People who pick up ‘lost cats’

[SweeetFemaleAttitude]

Wtf is their thought process? All our local Facebook groups have a stream of a version of ‘I just found this cat…’ and a picture of a healthy calm cat.
They take them home, then post they have them and are looking for the owners. They drop them at the vets, or they post their location for other nutters to go find the cat. Or they decide it’s hungry and feed it every day. Today’s post that triggered this moan says ‘I just found this cat at xxxx. Seems friendly, where can I take it for scanning’. Has a picture of an adult cat being stroked on someone’s lap that looks healthy.
The better end just get them scanned, though even that tbh I don’t get for a one off encounter with a healthy cat.
It’s once in a blue moon there’s a reason like the cat has an injury, or seems neglected or is in an unsafe location or has moved into their garden full time.
I’m on all the local lost cat groups and fb just because I have a friendly cat. Last year he went missing for four weeks due to being taken in, he’s also been fed at numerous other houses over the years who’ve decided he’s a (very fat) stray (in robust health). None scanned him, though one tracked him here and said he was their stray they’d taken in after I’d had to shave off some matts in his fur.

We used to live a few doors up from a cat called Billy

Billy used to lay on his owner's front garden wall-we often saw him sunbathing

He looked just like a fluffy,black and white,over stuffed football-hardly half staved

The local vets used to get him handed over at least 3 times a week as some idiot would look at him,decide he was not only half staved but looked lost

He was known for doing his 'I'm so hungry,I don't get fed often' meow while his fat,over stuffed arse hung over 'his' wall

It was crazy-his owners tried everything to get people to stop but they where ignored

He went missing once-turned out an old lady had taken him,trapped him in the house and fed him so much crap,he somehow looked twice his size-he was struggling to walk

Where I live now,there is a cat we've renamed '6 dinner sid'

Beautiful,well looked after,well fed and still comes to ours on a night doing his 'I'm half staved' meow at us

He gets a fuss and sent on his way

The amount of posts on fb about him is insane

'I've just seen this poor cat laid on the road-is he ok?'

He's fine Sharon,he's just being a twat

''This poor half staved puss keeps coming to my house-do i feed him?'

No

'This lovely cat is sat on a bin at number x,do I take him to the vet?'

He's minding his own business-just leave him alone

Madness

I like cats as much as most people - at least they're not dogs - and I wouldn't personally catch one and take it to the vet no matter what state it was in, but at the end of the day cats are property and if your property is left unattended in the street, or in someone else's garden, or even in a stranger's house, you have to accept there is a risk someone else will pick it up and keep it or return it to the authorities.

Pets are property. If someone finds a wallet in the street they would take it to the police if they are honest. If I got an iPad delivered to my home that wasn't meant for me I'd contact the sender for them to arrange for it to be collected.

OP - I couldn’t agree more but don’t post this in the Litter Tray (cat lovers section of Mumsnet). I once said similar and got roasted there!

This happens to our cat ALL THE TIME. She is a master of taking her own collar off. It's all kindly meant but I do find it a bit baffling that some people haven't noticed that cats tend to wander about by themselves.

@Irregardless Thank you - we feel so honoured that she let us help her and has now adopted us as her family.

From what we can gather, she has been living on the streets for approximately 3 years. Other neighbours told us that they had been trying to feed her but she would just run away, scared.
Now it's like we have a feline bodyguard 🤣🤣

It steps up this time of year because cats instinctively prep for a hard winter by trying to fatten themselves up and spend this month mithering for food, despite having eaten ten minutes before. Their instincts haven’t caught up with centrally heated homes and food on demand.

The worst I’ve seen on our local Nextdoor was an elderly and admittedly not well looking cat who was ‘found’, taken to the vet and PTS. The cat wasn’t chipped, which was foolish by the owner, but he was absolutely distraught when he found out (via Nextdoor) what had happened as he’d taken the cat to the vet earlier that week and just started him on a course of steroids.

People are idiots. "Here's a cat, bring a cat" but the more it appears on social media the more people think it's right to do.

Slightly off topic but I love this story about a cat that hangs around a railway station for the attention:
BBC news

Gosh that cat is the spitting image of mine.

I know someone who does this - they seem to assume every cat who comes into their garden whose owner they don't know is a stray. The cats usually look very well fed and perfectly healthy. They entice the cats in by feeding them and then they say how hungry they are. They are not, they are just like my cat, well looked after but an opportunist! What's worse is that they have their own cat.

I am not anti cat, I have indoor cats and a catio. For their own safety, prevention from people taking them in, poisoning from anti freeze, brake fluid, lilies, rat killer, death or injury from cars, neighbours, people shaving bits off them, the UK Cat Killer who is still around...

I have had outdoor cats, ones that have always been outdoor cats and if I wanted outdoor cats again I wouldn't live where I am now. People drive like idiots, speeding over the calming humps, lorries & vans, builders, demolition of houses. One little cat was run over and left on the pavement, my neighbour has had issues with both of hers being hit by something, one in the face, one in the hip. Not cars apparently. This is a civilised area, where people put rat poison out and kill hedgehogs and shoot the foxes because they are in their garden, trap squirrels in rat traps thinking they caught a rat and leave it to die in the trap until it becomes just fur and bones. Ignorance abounds, all that matters is a grey house, plastic grass and creating as much smoke as possible with woodburning, in and outdoors. Kill everything, don't think of anyone or anything else.

This drives me mad. I think as a previous poster said, people see this on Facebook and think it's what you're supposed to do when you come across a cat. They're attention seeking idiots.

And I've literally just opened up Facebook and you can guess what the first post I saw was about can't you 🙄

Absolutely this.

No sympathy. Cats are pests.

Look on Facebook or similar medium to find someone local who chips pets. They can visit and scan cat for a chip which will, at least, find out if they have one and can get the number for checking who the owner is/was.
You can then follow up as you see fit.

You sound nice.

We have a local lost pets FB group and it’s basically this posted multiple times a day.

I had an elderly cat who used to potter about in my back garden and then sunbathe on a manhole cover in my front garden. One of my neighbours had a total bee in her bonnet about her and kept reporting me to the RSPCA and posting photos of her online. She got banned from the group and the RSPCA had to get really firm with her as she just wouldn’t leave it alone.

There’s someone obsessed with my daughter’s pony at the moment. Keeps posting photos of her on local FB groups “poor thing on its own out in the rain” “this pony is starving as it snatched a handful of grass/carrot/apple out of my hand”. She’s been told by me and countless others many, many times

1. Stop trespassing - there are no footpaths nearby
2. There are at least 6 other horses or ponies out there with her
3. Horses don’t melt in the rain - she has her raincoat on
4. She comes into her warm and dry stable at night, but she’d far rather be out, rain or no rain
5. Stop feeding my pony you absolute nuisance. Any subsequent vet bills will be sent your way and I’ll cut your fingers off if I catch you.

We've had two 'lost cat' incidents with our pets.

The first time our much loved and cared for elderly cat was kidnapped by our next door but one neighbour taken to the pdsa, told she was a stray and put down. Never forgiven that.

Then twenty years later our cat went missing for six weeks. We assumed him dead, but registered him on a lost cat site. Someone a mile away noticed him visiting their garden and searched to find his owner. She tracked me down and we were reunited. I can never thank her enough for her kindness.

There's a very pretty and friendly tabby cat who visits us, much to the annoyance of our cat. He's clearly well fed and well looked after so I've never tried to take him in. There are a number of local cats very good at doing the big eyed, I'm starving look, but they're clearly all liars. Also a couple of three legged cats that get people worried on Facebook.

You're lucky, our 20 year old cat was in the same situation and we didn't find out until after she'd been put down.

I actually think some of them do it for the social media attention, it's weird.

My 'poor' cat practically lives outside, it's her way. She is 10, unsociable and lactose intolerant (shits blood if she drinks milk).

I've had to pick her up 3 times from different vets because she's been 'rescued'. Nothing was wrong with her just found outside.
It caused her a lot of stress.

Err, many many different types of birds are struggling because of a range of reasons - and cats are a big part of the problem. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/13/uk-bird-populations-continue-to-crash-as-government-poised-to-break-own-targets

You sound mean.

Mine was stolen completely. The baggage said that my cat was starving and chose to live with her. My vet record said otherwise. Of course, people do love a long haired pedigree cat for free.