Pets

Several days ago, Miss Fire posted about a problem she has been having with a roaming cat. I left a comment at her site, but I wanted to expand on what I said.

First, I don’t want this to become dog-people versus cat-people. I am an animal lover who owns a cat. I like the fact that cats are independent—this is the main reason I have one. At this point in our lives, a dog just isn’t what we want—maybe someday…

Our town has an ordinance against animals roaming free—both dogs AND cats. This is as it should be. I don’t think my cat has any more right to be in someone else’s yard than someone’s dog (or cat) has a right to be in mine. Whenever our cat is outside, she is on a leash. There have been times, of course, when she has slipped out of her harness and run off. This usually is a very short-lived event. We have had dogs come to our house with broken leashes, so neither animal is immune to running away from home.

These days, we have three dogs and one cat that frequently are in our yard. None of them have been invited. The cat hasn’t done any damage—yet. Several years ago we had a cat spray our back door, but this cat's bad behavior is that it drives MY cat crazy. Just because it hasn’t done any damage doesn’t mean I want it in my yard—and if it uses our yard for a litter box, then it covers its deposits as cats usually do. The dogs, however, regularly leave their calling cards—and they are NOT small dogs! This is a problem at any time, but in the spring I REALLY don’t want to see a winter’s worth of dog droppings after the snow has melted! NOT fun. They also like to ‘mark their territory’ by peeing on our recycling bins—not appreciated by me or my husband. Other than them not being 'good neighbors,' I really like the dogs—they are friendly and, otherwise, well-mannered.

Now we come to the question ‘What do we do about these animals?’ For the most part, not much. When K sees one of the dogs crapping in our yard, he will tell the owner and ask them to come and clean it up. Shouldn’t we call animal control? Probably. BUT, we are in a small city and rank has its privilege—by this I mean, one of the dog’s owners is a local celebrity and another dog owner is a local politician—and not much happens when a report is made. The third dog’s owner also owns the cat and he and his wife are friends with the animal control officer. They also don’t have children, have very good jobs, and own rental property in town—in other words, they have money and don’t care if they have to pay any fines. (That is, WHEN they get fined.) These animals don’t roam anywhere but in the neighborhood, so it wouldn’t take much for someone to determine who ‘turned their animal in.’ Several years ago a former neighbor got into it with these people (the couple who own the dog and cat) about their animals and it got very nasty—to the point that there were people in the neighborhood that took sides in the entire argument. Not fun.

Most of our neighbors have at least one pet and their animals are NOT a nuisance. The only time we MIGHT see the animals are when they are being taken for a walk—or when we visit at their house. MOST of the pet owners here obey the laws—as they should. The occasional—okay, NOT so occasional in one instance—barking is something I put up with. If a dog is barking at night, I have my windows closed and the air conditioner on, so it isn’t a problem for me—and there usually isn’t any night barking. But, for the most part, our neighbors are very considerate when it comes to their animals being ‘good neighbors.’

My whole point in this post is this: roaming animals are a problem, no matter if it is a cat or dog. BUT, we cannot blame the animal for what comes naturally. The blame rests completely on the owners. Animal owners should be responsible—too bad there are a lot of them that are not.