4 ms·

Chances are the cats are digging in his yard/garden/flower bed and leaving feces everywhere, or leaving dead animals in his yard. Outdoor cats are destructive p

Chances are the cats are digging in his yard/garden/flower bed and leaving feces everywhere, or leaving dead animals in his yard. Outdoor cats are destructive pests; it should be illegal to allow pet cats to roam freely outdoors. If you think it's "natural" and your cats should be free to roam, then you simply should not own cats. Your cat is not just "visiting neighbours". It is destroying other people's yards and killing off local bird populations. Yet you don't care, because it's out of sight and out of mind. All you care about is how you feel for allowing your cat to be free, while shunning all responsibility for how your cat is impacting others. People who keep "outdoor cats" remind me of an acquaintance I once knew who owned birds with clipped wings, kept in tiny cages for 23-24 hours a day. Her reasoning for not finding it morally reprehensible? "Well these exotic birds cannot survive our Canadian winters, they need to be kept indoors!". So... you're buying exotic birds that do not belong in our climate, mutilating them, imprisoning them... and somehow manage to revamp the logic in your head to make yourself their savior? I hope one day aliens come to our planet, put us all in 10x10 foot cages after severing our spinal columns so we can't walk, while making sure to let us know it's for our own good and has nothing to do with their own agenda. Or the aliens can come and cohabitate with us, but let their human-eating pets roam outdoors and deny any responsibility for those pets' actions.

garbage_stain 10y ago
Hey, not all outdoor cats are pests! My cat is too incompetent to catch any birds and she just grazes on grass, so she's actually improving my yard by making it so I don't need to mow. Now if only I could get her to consistently eat it all to a certain height...
BinaryIdiot 10y ago
Right on with your view of the birds with clipped wings but your cat view...I mean, did you have a bad experience or something? I've known quite a lot of people (especially farmers) who keep outdoor cats and they rarely destroy anything beyond killing some pests. In fact outdoor cats are HUGELY valuable for farms because of pest control. Some animals will become pests no matter what but I've never met someone with such a negative view of outdoor cats it was just a bit surprising.
- binaryorganic 10y ago
  I have cat hoarding neighbors. It can be a real problem. Feces. Hair. Mice (read: flies). Also, I have a son with a flea allergy. A cat or two never bothers me. But when my neighbor gets to putting out 5 or 6 food dishes for the strays each Spring, we can easily find a dozen cats in our back yard.
- danharaj 10y ago
  Outdoor cats are a scourge on songbirds.
- omegaham 10y ago
  Agreed - the problems I've always had with cats have been the feral ones, not the fatass neutered neighborhood cats.
wila 10y ago
Not sure on why the downvotes. I love cats, but used to have the problem you describe. Lots of cat feces in the garden from our friendly neighborhood cats. Nowadays however we have our own cat. So no more cat shit from the neighbors. That helped wonderfully. Our cat loved to go outdoors, but after a while every other day he catched another bird and was nice enough to bring home his catch. So while it's pretty good for him, he lost his outdoor privileges. That is.. he still gets to go outdoors, but nowadays I walk him. Yip, that's right, I'm the loony tune that walks his cat. Cats are not the easiest to teach to walk on a leash. But he got used to it and loves it. In fact he asks me to walk him several times a day. Unless it rains then he sleeps. It's not like walking a dog where you tell the dog where to go, but it's more like you're the dog. He tells you where we go (if we go that is, because he likes to sniff around more as walk) Anyways, just wanted to say that there are other alternatives for cat lovers then having them terrorize the neighbors and catch birds.

garbage_stain 10y ago

Hey, not all outdoor cats are pests! My cat is too incompetent to catch any birds and she just grazes on grass, so she's actually improving my yard by making it so I don't need to mow. Now if only I could get her to consistently eat it all to a certain height...

BinaryIdiot 10y ago

Right on with your view of the birds with clipped wings but your cat view...I mean, did you have a bad experience or something? I've known quite a lot of people (especially farmers) who keep outdoor cats and they rarely destroy anything beyond killing some pests. In fact outdoor cats are HUGELY valuable for farms because of pest control. Some animals will become pests no matter what but I've never met someone with such a negative view of outdoor cats it was just a bit surprising.

binaryorganic 10y ago
I have cat hoarding neighbors. It can be a real problem. Feces. Hair. Mice (read: flies). Also, I have a son with a flea allergy. A cat or two never bothers me. But when my neighbor gets to putting out 5 or 6 food dishes for the strays each Spring, we can easily find a dozen cats in our back yard.
danharaj 10y ago
Outdoor cats are a scourge on songbirds.
omegaham 10y ago
Agreed - the problems I've always had with cats have been the feral ones, not the fatass neutered neighborhood cats.

wila 10y ago

Not sure on why the downvotes. I love cats, but used to have the problem you describe. Lots of cat feces in the garden from our friendly neighborhood cats. Nowadays however we have our own cat. So no more cat shit from the neighbors. That helped wonderfully. Our cat loved to go outdoors, but after a while every other day he catched another bird and was nice enough to bring home his catch. So while it's pretty good for him, he lost his outdoor privileges. That is.. he still gets to go outdoors, but nowadays I walk him. Yip, that's right, I'm the loony tune that walks his cat. Cats are not the easiest to teach to walk on a leash. But he got used to it and loves it. In fact he asks me to walk him several times a day. Unless it rains then he sleeps. It's not like walking a dog where you tell the dog where to go, but it's more like you're the dog. He tells you where we go (if we go that is, because he likes to sniff around more as walk) Anyways, just wanted to say that there are other alternatives for cat lovers then having them terrorize the neighbors and catch birds.