dog) the first thing I want to do is feed it, so I see what you are saying. The problem now is that with all the foreclosures recently, (and with me living in a lower income neighborhood) there has been a lot of animals left in the streets to survive on their own. That is the problem I have been facing. I had a cat hang around for well over a week... I didn't feed him until I noticed that he hadn't eaten anything and started losing a whole lot of weight. That's how we acquired our latest doggy addition.... he was being chased away by a man who no longer wanted him. We named him captain.... he was only about 3 months old at the time, and starving! I guess you just have to look at each situation. Poor Domino, you would think that people would see he was ganging so much weight and obviously being fed by someone. But the people only thought they were helping out. No one wants to let a poor kitty go hungry!
This is Delyte. We live in a trailer park surrounded on all sides by country. There are over 100 trailers here plus a house. It's a university area, and people come and dump their stray dogs and cats out here when they leave the area. After losing our Momcat to a coyote and taking her last kittens inside, we thought we were down to one feral, her older son, Blackcat. Now all of a sudden we are inundated with cats showing up trying to eat his cat food. We don't know if they are new residents here or abandoned pets. Our person is trying only to feed Blackcat when he comes and not leave any leftover cat food. So far all the new cats look well and sleek, but if any of them start looking thin and sad, she will start feeding them too. It's awfully hard to tell the difference between an outside pet and a true feral. We are going to try to trap and neuter Blackcat as he is always getting in fights.
Plus we have wild animals coming up on our deck and eating the food! Including two little raccoons that cleaned out the bird feeder, possums, and the coyote who has eaten some of our cats. When I was outside in 2005, they tried to catch me with a humane trap and all they ever caught were possums and raccoons--who are probably now very sorry that nobody is putting cans of cat food out for them now!
Purrs to everyone who feeds cats no matter what their status is!
We had some Domino cases at the apartments I used to live in. Also, I would leave food on my porch, only to find several raccoons eating the food instead.
So, now I donate food to the shelter and know that it is going to homeless cats, not just gluttons.
This story reminds me way too much of "tramp" from lady and teh tramp. he has a different name at each of the "homes" he "lives" at.
I often wonder if our outdoor pets do exactly that. they are "ours" for the 10 minutes they bother with us.
I used to be a bad parent about letting cats out. And, i lost 5 of 5 to some thing from cars to getting lost. I learned. I still let mine out now, but only if i'm watching them, sitting with them, etc.
it is true that animals that go outside or live outside are more likely to die young but letting them go outside does not make the owner a bad parent and going outside does not mean we will get feline aides or leukemia it does not mean we will get hit by a car the chance of it does increase when we go out but it does not mean those things will happen for sure i went outside for 16 yrs and cancer got me i was never sick a day in my life until the cancer
Monkey Monkey is my- name, and- droolin's my- game
Purred: Tue May 27, '08 8:33pm PST
LoL Ben
He actually DID put a collar on him... Not one came back home with him... He still has no idea what happened to them, or how they got off of him... But he did say that a few of them were NOT break-away collars (yipes!)
As an update: Domino has officially lost all of his weight!! I guess the neighbors finally stopped!
But sadly? He was kinda cute as a little porker... Now he just looks like a skinny kitty LoL
Oh well? Healthy first.. I know I know... It's bad for him...can cause all kinds of havoc...he could die much sooner... I still say he was a cute little porker!!
this reminds me of a story that happened couple years ago, this scrawny looking, bow legged, long hair cat with severely matted hair would show up at our doorsteps every day, I felt sorry for the poor kitty and was 100% sure he was stray, I mean just by the looks of him, after feeding him every day, and grooming him, we decided to adopt him... yeah right, so we got him a new collar with a tag, next thing we know his owner calls him and says its her cat. I almost fell off my chair, it was funny, yet sad at the same time, I mean the poor kitty looked seriosly neglected. They soon moved and took him with them.
I suspect someone is feeding one of our cats now, but then again, she has voracious appetite and would eat just about anything.
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We named him captain.... he was only about 3 months old at the time, and starving! I guess you just have to look at each situation. Poor Domino, you would think that people would see he was ganging so much weight and obviously being fed by someone. But the people only thought they were helping out. No one wants to let a poor kitty go hungry! 
