To think you don't just take random cats home?

[cadburyegg]

I'm a cat lover, and recently I've joined a few cat related Facebook groups. Big mistake.

I so often see posts where some kind hearted soul has seen a cat wandering around, and has taken it home. The latest post, last night, I couldn't help comment on. Someone found a cat near to their place of work and took it home, and has decided to keep it for themselves. The cat, from pictures they've posted, doesn't look underweight or injured. It's probably someone's pet.

But most of the comments are along the lines of
"The cat distribution system strikes again!"
"Thank you for being such a lovely person"
"She has found her forever home"

There's often a half hearted attempt to find the owner, but whenever someone suggests taking it to a vet to scan for a chip, suddenly the poster goes quiet.

I'd never just take a random cat home that I saw out and about. AIBU? I see it on the village Facebook groups too, "oh I saw this cat wandering around, does it have a home?" ??

A large number of cats are chancers. A neighbour's cat spent over five years trying to break into our house...
If a cat you meet outside is friendly and healthy 99 times out of a 100 it is just out for a stroll and it has an owner.
I"d only do anything if a cat was obviously injured or emaciated (not just skinny).

People used to stop to tell me how beautiful my ginger Tom was. I agreed, he was gorgeous, but when he went missing, I was frantic for 2 weeks. I’d have been devastated had someone taken him in. When I got him back, he was starving, filthy, so clearly hadn’t been taken in, thankfully he only liked me!

If someone thinks a cat is straying, they have a moral obligation to carry out checks before talking about the cat distribution system. I would check for a chip, put an advert out on social media etc. I’ve seen this locally a great deal. Usually, the owner asks people not to feed/take in the cat. Why do people think it’s ok to kidnap cats but not dogs? Is it because more dogs than cats have chips?

This is madness! Do people not know cats?

We have about three 'courtesy' cats. They'll come and sit on our laps for a fuss in the garden we refer to them as 'our' cats and they even have names that we refer to them by (we don't address yet by those names - they're not their names!) They're obviously all owned and well cared for except maybe for the one who sleeps under the summerhouse.

None are allowed in the house, although some have tried, because I feel that would cross a boundary.

But what sort of person would assume a cat was now theirs because it wasn't attached to its owner?

Our cat almost got rehomed. We’d got him as a rescue who’d probably spent a long time on the street as an unneutered Tom and his ear was damaged so he did look a bit of a sorry state. But he was a lovely boy, friendly to everyone, and a chronic Six-Dinner Sid. We moved about half a mile away and a few months later DH was walking past a house down the street and saw him lying on their doorstep in a cat bed being hand fed roast chicken. He asked them what was going on and found out he was days from being rehomed by a cat charity they had contacted. The neighbours had assumed he was homeless as he was always ‘so hungry’. What has always mystified me was that they’d had him scanned but apparently because we had forgotten to update the address when we moved, they’d decided he’d been abandoned. Our phone number was the same and no one called us! Also the people who bought our house had our forwarding address and it would have been very obvious he lived on the street. So something wasn’t right there. Anyway, he was saved. We then as an even weirder follow up with a knock on the door from the RSPCA shortly afterwards as they’d had a report about him being treated badly, but the complaint had been against the rehoming neighbours. I was able to show them our much loved cat lying on a cashmere blanket in a bedroom and it all stopped there. A lot of resources were used up for very little reason - if you give a friendly greedy cat roast chicken every day, you’re going to see a lot of him.

It's absolutely bizarre. Some people are obsessed with the idea that there are loads of well fed, happy, domesticated stray cats just wandering the streets waiting to be rehoused?!
It's nonsense. If it's a domestic cat outside then it's because it lives in the area. Moving it to a totally separate location is madness. Cruel, and theft.
People used to think my cat was a stray BC he hung out in the street all night. I caught some utterly batshit looking old man wearing rags trying to pick him up and take him somewhere! I did shout at him unfortunately but I was watching a cat napping in action from my window!

To be fair my first cat was a walk off the street one. I was renting a basement flat and a large intact tom cat befriended me. He came in through the window every day and spent a lot of time with us but we didn't feed him.
After a few months of coming in every day, he disappeared for a few days and when he reappeared he was injured. Took him to the vet, got his wounds treated and the vet told us we had to keep him in for a week. When I told the vet he wasn't our cat, he turned round and said
'you've got the bill, he's your cat now'
Best cat I ever had 😻

Haha
Potty people

YANBU at all OP
I have a big Male cat who gets in my Home, no need for Me to sneak it here
Causes ructions though with my own (smaller) male cat.
The poor owners of these cats must be worried sick about their missing Pet.

My mums cat adopted her when her owners moved out of the house next door and left him. She contacted them and they said she could have him. He came in for meals but was a semi feral outdoor cat. He then disappeared and my mum was devastated. In December just before Christmas my mum had a funny feeling and opened the back door. In he came with an obvious injury to his back leg.

One emergency trip to the vet later and he had strong drugs and a shattered back leg from they think jumping out of an upstairs window. He also degloved part of his other leg. Now he has three legs and is a happy neutered microchipped house cat complete with catio. We think we know who had him because they walked past as he was off to the vet on the first visit and looked quite upset.

As someone who believes cats should go outside, it really annoys me. A local woman steals people's cats because she thinks they shouldn't be out. The new law about chipping cats will hopefully stop some thefts.. I'm across lost pet etc groups and the many pictures of the cats looking pissed off, because they are just minding their own business, does amuse me. I've had phone calls about my tortoiseshell female. She's now well known, she just thinks that she should be worshiped by all.

This thread reminds me of

It's entirely natural for them to do that.

My mate was cat-sitting at her own house while the owner who lived miles away went abroad.
Within one day the cat obviously was wandering round locally, within a couple minutes radius of this lady's house. Then..It went 'missing'.
My mate frantically knocked doors and printed posters.
Turns out one of the distant neighbours took one look at it and bundled it off to a rescue.
The 'cat-sitter' had to go there and beg for the poor thing back, as the actual owner was in Buenos Aires!

It's stealing. Surely cat lovers must understand that cats roam and you can usually tell a stray from a pet.
There is a cat in our road that makes her way up and down every day. She's very friendly. One of the neighbours put on WhatsApp that they'd found her sitting in their garden so they fed her a dish of their dog's food. These neighbours are fairly new so probably hadn't seen her before but I don't know why they felt they needed to feed her.
The owner soon responded, saying thanks for your concern but please don't feed her as she's well-fed, just greedy.

This is why I have an indoor cat. I’d be heartbroken if someone decided to make him their pet. There are plenty of cats genuinely needing homes - why risk kidnapping someone else’s?

Dd found a kitten in her back garden in a bad way. She took to the vet and called a cat rescuer. We said we would take it, had 1 rescue and 1 stray before. The rescue person said no to us. Said if we really wanted another cat then we would have got one already!!!.
Our first cad had died and we had been talking about it for months!

I’ve had a lot of cats and the prey instinct is there from day dot. Some of mine have been indifferent hunters as older cats, some have been crazy for it. But every kitten is basically playing by practising the hunt, and being fed regularly and well makes no difference in my experience

There is a repeat offender cat stealer on our local lost cats Facebook page. She ‘saved’ my cat and took her to a vet to check for a microchip. I read back over her previous posts and sure enough she’s does it all the time.

My mums cat is a hunter even though he can only go out into his very luxurious catio. He hunts spiders, the bigger the better! He finds some very tasty ones in his catio.

Dear god, this makes me so angry. If people really want to engage in the "cat distribution system" (wtf) then they can go and adopt one from the many overcrowded shelters. This is a fad all about vanity and social media. The human race never fails to disappoint.

When I was about 11 - wayyyy before microchips - my sibllings and I found a small, young, distressed cat in our walled garden. We'd never seen it before. It was very distinctive and probably some exotic breed. It was also very defensive and afraid, but we persuaded it to be picked up so we could check the tag on its collar.

We took it in to Mum and Dad.

"There's an address on the tag," I said.

"That's about five miles away," Dad said. "I wonder how she got all the way here."

"She's called 'Reward'. Look..."

"Er, no, PS. I think that's an offer rather than a name."

"Oh! There's a reward for finding her if she gets lost?"

"I imagine so."

So my siblings and I all piled into the car with the cat and Dad drove to the address on the collar. There was no one home. We went to a neighbour.

"Oh, no. They're away for the weekend at her parents. But I'll take the cat and look after it till they get back. They love that cat."

"We're supposed to get a reward," said Rob, my second brother down, who was six and already shameless.

"Well, leave your number and I'll ask them to call you when they come home."

We all felt a bit cheated - we imagined we were eligible for life-changing sums - and we griped about the injustice all the way back.

During dinner, the doorbell rang and a young woman asked my Mum if, by any chance, we'd seen a Persian kitten. Turns out she was the daughter of the people next door, and she and her husband were staying the weekend and they'd brought their cat.

"We've taken her back to your house," I said. "She's with your neighbour."

"Oh, no. What a nuisance."

Rob pushed to the front. "It said there was a reward."

The woman looked flustered. "But she'd just come from next door!"

My Dad, who was not the sort of person you argued with, said, very quietly, "They didn't know that when they found the cat, did they?"

The woman tutted and got her purse out.

"Alright, which of you found her?"

"We all did," I said firmly.

"Oh, gosh....how many of you are there?"

"Five."

"Bloody hell - five?"

I think we got two bob each. We were rich til Tuesday.

Non cat owners don't realize that cats are opportunists.

The feline version of Labrador’s and food

FGS yes I’ve left so many FB groups because of it, cats will cat basically. Especially if they offer them food too!

🤣🤣🤣 oh yes

Local page just now.

Picture of very pretty cat… “Does anyone know where this cat is from. Has a pink collar”

Leave it alone it’s walking down a path 🤦🏻‍♀️🤦🏻‍♀️🤣