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!

I'm not a cat person but think it's fairly obvious if it is a homeless cat. Our local one had a perfectly happy normal looking cat sat by the road- you could clearly see in the picture it had a collar on & was just mooching. So many people offering to save it.....
Loose dog- yes try to catch if safe & post. Loose cat doing cat things.....don't!

This drives me mad OP. And I think that the more frequently it happens the more (stupid) people think this is what you're supposed to do the minute you see a cat on the street.

Well, because it seems to happen a lot where I live. People appealing for sightings of their missing cats. I know cats get fed by all and sundry, so the fact it looked healthy was possibly irrelevant, other than helping me decide not to feed it myself. It was in our garden for hours every day, much to the delight of my youngest, and I thought I would check and make sure all was well. Maybe I shouldn't bother my arse in future. Lost cats, found cats, injured cats and dead cats seem to make up about a third of our local Facebook posts.

It does my head in . To me if someone let's a healthy cat in their home makes them a nice fluffy bed and starts feeding them. They they are stealing the cat. My cat was taken like this a long time ago we never did get him Back.

I also hate seeing people say oh the cat choose you... er no that cat likely belongs to someone else.

I replied to that post on a different device, so different username. Am also Tessisme🤣🤣

Thank goodness our Facebook group is not like this but we do get lost cat pics and then happy reunited posts (sometimes), which are fab. One elderly cat recently was found in a shed!

But we used to have a fat ginger cat who was super friendly and also very good at convincing people that even though he looked like Garfield, he was STARVING. We had long suspected there was a particular person feeding him as he would be here all day and night but would slink off early hours then come home at breakfast time smelling of fish. Especially annoying as he was supposed to be on a diet!! Then he didn't come home one day. We were distraught. Searched everywhere etc (this was pre Facebook geoups). About 2 days later, it was absolutely hammering down with rain late one night and dh and I suddenly heard him miaowing as he burst through the cat flap absolutely soaked to the skin.

To this day we are convinced that the "feeder" decided to keep him and tried to lock him in and then he escaped even though it was pouring with rain. He also stopped disappearing shortly before breakfast, further supporting our theory, and did actually start to lose some weight.

I still feel angry at whoever it was. When we were looking for him we met so many people who said, "oh yes, we know that cat, he always comes for a cuddle with my dc/dgc" (he loved children). We had lots of people check in with us when he died a few years later.

If a cat braves the vicinity of my arsehole cat, just to hang around in my garden ,then something is not quite right.

Every time I posted about it , it WAS a missing cat.

Atm there's one that runs away/escapes every few months , but luckily always ends up at mines and retrieved. Me and the owner are FB friends now and always messages me first if he disappears .

Omg yes. One of mine appeared on our local page once with a ‘Is this a stray? He sunbathes outside my garden gate.’ Firstly, he is chonky as anything and is clearly not a stray. But there were people in the comments going ‘I’ll take him.’ ‘’I’ll have him’. IT’S MY BLOODY CAT. HE’S JUST GONE FOR A FRICKIN WALK.

I don't know, it's crazy. I would never assume a cat was in trouble rather than just roaming around doing what cats do unless it was obviously looking mangy or injured. Then it might be worth a check.

We have a regular cat visitor and we love her visits (of course we don't feed her but we do stroke her and play with her) but she obviously has a nice home close by. She's just a friendly cat!

Well, if I was worried about a cat, I would just have a look online and see if it matches the description of a missing cat, I wouldn't assume that all the healthy cats I saw were missing or lost.

All mine go out wandering and I know for sure that one goes to the neighbours as they've stopped me in the street to say he's been hanging around waiting for some of their BBQ before

Well, if I was worried about a cat, I would just have a look online and see if it matches the description of a missing cat, I wouldn't assume that all the healthy cats I saw were missing or lost.

I don't assume all healthy cats are missing. What a ridiculous reach. It was a particular cat which seemed to be here all the time, just out of the blue. Dozens of cats wander through my garden all the time. I don't post on Facebook about all of them or I'd be there all day. Like I said, I thought I was being helpful. Next time I won't bother unless it's stone dead on the patio.

I doubt they wold have been this invested if it was one of your children!!😀

Some people do seem to post on Facebook if they see a cat, wherever, whenever. I read their posts and think, "it's a cat, it's gone for a wander". Cats are also opportunists - if you offer them food, they will usually eat it. Even at home our cat acts as if she's starving when she's well fed and perfectly healthy. I think they feel they have to remind you to feed them, just in case you ever forget!

yep, totally age with this.
No kids and no hobbies/friends it seems based on the 2 ladies near me that do this.
Is it ever blokes?

No need to be snippy

I just assumed that most people would think it was a new cat in the area rather than anything else.

There's someone near to us who's taken it upon herself to worry about every cat she sees - I don't think any of them have ever been anything other than well-loved cats out for a wander, lol.

my local vet got so sick of one cat who liked to wander being taken to them for a chip check that they put at sign up with a photo of her front and centre that said "This cat is not lost. She just likes to wander in X area. Please return her to where you found her, her owner is sick of collecting her from us"

someone who had found a deceased cat and posted to say it had been put in the garden waste bin

that's what the council told us to do with a dead fox...

I really wish there was a word filter option on Nextdoor. I would tune out any post containing the word "cat". The people posting about their "missing cats" are equally irritating. 90% of them are updated about three hours later with "Oh, he's turned up back home"......

Suggest they all go volunteer with their local Cats Protection branch.

Some are genuinely just trying to be helpful but there many that report these cats straight away and waste time having them scanned for chips, photos taken and uploaded to websites to find owners for cats that belong to their neighbours. Which they could have done by taking a photo and knocking on a few doors themselves.

Wasting limited resources that are needed for abandoned and neglected cats.

Oh god it's my pet hate. Surely people know by now that cats wander around?

The worst is people replying saying "get it to a vet for scanning!" As if people haven't got enough to do. I'd be back and forth to the vet daily if I captured every bloody cat that walks by my house.

I couldn’t help myself on one recently. Asked how they could tell it was lost, was it reading a map. No, apparently, she just hadn’t seen it before 🙄

Because they want some attention on Facebook.

I had to point out to someone who had "saved" a lost chicken and took it home to make sure it was safe that they had actually stolen it from my neighbours garden (gardens across the road from the houses) and to please bring it back. It hadn't even escaped and was on the path his CCTV showed her reaching over the fence to pick it up.