To really not understand why people are OK with cats

[Duvetstay]

Full disclosure, I'm allergic to cats and also very much a dog person but I really don't understand how it's acceptable for cats to go round decimating local wildlife and crapping in gardens.

I've lost count of how many times I've had to pick cat poo off the lawn and my daughter came in yesterday with cat sick all over her feet as a local moggie had vommed on our patio. I'm sick of it. It's a health hazard and you shouldn't have to wear a hazmat suit to go in your own garden.

We have tadpoles outside which are about to froglet and I've just seen a fat cat with its head in the water. I'm fuming, a few of the tadpoles are injured and this is the same cat I had to get off a terrified bird last week.

I'm not remotely sentimental about nature, if a hungry creature kills another then that's how life works. However I cannot understand how people can let these cats out knowing that they're injuring animals for no reason and causing health hazards to other people in their own home.

I couldn't take my dog for a shit in your garden so why can your cat do that in mine? They're not even natural predators as they just trot home to get their whiskers.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND!

I've watched cats shutting on my grass.
I'm not so stupid that I mistake the cats for foxes.

It's cats. And they don't bury it.

I like cats, but they are a terror to local wildlife, so any cat I have kept has always been a housecat.

@MamaKarmaLlama - What’s your point exactly?
Dogs don’t enter my garden, or kill my pets. I’m sure they would given the chance, but generally they aren’t allowed to roam the streets freely.

I’m not that fussed on them either though.

I am a slave to my two delicious Birmins!! I love Cats!!!!

Can’t stand them: their urine stinks out our garden, they dig holes in our garden and bury our poo. They carry fleas everywhere, rub their bums all over everything. Gross!

I think the problem with many cats is that they are indeed arseholes. But that's it's their stinking attitude that makes them so adorable.

I quite like cats. But I won't sit in my back garden and don't want the kids playing out in it as there are loads of cats locally and their shit stinks like nothing else and they do it everywhere. Just ruins it, with the smell wafting about.

DH doesn't like cats. He was adamant we were never going to have a cat. We went to meet a cat. We now have a cat.

He still likes to pretend he doesn't like cats but I quite regularly walk into the living room to find the cat curled up in his arms and him murmuring "who's my best girl, hey? Who's my little sweetie?"

D'cat is an inside cat (has a Catio also) and therefore does not contribute to any outside pooing or wildlife killing.

Dogs don’t enter my garden, or kill my pets. I’m sure they would given the chance, but generally they aren’t allowed to roam the streets freely.

Mmmm, I had a rottweiler owned by my neighbours enter my garden, drag my cat off a six foot fence, and injure it so badly it died before I could get it to a vet. Right in front of my very eyes, so quickly I could do nothing about it.

I didn't blame the poor dumb animal, I did most certainly own the oxygen thieves of owners.

ia. i was turning over some soil thinking 'what is that smell' and there it was, the turd of someone else's cat.

I have to live next door to a dog that barks and whines all day. It drives me absolutely insane. The streets where we live often have dog shit on them, and the bins full of bags stink. Give me a cat any day.

I really don't understand why this entire thread hasn't been flooded with pictures of peoples owners cats...?

FruityTooty Cats come in your garden and bury YOUR poo?

Wow OP, you’re not a very nice person are you. What a nasty piece of work. I don’t like anyone who despises any animals. I hope they continue to poo in your garden, you sound vile.

I am a slave to my feline overlord.

Cats are the best.

My cat is pretty agoraphobic though. So while he will go outside, it’s only for short periods and he always comes in to do his business in his litter tray. He has also never successfully hunted anything bigger than a fly.

I love my boy.

In all seriouness, you do realise that dogs are absolutely awful for the environment, are much more dangerous (particularly their excrement) and basically ruin every park.

Cats bury their shit. Dogs leave it out and eat it. Gross.

So in answer to that, why be ok with any pet?

I love my cats as I live in an old house. Old houses are perfect homes to mice, which I hate. Cats sort that out.

I'm fed up of having to warn the kids to avoid dog shit on the way to school. It is not the fault of the dogs, but their owners.

The foxes cause the most mess in our neighbourhood. My neighbour's dog is also annoying as it whines and barks away for several hours a day in their back garden.

Also people love them op. Me included. Like any pet, they're often better than humans.

I agree that there are issues with cats and wild bird destruction, however, they do have a very strong instinct to bury their waste. The poops I find on my lawn are probably fox (you don't want to research that on full stomach) and cats sometimes chase foxes off, so ... Pick your battle.

I’m with you OP. Can’t stand the things. Vile, vicious entitled little shits, and that’s usually just the owners. ‘Oh but they bury their poo!’, yeah in my borders and veg beds I spend time and money on. Yes I have a dog, he’s socialised, on a lead and I pick up his crap rather than wandering into peoples well tended gardens or into their fridge to cover their foodstuffs. The ‘right to roam’ is out of date and ridiculous! Your pet, your responsibility. Deal with it’s crap or pissed off gardeners will start posting it through your letterbox wrapped in a bill for damage.

A lot of people saying that if dogs should be kept on private property or on leads so should cats as both are domestic pets. Bear in mind that dogs have been domesticated at least 18,000 years ago maybe much longer, whereas cats have only been domesticated around 4,000 years. This makes a major difference in how close to "wild" they are, cats are many times closer to "wild" than dogs.

Regarding the harm to wildlife, it's recognised that habitation loss is the biggest cause of species becoming rare or dying out, not predation.

I used to have a cat poo and pee problem in my garden. Not caused by my own cats (indoors only) but by a local cat who hadn't been neutered. He vanished for a month or so and next time I saw him he was without his furry pompoms - no poo or pee since. As there were other cats using my garden at the time, he was clearly being territorial but since being neutered this has stopped. So who was to blame - the cat following his instincts, or the owners who hadn't had him neutered?

Totally with you Duvetstay, I dont understand why folks think their cats can crap everywhere yet not my dog. when I was little dogs ran wild around the streets, now there mess has to be picked up, why not cats? both equally dangerous to children!

What I don’t understand is why people can’t keep their cats indoors with a litter tray. That’s what we did.

Well I guess that what we are all doing at the moment and most folk are climbing the walls after less than 2 months...

I just couldn't be doing with constantly having to watch the door/keep it shut etc, same with windows. I'm a pet owner not a jailer. If the cat decides it doesn't want to go out then I guess that's fair enough.

both equally dangerous to children!

Behave, unless you show me the story where a child has been mauled to death by a domestic cat then I think you are barking up the wrong tree.