Lost cats ... That aren't

[HostaCentral]

Driving me mad. I am on several local Facebook pages. Every day someone posts about a cat. Is this your cat, he is very friendly, I have taken him in and fed him. Cue lots of distressed posters, oooh, check his chip, contact the RSPCA, I'll adopt him etc etc. He shouldn't be out in this cold weather, at night etc etc

All of these cars are shiny, healthy, well looked after cats, out for a stroll, looking for extra dinners.

I have pleaded with them to please leave them alone, not feed, not take in. Just leave them be, for the love of God.

Does anyone else notice this is becoming more of an issue?! Vets seem to be inundated with cats taken in when they are just chilling in their neighbourhoods.

I also know people in rescue, they say there is absolutely no harm in checking a cat that turns up if it has a home. Few reasons - it could've got lost, this does happen (had by me, cat caught a lift in a van, turned up at mine 4 miles away), as well as it's not until a cat starts to suffer that it actually looks stray.

But, nobody should take a cat to the vet, remove from where it knows. Social media is actually useful, a photo does no harm to anyone to look for an owner. A paper collar or if after a while, a scanner is fine too.

They shouldn't feed straight away, and only to feed if need to gain trust for nervous ones to scan for a chip or to be trapped. As soon as made aware has a home, all feeding must be stopped as cats can be chancers.

Yeah, there may be 1 in 50 cats online on facebook groups that is stray or lost, but that's still worth it because a cat can be helped.

Our street Facebook group is full of this. And there's some local do-gooder who keeps scooping up the cats and taking them to the vet, even though there is nothing wrong with them. It's making the owners (who then have to go and collect their cats) slightly irritated....

You see it here too. There is not a cat distribution system, you are more likely to be stealing a cat.

Our elderly cat disappeared one day and we were getting into a panic. I put a lost post on our local FB page and by chance it was seen by somebody who had seen the matching "I've found a cat on my doorstep" post on a different site. I'd been to all the local vets but this idiot had taken it to one further out. They lived a few doors up from us so she hadn't even gone far.

THREE times the poor cat got bundled up and taken to the vet. She didn't have a chip because she was very old by this point. Luckily the vet took to calling us as soon as she was brought in, but it was a PITA for the cat, the vet and for us.

All our subsequent cats have been indoor only, with access to a catio, because it seems to be such a trend now that people can't imagine that somebody's much loved and looked after cat might wander into their garden.

Presumably the owners have to pay the vets for scanning for the chip too?