Cat has just come home with a collar on!

[kirinm]

My cat has just come in with a collar on. She doesn't have a collar. I feel like someone is trying to claim her. What are we meant to do to signal that she has a home?

God people are being so unpleasant.

OP I hope you find out who put it on and can let them know it's your cat. You're not doing anything wrong.

I wouldn't. I would hand it in as a stray at a shelter if found in my garden or inside my house.

In the UK, cats have the legal right to roam.

hth

Of course it's true.
I don't know a single cat owner who accompanies her cat here, there and everywhere.

Okay. If you know all cat owners...

Then you’re a bit weird. Cats in your garden are not stray, they are cats being cats. Don’t want them there, I guess you can chase them off, but why waste the time of a shelter by handing in a cat that just lives locally and was hanging out in your garden? You know they hang out then go home again right? They are territorial and set up their own territory (which might include your garden). Cat owners can’t give them a map 😂🙄

I don't care if it poos in my garden or walk into my house. It's handed over to a shelter.

Yes. As an adult I have done this twice now. The first cat was definitely rehomed as an indoor cat. The second cat was just taken to a shelter as I didn’t have the time or money to find somewhere to guarantee its care.

I'm amazed at all the people saying that cats shouldn't be allowed to roam. If someone chooses to keep an indoor cat, fine. But it is quite odd to be so judgemental about people who make a different choice. Cats have always roamed. Surely it is the default way of keeping a cat?

I haven't got a cat and, yes, sometimes other people's cats are annoying. They occasionally poo in the garden and I guess they kill birds. But sometimes my human neighbours are annoying too (in different ways admittedly). Live and let live! Tolerate small nuisances in the hope that others will be similarly kind when you or your pets or children cause a small nuisance

I don't care. If you care about your pet don't let it destroy or enter my property.

Mate can you not. Shelters are overloaded and understaffed as it is without having to deal with meddling busybodies like you handing in perfectly fine, owned cats who happened to wander into your fecking garden.

If you don't like cats roaming, either cat proof your garden or move somewhere where they're not allowed to.

Which countries have these laws? Curious as a quick google didn’t find any.

Owners can catproof their garden or take the risk of other people not wanting them in their gardens and houses. Cat owners choice.

Not in your garden maybe…

Denmark is one. My native country.

Yes, the default in the UK is that cats are allowed to roam, but there are plenty of indoor only (or catio) cats around - I’ve seen estimates of 10-25%. Just because you don’t know these cats doesn’t mean they don’t exist!

You don’t understand uk law on this then. Whether you care or not is beside the point, the law isn’t on your side here. (Full disclosure, I don’t own a cat but if I did I would care for them as advised by animal welfare experts and not by you.)

Wow. All the times cats come into my garden to stare at the fish in my pond and fantasise about murder I have never ONCE thought of kidnapping them and lying about them at a (probably overstretched) shelter.

(I have only worried that there might be fisticuffs with my dog.)

That doesn't solve the problem of you taking cats to a shelter unnecessarily though does it.

I am amusing myself imagining the poster chasing the cat around her garden just to catch it and prove her point.

Supervision? Of a cat? I have really heard it all now.

I don't lie. Since it lingers at my garden and enters my house it's most likely lost.

It's not in my garden or house. Which is the point.

I have no wish having random cats (or dogs, children or other uninvinted guests) lingering around. They are not welcome to hang out. A lot of cats seem to think every garden or house is a free place of theirs.

Well it is to them. How are they going to know 🙄

It’s not “nature” though is it, when cats kill so many birds and small Mammals because it’s not “nature” for the uk to be home to so many millions (10+ million) of cats. They are here in such numbers by dint of pet ownership. It’s not “nature”. It’s human intervention and they Kill hundreds of millions of animals a year.