To have chased the person who took my cat?

[PerkyPenny20]

They took my poor cat from our front wall, and started walking off! I was in the kitchen which faces out onto the front garden, and ran outside, I called after them and they said "oh I'm taking it to the vet, its a lost cat!" I said, "no, its our cat, put him down!!" they were very funny with me walked off muttering "only trying to help" thankfully releasing my cat before doing so.

I understand people have concerns for lost animals, but to take one pretty much off my property, has good samaritanism gone too far?

I never understand why anyone allows their pet to wander as cat owners do ..the amount of Facebook pages re lost cats, cats sadly killed by cars etc. I had a cat in my teenage years but we kept him within our garden. My childhood friend mum adopted cats with feline aids and kept them safe within her large garden.

Why would you think you were unreasonable for this?

I didn't say cats shouldn't go outside. Another poster said that. I was responding to someone who suggested that deliberate harm to animals was very, very rare. Sadly it isn't as rare as people think. That's all I'm saying! For reference my cat definitely goes outside as nature intended.

There are always "do you recognise this lost cat?" messages on our local Facebook page- usually someone's loved pet who's doing what cats do! I think some people, who aren't familiar with cats, think they're like lost dogs.

This thread need linking to all the FB and neighbour hood groups.😅

some nabbed my dog from by my door one day. i lived up a long alley off the high street with a shut gate. i had just come home from work was making lunch could see her sat by the door turned my back while i went into the pantry went outside to see her she was gone.
i went crazy after 3 heart stopping hours i got a call from my vet she was there. normally she was as soft as anything good at the vet but when this woman marched in and dumped my dog on the reception desk she started barking her head off. like she was trying to say i want to go home! they realised who she was and rang me. seems the woman was walking along the street peered through the gate saw my dog sat on the doorstep and marched up and grabbed her. she was gentle but when they got to the street until the vets she struggled for all her worth.
its a good job i did not find out who she was. firstly tresspassing on private property secondly kidnapping my dog on her own property

@OP I'd definitely keep your cat in for a few days, sounds very dodgy.

We get many many 'this cat is lost' photos of cats being cats on FB, but the ones that absolutely stump me are the people that pick up a random cat minding it's own business in town A, and then drive it miles, past several vets, to deposit it at a vet near where they live in town D!

I know you didn't.

But I'm really not convinced this is actually all that common - it's just that when it does happen, it ends up all over social media.

i think non cat owners or cat people need educating somewhow! Being able to roam & expert at befriending new potential feeders mean cats are vulnerable to everything mentioned on here (& yet I don’t agree with them being kept indoors & think that’s cruel) (even though I hate that my neighbours cat uses my garden as its toilet). The difficulty is that I do think some cats present as if they’re starving & can be very vocal about it. A beautiful cat literally waited for my car to stop & jumped in when I was getting out & seemed really desperate. I had to really talk sense into myself that it did not look thin, had a lovely clean fur & was probably just trying it on. But I had to over ride all my instincts not to open my door & give it some good. You have to properly deter them as this one was really persistent in trying to get in my house too. I felt awful afterwards, looked online in case it was missing & unsure if the cat really was crying for help or not. At least with dogs you can see their tag & contact the owner but with cats I realise there’s an issue a collar & it getting caught potentially & being unsafe for them?? If there was a visible way of knowing that a cat does have an owner I think would stop a lot of the have you seen this cat phenomena, but how you do that I don’t know?

Wander around loose? It was in its own garden! Ours were always outdoor cats, no one ever knicked ours. I’d be more worried about the physical abuse they can suffer.

I had a neighbour who knew a cat was mine yet still took it. I saw her with my cat in a carrier ,it was our cat so I run out to ask what the hell she was going.

she actually said she was taking him to the vet because her son really likes him. And if he’s not chipped then she’s keeping him!. lol!

she flatly refused to hand him back and off she went. So I rang the vets to warn them that some crazy person was bringing my cat in. My cat was well known to our vets as he’d recently had some teeth removed and was getting some arthritis in his old age.

she gets to vets, tells them he’s a stray and asks them to scan his chip. Receptionist told her they’d take him through to be scanned and promptly rang me to go collect him.

her face when I strolled in and picked him up.

it was a shame as he only lived another year and could no longer have his afternoon sunbath in the front garden because of this woman.

Okay so, it gets weirder. I genuinely wish I was making this up. He knocked my door just after I made that last post and he was passing by again, looking all around and generally looking ...sus.

He says, as my cat is purring and walking round my legs as I stood at the doorstep, that he wasn't sure I was telling the truth, and he thinks that I probably stole the cat!? I explained in no uncertain terms, that he was absolutely my cat, hes chipped in my name, etc. He said, right well, I'm going to find someone who has one of those scanning things and I'll be back with them (edited, misspoke) to check!!

Has the heat sent everyone bonkers?

Bear in mind this was almost 2 hours? ago now, and no sign of him coming back. Hope he doesn't!

Utter bonkers! You shouldn’t have to, but d9 you have the cat’s vaccination record to show? Don’t hand it over! I personally wouldn’t open the door, show through a window if poss and if he persists, phone the non emergency number. Who the heck does this?! It’s very odd.

Re it being rare to have a cat lifted, there was one on the local neighbourhood app yesterday, person had moved and taken the neighbour’s cat! Luckily, the neighbour knew where they’d moved to, drove round, demanded the cat back. I love how they gave the exact address of the thief!

That is utterly bizarre.

When I was a teenager, there was a house near one of our two bus-stops where I regularly met a cat friend. S/he would sit on the wall - it was one of those low rockery walls, giving you a view straight into their beautiful front garden. The cat liked it too, especially as there were plenty of passers-by to say hello to. The cat, a big, fluffy tabby and white, would hook her/his claws into my jumper so I had to lift her/him up for a cuddle. You would never have mistaken this cat for a stray, but I did sometimes wonder if anyone was tempted and if the keepers knew how easy it would be. S/he really was the most gorgeous, friendly cat. But grounding him/her wouldn't have been fair. Your cat, like that one, obviously enjoys being out and socialising and quite right too.

We've had groups of little shits catapulting animals for years. I live near a river and the amount of birds they have killed it terrible so they would think nothing of attacking a snoozing cat. I live in hope that they'll fall in the river and drown but no such luck so far.

My elder cat would probably rip his face off and if she didn't, I'd do instead. Do NOT touch my cats.

I think you were very restrained, OP. If someone tried to walk off with one of my cats I wouldn't say "put him down" I'd kick the crap out of him. The fact that he's come back is weird and predatory, and I'd guess he was hoping to have a second attempt, and then had to make up a load of BS because you caught him again.

Is your cat particularly attractive? Sorry to say, I think you need to keep him in for a bit. I don't think he's safe until you figure out who this man is and take steps to keep him away.

I would never 'rescue' a cat. That said, I did do it once - but that was a cat who had been posted on our local FB pages as missing, and it absolutely was the same cat - elderly, deaf, a little bit disorganised, had escaped. Owners were delighted to have her back, she was a little sweetheart.

A woman I used to know told me that if her dad sees any cats around their estate he pops them into his van. He is a roofer and goes all over for work and he releases them as far away from home as he can. Doesn't want them around his pigeons. Scumbag.

You did the right thing, but still I had to laugh lol

How on earth can anyone think it's unreasonable to claim your own children/pets/possessions back from a thief?! If you have the energy, capacity and resources, it's what everyone should do.

Don’t answer the door to him. Tell him through the door that you have CCTV and if he contacts you again, you’ll be telling the police.