Why do people assume cats are missing?

[Thorilicious]

Disclaimer -I don't have a cat.
My local group had 3 separate posts about different cats. 'Does this cat belong to anyone? It's really friendly...' post picture of healthy looking cat trying to go about it's business, but being bothered by the caterazzi!

Caterazzi 😂

Same on my local Facebook , the ones that drive me crazy are the ones that take them inside so the owner has no chance of finding them , or feeding them so they return each day . Don’t get me wrong if it’s an obviously injured cat that’s a different matter . It’s also full of “ we’ve taken this cat to so and so vets to check it’s chip “ , just because it’s ventured into their garden .

Although on the flip side , the worst post I saw was from someone who had found a deceased cat and posted to say it had been put in the garden waste bin at the side of the house . I mean no way to deal with the poor cats body , but also unless the owners see the post they will have months or years of wondering what happened .

Because sometimes they are missing!

We had a cat coming round for a few months. Looked healthy so assumed all
Ok. Come freezing weather still hanging around so we thought ok maybe something not right. Trapped it and scanned it - had been missing 9 months.

Yes, this is so annoying.
Perfectly healthy looking cat just out doing what cats do and someone posts it on Facebook as they think it's lost.
No, it's just nosing around as they do. Leave it alone and it'll go home for food when it's ready.

Because they are nuts. I have to periodically mute our local FB 'Spotted' page as it does my head in.

They are bored and lonely

I appreciate some may be missing, but chances are if a cat you've not seen before has wandered into your garden, and looks healthy, chances are you can leave it be, and not create a post on Facebook about it!

We had this with our old cat when she was sleeping in the grass in our front garden. Someone posted on our local FB to say she looked sick and uncared for (she was very old) and had been hanging around outside (in our own garden) and half of our village posted to say they would take her in, they would come and feed her and our neighbour was poised to take her to the vet
I had to post numerous times to get everyone to understand she lives there and is perfectly happy relaxing in her own garden!

It’s the same on our local group 🤦🏼‍♀️

Cats like exploring, most will have homes and be fine. Many of these cats won’t have collars, because cats don’t like collars and some can take them off (in our group people think cats are homeless just because they don’t have a collar!).

If a cat goes missing, the owners are likely to post on the local page asking people to look out for them. If they aren’t on the page then they wouldn’t see these posts the OP is referring to anyway, so there’s no point posting them…

The Caterazzi 😂are out in force here. One village idiot traps her ‘finds’ in her home and the poor owners have to traipse round to pick up their (pissed off) cats and get a lecture to boot!

It’s almost always photos of a healthy looking, overweight six dinner Sid going door to door for sympathy buffets.

Same in our local FB group. Normally followed with ‘Poor thing is starving! He wolfed down the tin of tuna/salmon/cream I gave him’ Accompanied with a photo of a normal looking cat

I'm not a cat owner but I came across a cat that seemed distressed and was filthy. I gave it some water and tuna (in spring water as I checked) and put a message up.
Several people responded saying they'd seen the same cat and were concerned and then one lovely woman came and took it to the vet to check for a chip and so on.
The owner didn't want it back so the woman took it in, a couple of other neighbours said they'd help out so now I'm in a cat chat group of crazy cat ladies sharing daily messages about this cat!

Anyway, I digress. My point was that a properly lost cat is obvious to even a non cat owner so these people are crazy.

Because it's a very low cost, low effort way to advertise themselves as Good People.

About 30 years ago one of our cats was 'caught' by a woman in the next road who took the cat to the local vet, who recognised her (she was a very distinctive cat) and rang my mum. My mum was really annoyed as she had to pay the vets bill (vet time and cat check up), all for a perfectly healthy-looking, well-fed cat who wandered into the wrong garden. I've no doubt that woman would be one of these on FB, taking in 'homeless' cats and posting on FB.

In a town near me there’s a cat who likes to wander round all the businesses. Several of them have a special chair reserved for him to snooze on. There are so many posts, concerned questions, etc that last time I visited the owner had put up posters in the window of half the shops on the high street explaining that he is owned, he does go home at night, and he is perfectly happy!

Because they are fucking nuts.

Because they associate a lack of collar with a lack of owner, despite cats being chipped now.

Because “I’m rescuing this beautiful kitty” is a more fun story to tell themselves than “I’m an interfering idiot who should mind my own business.”

Because they know nothing about the calumny of cats who pretend their owners haven’t already given them two breakfasts.

Mine is about 14.

She has conned everyone on the grove she is a starving kitten. She is small, about the size of an average 6 month old.

Most of us have lived here for 20 years so by now they know she has a home, they still allow her in to sleep on one neighbour's belly and to have bits of chicken from another.

We have this on our local (small Norfolk town) Facebook page. I think a lot of people just don’t understand that most cats just roam around - they seem to think they’re like dogs and stay in their own garden 😳 - errrmm cats jump fences! Every week there’s some poor cat being taken in by some “kindly” neighbour as a stray and then reunited with its owner when the two find each other through social media!

Because FB is filled with busybodies.

If you're worried about a cat, why not look to see if it's been reported missing first?!

My cat is naturally big and well fed to boot. She stays near my house being naturally anxious of others. Anyway one day on my return I casually asked a local child if she had seen my cat. The child said that a woman from down the road had got food for my cat, but that had spooked my cat she she ran and hid. I was really annoyed that someone assumed my cat needed feeding!

Six dinner Sid!
😂

Our late cat had an overactive thyroid. This meant that despite daily medication and loads of food, he was very thin and permanently hungry and would make a show of himself going round the neighbours pretending to be hungry and homeless. One neighbour put a homemade collar asking for details as she was worried about him ( I reassured her). Another took him to the local vets to see if he was chipped. It so happens the vet lives down our street and reassured them no the cat had a home but a medical condition causing him to be thin. We ended up getting him a collar saying Do Not Feed: Medical Condition

Since then we've got a street WhatsApp group and there was a cat a few doors down with the same condition and appearance. He never went far-his favourite place was sitting on the bins in his front yard. But every few days there was a post expressing concerns, was the cat ok, he's very thin blah blah. It seemed to take ages for the message to get through the cat lived in the house he was in the yard for, he's being treated for a medical condition.

I suppose its nice that people are concerned, I suppose.

As an aside I want an overactive thyroid. Instead I've got an underactive one, making me put on weight just smelling pizza. [Disclaimer: I'm joking, before others start on how badly they suffer.]

There's one locally to us, who pops up regularly. Oh, poor lost cat. Lying under a bush (um yeah), going up to people, it was so hot/cold/wet today, etc etc etc

It's a local celeb, visits the hospital, the cancer center, the Sports park, Tesco's. It's owned and loved, just also loves gadding about and visiting others!

Bloody hell, that's lovely. Calling people bored and lonely, fucking nuts and busybodies. A wee cat kept coming into our garden all of a sudden. Very friendly. Well fed. It was hanging around all the time. I didn't feed it because it looked healthy. I put a post on Facebook just in case someone hadn't seen their cat for a few days/weeks. I know people usually post about their missing cat, but not everyone has Facebook, so maybe a friend or neighbour might say 'someone has seen your missing cat on such and such a road'. It could have wandered far from home. The woman who owned the cat saw my post, pm'd me, and we had a bit of a laugh about where her nosey cat hangs out all day. Thankfully she wasn't a nasty cow calling me names for caring about her lovely cat.

I had to come off a few fb groups because of the lost cat posts. They sometimes said 'this cat looks lost'. How on earth a cat can look lost I have no idea.

@Tessisme I guess I just don't understand why you'd assume that a healthy and well fed cat was lost and not just roaming about.

We have outdoor cats and have random cats in our garden all the time - it would never occur to me to worry about them or post their photos all over social media 🤷‍♀️