People are too accepting of cat theft

[PuttingOnTheKitsch]

This was inspired by a social media post in which someone noticed their cat living in a neighbour's house, and loads of comments agreed that it had happened to them too.

A cat doesn't move into a house unless it is being fed. If you started feeding and keeping a neighbour's dog, people wouldn't be making cheesy comments about the Dog Distribution Service; they would call you a thief, and rightly so.

So why is it ok to do this to a cat, especially when you know it has an owner and you know that it is well-looked after?

You are his fairy cat mother , lucky boy .
I can’t get worked up about this , not that I get any visiting cats because of my terrier but you can’t use the dog analogy because as all the cat people keep telling you ‘they have a right to roam ‘. Well with that right comes the right to eat cat food in other peoples houses and many of the people that ‘feed’ other peoples cats do not , the visiting cats just eat the cat food they find which may well belong to the resident cat . If you don’t want your cat going AWOL then keep it on your own property , you can’t have it both ways .

A friend of mine has a cat who’s had to go on a diet to lose weight, on the vet’s advice.

The cat is getting round this by begging for food. Some of her targets know my friend & are aware his cat’s just trying it on, some fall for it and feed her. She’s extremely good at losing her collars & would hate being an indoor cat.

What do you do? Put posters up asking people not to feed this cat?

This is blunt but kind of true!
Cats are chancers. But often cats that come and hang around are doing so because they are shut out, or there's something about their home they don't like. Or they're lost and hungry.
I don't think anyone should set out to deliberately poach someone else's cat, but if your cat is consistently going elsewhere maybe you also need to consider why that is and make changes that means your cat is happier at home.

Cat proof the garden

Someone half inched one of our barn cats last year. I had to laugh when someone directed me to their Instagram where they have photos of the cat lounging around like lady muck and talking about the Cat Distribution System and how lucky they are such a beautiful cat chose them.

I let it go. I probably shouldn't have, but the cat was obviously quite enjoying being a lap pet whereas our other barn cats like the outside life and would be going absolutely postal to get out if they suddenly found themselves confined in a house.

I'm also visited daily by a local cat, she's quite brazen, marches into my house for a fuss every morning while I'm having my cuppa. I've never fed her but our house is obviously on her turf so as far as she's concerned she owns it and everyone in it.

It's got a breakaway buckle and he's demonstrated twice that it breaks away just fine.

I'm glad it's worked for him, but unfortunately they don't always do what they're supposed to do and cats can get injured. None of mine wear collars because I've unfortunately seen them get their legs etc. stuck and if I hadn't been there, they'd have been really badly hurt.

There’s a big difference between tempting a well looked after cat away and feeding a cat either not being cared for well or who is stray and unable to fend for herself. My girl would be dead really quickly if someone wasn’t feeding her. I have no doubt my Bengal visited neighbours as he used to come home smelling of perfume but he was obviously an owned cat with a good coat, no infestations and a healthy weight.

We “stole” a cat when I lived at home, dm found it eating the leftover cat food she put out for the hedgehogs one night in minus 8 degrees with an infected untreated dog bite wound and underweight. He lived with a family who had been banned by the rspca from keeping pets and the family dog had bitten him. When the owners moved they tried to capture him and he ran away to the bottom of our garden where they couldn’t get him and didn’t come out for hours.

Oh God, I have the reverse of this. I can't keep a neighbours cat out. He comes in through the cat flap and eats our cats food, then just makes himself at home. I have tried and tried and tried to discourage him I don't even like him. I've given up and he's here all the time now and I still don't like him. I've been to see the neighbours, they know he's here and I don't want him here.

I have a neighbour's cat (I'm seriously allergic to cats and have been hospitalised in the past) which has taken to hopping into open windows and doors, then making little 'nests' on beds.

I certainly don't feed or water it and shoo it off every time I see it (yes, I have a water super soaker for when it's in the garden or on a flat roof). Now, I have to keep all windows and doors shut. Which I hate!

I'm sure my neighbour would have spotted it coming in and out. I've spoken with them and they just think it's funny. It's their cat, not mine!

Yes, I could cat proof my garden but it's long and, at points, 3ft high boundary. I also have bats and all sorts of birds visiting and I don't want to put them off.

If you have a cat, stick a tracker on it, make a catio so it doesn't wander off from your garden and be a responsible owner. You won't have your cat 'stolen' and everyone will be happy.

I was looking after a friend’s child who said she went to buy food for a cat. I told her not to because of potential allergies etc but she refused to understand. I agree, feeding other peoples pets is a bad thing.

My cousin’s cat has been found to be allergic to Dreamies, of all things.

Cats who are free to roam are free to find a better home. People generally aren't stealing cats, the cats have just found a much more comfortable home with nicer food, no loud children or dogs and more attention. It's just the way it's always been.

You need to change to a cat flap which only lets your cat/s in @Kendodd

We gained our cat 8 years ago because she was boney , manky looking and eating the bread put out for the birds.
After feeding her (outside) we photographed her and put posters up- (this was before neighbourhood whatsapp etc).
We took her to a vet who scanned her and said she had a chip but that the contact details were out of date and that they could not contact an owner.
What should we have done? Let her starve?

I appreciate your point about stealing cats but there are abandoned /stray cats too

That's not really the scenario people are talking about, though.

There's a massive difference between finding a genuinely starving or abandoned cat, and just feeding one that's clearly perfectly healthy and that has a loving home (and is just chancing their paw).

In your scenario you did what you could to trace an owner, couldn't, and then stepped in to help which is absolutely the right thing to do.

You can't have it both ways.

Either cat is free to wander and not obey ownership rules, and no one is liable for them

or they are owned in which case they can stop trespassing and killing my songbirds

I’m not personally feeding random cats who aren’t begging. My own cats wouldn’t be happy with me.

if you let your cats roam, you have to accept the natural consequences. They may eat, get into fights, do damage, or be injured or killed. You lose the right to complain when you choose to not to supervise.

Cat owners who let their pets roam in other people's gardens/roads clearly don't care enough about their pet to keep it safe from theft/harm. 🤷‍♀️ Can't have it both ways - let your cat shit in other people's gardens but don't want anyone to feed it. The dog comparison in the OP doesn't work as no one lets their dog wander into random gardens.

Agree

If a dog came into a garden and killed other animals and left their corpse on the patio there would be outrage.

We’ve had our kittens since birth. They are incredibly well loved and comfortable with their life. Despite this they still go and spend hours a week at the dentist a few doors down (as did our last cat). They also go into the hairdressers next door and sit on clients laps whilst they have their hair done.

Quite frankly they just love the attention. They don’t get fed at either place and we talk so I know they go there, but to suggest they go because they’re unhappy at home is laughable.

Their mum hates people who aren’t me, but is probably the biggest roamer of the lot, ironically.

There was a cat that used to visit our local branch of Pets at Home. Was browsing the shelves and there it was sitting in a cat bed on the shelf. Didn't realise it was real at first but a staff member said it was often there and lived locally. No-one was feeding it but it obviously liked all the attention it invariably got.

You keep her in. If it is vital for her health, it is neglectful to let her out.

My area seems to attract genuine strays. There are a lot of them out there so I guess most people mean well. But you can usually tell if a cat is owned. Eg boy strays are usually not neutered. A girl stray might be pregnant. They might have ticks or fleas or be underweight, ill, or bony/starving.