AIBU to think some Facebook found cat posts are really cat napping?

[TotaleclipseinFrance]

In the last few years I've noticed that there are a lot of posts on community Facebook posts regarding 'missing' cats.

The word 'missing' is in inverted commas because these posts are not by people who've actually lost a cat- which is reasonable- but by people who've 'found' a cat in their garden.

These always start along the lines of: 'beautiful boy is in my garden' so it's not as if it's a person who is complaining about the cat being there-which would be legitimate and fair if you dislike cats.

These are from people who like cats.

Then the faux naivety about the cat being in their garden a few times - as if any reasonably intelligent adult doesn't realise cats roam. It's what they do.

Invariably the cat in the picture looks well fed and in good condition. So clearly not a stray.

It's clear to me that this is an attempt at claiming the cat as everybody knows that cats roam and if they're looking healthy and well fed they belong to somebody.

Besides which, don't they realise not everybody's on social media so some old lady may now find themselves catless because some f*ing numpty on fb doesn't realise this or just uses it as an excuse to cat nap and feel better about it: "OH well I tried. It's mine now."

I find it annoying as hell. Aibu?

It's not as if I am a cat lover. They're OK but I'm not crazy about them.

Never thought of it like that but they're everywhere. Someone posted the other week they'd "found this little pooch in their garden" then posted a picture of ... A cat!

I think that you are reading a lot into a social media post!

Yanbu. Our town Facebook group is full of photos of people's pet cats that are obviously doing what cats do.

The nutters also started picking up school uniform, dropped teddies, keys etc and taking them home for 'safe keeping'.

As the Facebook group is now a closed group for people with accounts only, they are basically just stealing everything. Anyone re tracing their steps to pick up what they've dropped will find it gone.

And don't get me started on the actual photos of any dropped debit cards, showing all the details!

I don't have Facebook anymore. Its too annoying 😂.

We have a neighbourhood cat worrier, always posts that she’s found a cat in a totally normal place to find a cat, owner eventually replies saying ‘yes that’s my cat, he lives here’ and then same again a few days later. Unless a cat is injured or malnourished or whatever then I just assume it’s, you know, being a cat and doing cat things.

Agree.
The cat napping one really gets on my nerves and whether it's total ignorance that not everybody's on Facebook or they know damned well not everybody is and are just being downright sneaky in taking somebody else's pet, both are bad.

One idiot actually said something along the lines of, "just checking before I take him in". I had to call that out as politely as I could without getting banned from the group as the community page is something I value. All the rest of fb is guff to me.

What the f* is wrong with people?

Sometimes cats are genuinely missing or stray. My current cat was "visiting" for about a month. I would let it in if it was raining but didn't offer any food. Then I noticed that he had a major flea infestation so I treated it. Then he came limping one day and I took him to the vet. He was not microchipped. So I posted on FB and asked around the neighbours. Because he needed to be treated, I got him registered with the vet and bought him insurance. 9 months later, we still had no luck finding the owners so I microchipped him last week and registered him as my cat.
Yes, sometimes cats just roam. Other times they are genuinely stray or come from households which do not provide appropriate care. Why wouldn't I try to find out whom the cat belongs to?

Don’t start me about them saying ‘this cat looked lost’ so they’ve taken them into their home. I had to come off a local fb group because it made me so angry.

I said in my opening post that these people post pictures of cats that look well fed and healthy.

Not. ragged, thin, flea-ridden animals.

Yeah I've actually had some people trying to take our cat from outside the house on the grounds it didn't have a collar on.

I could hear them talk outside the window and they just seemed to be fussing over her and petting her at first.

The cat is well cared for, well fed, looks very healthy, up-to-date with all medical care, microchipped but no collar means people can take it now? 😕

I politely told them it was our's. They're lucky my dh wasn't here as she's his cat really and he'd have flipped his lid.

Not that I'd have blamed him!

I tend to interpret them as passive- aggressive people who want to be critical of cats being outside at all.

Notwithstanding that there was a major rat problem in my last neighborhood.

My cat was very well fed and didn't look flea-ridden from the pictures. He was well fed because it transpired that he was doing rounds up and down the street for at least a year getting his dinner from 4 different families. None of whom attempted to look for his owner. He's a nice chunky boy who is on a diet now after a telling off from the vet.

I’ve seen quite a few where the cat doesn’t look to be in good condition (thin, scruffy) and people drag the poor creature off to the vets, or feed it, only for its poor owner to turn up later saying the cat is just very ancient but still likes to go out, should not be fed for medical reasons, or even worse, the poor cat has missed doses of essential medication because some well meaning busybody has whipped them away.
The proper way to do things if you’re concerned is keep an eye out for the cat, paper collar (more than once if it doesn’t work the first time) and ask around on local social media groups before doing anything more drastic. Yes, yes, some older people aren’t on social media, but their neighbours may well be.
Always do due diligence first.

There is the same on my local Facebook community page. I just think some people are a bit daft or treat cats as they would a dog without knowing they are very different animals in roaming terms.

It sounds like you’ve just had a bad experience with some weirdos who wanted to take your cat, and now you’re assuming malice where lack of common sense is more likely. I don’t think there’s that many people out there looking to steal random cats.

If people allow their cat to roam, it needs to be microchipped. If it’s microchipped, then either the person who “found” it would check and return it, or they won’t check and keep it. If it doesn’t have a chip, it’s fair to assume its owner is negligent or doesn’t care. The Facebook post isn’t really relevant, they were either going to steal the cat or not anyway.

Yes, literally saw one yesterday. Cat was clearly owned and in good health, now it's been lifted and handed into a vet, not chipped so will likely end up in a rescue.
I've had my own cat posted on FB before, she was literally about 100 yards from home just having a stroll as she does. There is a very obvious difference between a lost/stray cat and a cat out for a stroll. I have taken in a lost cat, it was clearly distressed, frightened and hungry. Found the owner on FB that same night and it had been missing for a month after a house move. You can tell. People need to leave other people's cats alone!

I know somebody like this.
Five cats at one point.
A real cat collector.
Funnily enough, she's made a few 'is this gorgeous boy your cat?' posts about perfectly healthy looking cats.

How she knows its a boy. I don't know!

Not very fair on the cats as it was a small house and cats don't really like each other.

Before we built our catio our cat ended up on one of those lost cat pages. Lost cat looks very scared.

Attached photo of cat getting a fuss.

Location outside my back garden 😂 very lost.

Lots of this cat just appeared a fully grown adult cat. Odds are someone new moved in and has let their cat out. Most aren’t lost.

The missing posters tend to find out their cats are dead. The I’ve found a lost can normally lives a street or two away maximum.

I'm with you OP, our local FB page is littered with them too. It's always the same people responding too "Can you put a paper collar on puss with your mobile number to see if you can track down the owner?" under a picture of a clearly fat and happy cat who is absolutely chancing their tail that the person who "found" them has a mega stash of Dreamies somewhere!

There's a local woman who has one of those chip scanners, and they send out a call to her like a bat signal.

Agree we see it a lot here too. My kitty was posted on FB as “lost frightened and too young to be out” she was 50m away from our front door, and she’s just a titch not a kitten, and she was rubbing against the person’s legs so not terrified either.

I have been know to comment “how do you know he’s lost, was his map upside down?”

It didn’t go down well.

There was a brilliant thread on my local FB page where one ancient and slightly tatty looking moggy had been dragged off the street to the vet three times in a week by well meaning strangers! The owner had to stage an intervention in the end.

100% !!
My beautiful Bengal who is NEVER full would wander round the local mini park where we used to live. Twice he appeared on facebook groups having meaowed at the person enough that a huge and well-fed cat was 'mistaken' for a 'lost' and 'hungry' cat and taken to a local vet!!!

I only found him as a neighbour saw him on a facebook post I wasn't on and told me. He was in the vets. Served them right though because he poos himself if you put him on a car ;-)

@Catgotyourbrain Bengals are always hungry! Ours rips boxes of cat food open.

haha guilty of posting one of these, in my defence cat kept on sneaking in through open windows over the summer and we kept finding her asleep in random spots overnight. Glad we found the owner, it made us feel happier knowing they were safe and could encourage the cat home when we saw it, especially in the heatwaves.

Our local FB is full of those posts. Photo of completely normal looking cat in garden with the caption ‘This gorgeous is in my garden and is lost and starving. He’s just gulped down the smoked salmon/tuna/cream I’ve fed him’ Then replies of ‘Take him to the vet/rescue/opera’
and it’s a photo of a normal looking cat in their garden, just being a cat