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?" ??

No one did this to my cat who was lost for 7 weeks and was literally a skeleton when he was found...

I've just forked out 60 quid to get my cat whose been with neighbours for months de matted. Never had to go to a groomer before as I always brush him with him being so long haired. He's not come home for months and then he turned up a week ago looking very disheveled.

He's now groomed and fluffy and when I let him out again he's supporting a new collar with do not feed on it!

A bit off topic, but I had a neighbour once, who was obsessed with this cat, that wasn't his, and went out every day to look for it; even taking it out of its garden to take it home.
I always ask my neighbours and put on the local FB group if I find a strange cat in our garden.
For some reason, people do think it's fine to "kidnap" cats.

YANBU, I hate this too, and have lost cats this way. One local person, who was known to take in strays, took in my elderly cat and had him PTS because she could not afford his vet bills.

My local FB group is full of posts about cats that are fine... just out minding their own business. Yet people think they are lost/dumped. And they get taken in and people gush about how "cats pick their owners". It is a load of shite, and is still theft.
One time, someone on the group had found a small kitten... too young to be out. Several people told her to take the post down and keep the kitten. The owner was alerted to the post, and was utterly (and rightfully) pissed that people were encouraging this person to keep it. The little mite had escaped home.

I knew a family who "found" a cat and decided it was theirs. No attempt to find the owner. After a lot of peer pressure, they reached out and the owner did come and retrieve their cat... and their name dragged through mud in the process as the finder's kids were upset the cat was going back home.

my two dogs have collars embroidered with Reward (in spanish) and my husband's cell phone number! One of the things we were taught many years ago by our breeder, never use name tags. Their name is REWARD.. dogs (and maybe cats) will respond favorably to their name. Reward gets the phone calls lol. Not that we have lost them ever , but here, a reward is a huge thing as people are so poor

Oh dear, in the olden days (pre chipping) a lovely cat would visit us often, lovely thing, we would feed her scraps but not much,, anyway, it became apparent that she was Preggo, and as she got larger the visits increased. She was without a collar, and we were becoming concerned. We asked around but nobody knew who she belonged to.( not the most friendly of areas though)

Then one day she brought us a large (dead) black bird, and that night gave birth to a litter of 5 in our living room!

When she started going out again, we got her a collar, and lo and behold she came back one day with a phone number scribbled on the collar. It appears she belonged to a young single girl. She was very good about it, and thanked us for looking after her and the kittens.

I think the girl was out a lot and the cat was looking for a safe place to have her kittens, it definitely felt like the cat had chosen us. She popped in to see us after she was returned, but would always go back home after.

We have a local "lost animals" group for our area and there's several people on there who seem to think they're saviours for finding (healthy, happy) cats and taking them to vets constantly.

All the cats are inevitably chipped and owned (and just out for a wander) - it's batshit behaviour. We have three indoor/outdoor cats and have plenty of others that wander through our garden. Unless one was injured or visibly in distress, it would never occur to me to do anything, lol.

Cats gonna cat.

A few years ago I had a 23 year old cat. He was old-man skinny but ate like a horse and loved wandering. He was convinced that he owned the whole neighbourhood and would stroll into any interesting house. He was chipped. He had a collar with my number on it. He got repeatedly kidnapped by well meaning strangers. The neighbours and I all put up a sterling campaign telling people he was well fed and housed but I have lost count of the number of times I had to go and rescue him from vets and people's houses. One angry woman even called the RSPCA on me.

I think recently US social media has exacerbated things with its idea of the cat distribution system. People in the UK are now desperate to experience something just as TikTok-able. I wish they would just support existing cat rescues instead.

I’m so sorry 😢

Anyone who really knows about and cares about cats would know it's very rare cats just appear and need saving

stray mothers and kittens, absolutely ring a rescue or help. Cats walking around minding their own business, that come to you because you feed them or skinny rough looking cats that are 15 years plus. Leave them alone

Our next door neighbour’s cats love our house. One is often found sleeping on our bed. Our own cats are chilled about their presence now. We know they live next door of course but they could easily have come from, say, the next street. And there are people who would be taking ownership of them on this basis. We’re just too cheap to fork out for a microchip cat flap which is probably why we’re home from home.

I see this all the time on FB. Perfectly healthy, well looked after cats wander in to someone's back garden and are assumed to be strays, especially if they have no collar. It's mad.

I used to work with a man who hated cats and if they regularly went into his garden he used to catch them and drive them miles away to release them.....evil bastard

One of my cats has been missing since July, we are convinced someone has stolen her, she is chipped and there has been no trace of her at all. She was a very pretty pure white cat who looked pedigree and two other pedigree cats in the area who were chipped have vanished in June and August with no trace, all chipped. I rang 101 and they weren’t interested.

We have put posters up and leafleted the surrounding roads, she is on every lost cat group we can join all over the country and I search them all every day. The same three posters keep disappearing at the other end of our road so we think someone is taking them down. We had her from a tiny kitten and we will never give up on her.

It makes me very angry when I see people taking cats in with no intention of getting them checked for a chip. I also volunteer at a rescue and know how many beautiful cats are looking for homes - get your own cat!!

I know what you mean @cadburyegg I get sick of 'this random cat appears to be lost, does anyone know who he/she belongs to? Poor baby.' type of facebook post!

NEWSFLASH! Cats wander!!! Especially boy cats. Leave them the fuck alone. They will find their way home! (USUALLY!)

One woman posted with a photo of a cat she had, and said 'I found this poor wee mite over the road from my house, he has clearly been badly neglected. Poor thing is so thin and raggedy and neglected.' Someone came on and said 'FFS that is my cat! He is NOT neglected. He is old and thin but eats like a horse. The vet said he is fine, just old. Put him back outside. Leave my cat alone!'

So some bloody nosey busybody was basically posting to 15,000 people on our little market town facebook group that this person was a shit pet owner.

And yeah, almost every week on the page, some daft nosey interfering busybody nicks someone's cat and sticks it on facebook as abandoned or lost!

I know one particular woman, who takes every cat in that she sees - in her neighbourhood. She lets them into her house/encourages them in, and posts photos of the on facebook saying 'I picked up this poor lost cat, they have a home with me now!' And as you say OP, loads of people say 'awwww hun, U R so lovely!'

Also she lets the neighbours cats into her house all the time. And she posts stuff like 'my neighbour's cat is chilling in my dining room sitting there with the sun streaming in' and 'old Bob the cat from 3 doors down is sat on my couch after I gave him a bellyful of food.' Etc.... And she is always posting photos of random cats she has invited/allowed in. I think 'fuxake woman, these are peoples pets! Leave them alone you weirdo!'

The cats keep coming because she tempts them in and feeds them!

There is a —utter loon— in our town who got a bit obsessed by my old gremlin cat. He had a skin condition which the vet was treating. She’d tap on the window when he was sat there and pester the neighbours about him, saying he was neglected and starving (he was a barrel)I came out of the house one day as she was picking him up and making off with him. “Oh, he was lost” no you madwoman, he was sat in the gateway in the sun. Two days later dh caught her walking down the street with him, squirming and yowling.

I once brought a cat home. She was scruffy, elderly and out in the snow. She was shivering, which I've never actually seen a cat shiver before. I brought her into the warm and gave her some food. I brushed her fur. She purred and slept. I let her out into the garden, and she came right back inside. I knocked many doors looking for her owners, I took her to the vet but she was not chipped. I posted her on the local Facebook. I took her to a charity in the end, as unfortunately my own cat didn't like other cats, so I was unable to keep her.

We only have posts from people who have lost their cat/ cats on our local Facebook groups.
We have a feral queen with kittens at our allotment (no one can get near) to scan. They aren’t in our actual allotment.But all the rescues say they are full, so what are you meant to do? Feed and hope they survive.
But cats do get trapped in sheds etc.

Literally locking up my cats right now

Senior cat had many friends whom she visited on a fairly regular basis. She wasn’t greedy, just liked human company. So if I went out without her (she used to come to Tesco and sit in the footwell of the car while I shopped) she would pay her fans a visit. Fortunately everyone in the village knew her, and knew she would be off when she heard our car returning. A walker did try picking her up and possibly stealing her, but our neighbour saw her and asked what she was doing with Senior cat . 🙀🏃🏼

Junior cat liked a good wander around. Good luck if you tried picking HER up, she was tiny but ferocious, even dogs and foxes gave her a wide berth.

Our rescued bengal is fat, well-nourished, wily as hell and always hungry. We live in nowheresville now but did live inner city pre-Covid. He was continually on Facebook groups being featured as ‘desperately hungry’ and being driven to the local vets as ‘lost’. He also pestered the local drunks and drug dealers and traffic police wardens that hung out in the local green space daily, and friend out handsomely (to my 😱) om KFC chicken scraps left there.

my elderly French neighbour continued to feed him because ‘ee is ‘ungry’, and looked at me like I was mad when I tried to explain that the more she fed him the more likely he was to stand outside her door meowing 🙄.

Someone did this with my cat that I had years ago, I was looking for her for weeks and was devastated thinking she'd been killed, eventually I saw her...in my neighbours window! So I knocked on the door and told them they had my cat (they denied she was mine) people need to just stop taking other people's pets I doubt the police would have done anything so I never bothered phoning them and they never let her out of the house so I couldn't get her back!

😅

@BobbyBiscuits But that's bonkers your friend took a cat to her own house - miles away from its actual home - to cat-sit then let it outside after just one day??? All new cats need a month or so in new homes before being let outside. That's pretty standard and just common sense 🤷‍♀️

That's awful @PixieTrance89 😪 wtaf is wrong woth some people? I think I'd have knocked on their door then phoned the police from their doorstep & reported a stolen cat personally 🤷‍♀️