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?

This happened to ours years ago. We took the collar off and posted some leaflets around the local area with a photo of our cat saying ‘I have a home and I am loved and fed. Please don’t feed me or put collars on me’. It seemed to work because he never came back with a collar on again.

Can you show where this is?

The statute or the case law or anything, really.

Because irresponsible cat owners keep claiming this is the law, but no one has shown it yet.

🙄🤣🤦‍♀️

Since it lingers at my garden and enters my house it's most likely lost.

I doubt you believe that. We have a neighbourhood cat that lives up the road and it's always in my garden. It goes in next door's house because he leaves the back door open and often defrosts meat on his kitchen counter, and she knows it.

Oh, woah! I am all for cats roaming, and I am prepared to suck it up (not literally, in the name of god, don't be disgusting) when cats poo in my garden . But I sure as hell would disagree that the poo is not an annoyance. For one thing it stinks, much, much worse than dog poo. For another, they love to choose cultivated bits of ground where the soil is lovely and crumbly due to my hands-on gardening. For another --- dogs are vile bastards and mine may well regard cat poo as something from the tasting menu.

Perhaps one's own cat poo is less detestable: I can tolerate picking up my dog's poo but I feel a little bit sick at the thought of doing the same with the poo of other random dogs. Your own cat's poo is also more predictable: you expect it and perhaps use some instinctive self-protective protocols. Unlike when I am naively rummaging in my own garden

So, yeah, let your cat roam and expect good-natured tolerance from your neighbours (up to a reasonable point). But don't tell me that any mild-to-moderate annoyance they might quietly feel is unreasonable.

Cats that live in those countries have never been outside, or only out in a catio. It is totally different.

Cats in the US are usually indoor, but they have bears and wolves so it makes sense.

Link to AWA information.

www.rspca.org.uk/documents/1494939/7712578/CAT_adviceondeterringcats.pdf

I might be wrong but I think that law works the opposite way on in the U.K.. stuff is legal unless there’s a statute which says it’s not. So is there a law saying cats can’t roam?

I might be wrong but I think that law works the opposite way on in the U.K.. stuff is legal unless there’s a statute which says it’s not?

Yes, that's broadly how I understand it too. When people say that cats have a "right" to roam what they really mean is that cat owners don't have the same legal duties and legal liabilities as dog owners in relation to supervising them and keeping them under control. Because unsupervised cats don't cause the same level or type of problem as unsupervised dogs (except potentially in countries like Australia that have had so much of their wildlife devastated by feral introduced species - which must be why the law is different in some states there).

Finally someone said it.

as if someone has a cat and isn’t aware of their hunting prowess.

unless untested indoor cats. Altho even my sister’s flat cat managed to rip the entire leg off a pigeon through a gap on the balcony.

Yes there’s a specific Animals Act which lists which animals you’re not allowed to let roam. Cats aren’t mentioned.

Not this again 🙄 our spirits are lifted every time the neighbours cat visits us, purring away, he's like therapy and I've not discovered any poo. cats are meant to roam 🤷🏽‍♀️

🤣 Maybe you've never had a cat. For some/ many cats this would involve keeping them locked inside for the rest of their lives. You can't train them to stay on your 'grounds', or indeed your small garden.

Just to make clear, she's chipped and neutered. She's a rescue cat snd is perpetually 'starving'. She does like to wander around but thankfully, unlike people here, our area is very cat friendly / there are a huge number of cats around and cat runs are definitely not in the majority - if they exist at all.

I've owned cats most of my life but my last two wouldn't have left the garden whereas this one is the opposite.

Anyway for all those who feel like str deserved the collar, it absolutely terrified her and she is now not wanting to go out.

Our neighbour's cat does this to ours. They're both very young (or were when it started) and it's very cute.

So strange that someone would put a collar on without an ID tag which is the whole point of a collar.

Chips are now a legal requirement in cats in England at any rate.
But probably hard to enforce.

She could be catching mice in other people's gardens. Even though your cat does not kill the mice, it's possible they die anyway. Cats carry a toxin in their mouths and any bird or mouse caught but not killed should be given an antibiotic before being released again (if you love your wildlife and don't want to see it being killed).

How have you done that @flopsybunny?

Yes, that is a very good point: roaming cats are free therapy for the catless. I love it when I get a little bit of affection (or even just toleration) from a local cat in the street. I'm a bit like a granny in the supermarket cooing at other people's babies

If you're that bothered about animal poo, don't have a garden. It will inevitably have poo from birds, foxes, squirrels, mice ...

@Grabyourpassportandmyhand funny you say if they'd cared enough about the cat they'd have kept them in. But you decided to take someone else's cat, think it was your own but also didn't keep it in. So clearly you didn't care much about the cat either.

There are some absolutely ridiculous posts on here about keeping your cat on your land, keeping them in, and that they must be mass wildlife killers.

Cats have the right to roam by law and most cats don't want to stay in. Also many don't like collars and some collars if something gets caught between it and the cat can actually strangle the cat.

Cats allowed to roam wild when not curled up on their person's lap or radiator are as much a part of nature as birds and mice are, and those populations need their natural predators as part of a healthy life to ensure population doesn't grow to exceed available food and that the old, weak, and sick get a swift exit from this mortal coil. It's part of general darwinian principles for survival of the fitest and a population of any animal with no natural predators is less healthy than when there are predators.

Someone upthread said they didn't understand why cat poo is annoying - it's very annoying if you have little kids who want to play in their garden and there's cat poo around - it's dangerous and a toddler doesn't understand it's not a good idea to pick it up and then rub their eyes afterwards!

I think there are massive cultural differences between countries on cat issues. In the UK there is not an expectation that you’ll keep a cat inside or on your own grounds - more a sense that that would be cruel, as cats are considered wild to some extent, whereas dogs are expected to be under control. i know in the US it’s different with cats

My kids always played in the garden and I'm also a keen gardener, just about everywhere around here has cats (one person has about five) and have never once had an issue with cat poo in the garden.