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Cat Avatars?

dsio
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Not sure about the rest of Australia but here in Queensland it is illegal to feed, move or give away a non-domesticated / feral cat, and the local council are pretty good at coming out and attempting to trap any that are reported to them.

Both feral cats and dogs are a pretty big risk here with all of our native wildlife so it’s taken rather seriously. With the number of snakes and other potential dangers it’s only a bad owner that would let either a cat or dog out here anyway.
 
p4ul
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…pet loving wife keeps me in doors though!
 
Pastorbottle
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p4ul p4ul
Plan B

image.jpg
What we called a ging back in East Gippsland.
It's called a ging as that is the faint sound it makes when the elastic tubing contracts, unless you're using fishing sinkers as ammo then it can if everything manages to line up just right, sometimes make a slight whistling sound as the air blows through the hole in the sinker.
 
Davidt
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mseamaster mseamaster
That sounds more like an asshole neighbor. They could just keep their cat indoors if it's pooping in your garden. A dog could do the same btw or even worse - like biting you. When I was a kid there were neighbors with aggressive dogs. Of course I don't hate dogs in general, but I do hate the aggressive ones. Definitely would have preferred cat poo over getting dog bites. Even more terrifying when you are a kid chased by a huge dog.

So just saying - it's s not a general issue with all cats. And if you had one to yourself, you would train it to use a litterbox and deworm it every month or two so hygiene wouldn't be an issue. Most cats are very clean animals and groom themselves to perfection. There are always exceptions though.


That's a man made problem in many countries - people just abandoning their pets and so on. Ditto with dogs. Much worse when they make a pack and become aggressive. I believe it's not something people can resolve individually - you need a pet police and good shelters, basically punishing people for animal abuse and then taking the animals off the street. Problem is many countries in Europe ain't doing it at all.

Perhaps this is a UK things but generally, it’s not acceptable for dogs to enter other peoples gardens, for obvious reasons with children etc. I don’t think I’ve ever had a single instance, anywhere I’ve lived of a neighbours dog getting in my garden.

Cats on the other hand are different (or their owners are). I’ve owned 3 houses and in two of them had chronic issues with cats crapping in the garden. On occasion I brought it up with a neighbour who’s reply was along the lines of “I can’t control where he goes when he’s outside and I can’t keep him in the house, it’s not fair, he needs to roam”.

It used to drive me insane. On one occasion I had filled some planters with soil one evening, with a plan to plants peas the next day. Off I went poking holes in the soil the next morning, to find a cat had taken advantage of the virginal medium buried their business with the flesh soil and I now had shit all over my fingers.
Same issue at my current house, although I don’t even know who owns the three cats that come into my garden now. I think it’s only one of the three that poos in it, but it does so right at the top or our steps onto the grass so I have to get out before the kids in the morning or they step right in it.

You’re right though, I actually like cats that don’t shit in my garden. My dad used to have two Burmese and they were great, really playful and they used to bring in grass snakes as gifts!
My current view is just tainted by shits in the garden!
 
Archer
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Trev Trev
Love cats, but nothing worse than those ones left roaming around the neighbourhood. Super frustrating.
Yes, the new stray our neighbours have taken in is lucky to still be breathing after my wife saw it carrying/dragging a full sized rabbit across our yard the other day. She chased the cat away and the rabbit was freed, but the cat is lucky it was her and not me...

We are going to be putting together some information to present to our municipality to get a bylaw on the books about keeping cats inside, or to have them on a leash when outside (the same as I am required to do with my dogs). I'm so tired of seeing these things kill small animals, raid bird nests, etc.
 
Archer
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JimInOz JimInOz
If so, I'm amused. @Archer must be reaching for his meds though.
I'm good - I actually follow a cat group on FB. It's called "Cats are assholes" I also find the videos of them pinging off aluminum foil put on the counter to be funny as hell.
 
Waltesefalcon
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Trev Trev
No official changes, just some gentle encouragement for members who have never set one 😁

Making them random defaults would be amusing too
I like the idea of giving members a random default avatar if they do not set their own in a certain given time frame.
 
blufinz52
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Archer Archer
but the cat is lucky it was her and not me...
Curious, what would you have done differently?
 
mseamaster
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Stray animals are a manmade problem.

Euthanizing them will not fix it. Because it's not the root cause. People are the root cause. For example many people in the countryside want free guard dogs. So they breed them and when they get old, they dump them in cities letting them form packs. Of course many do something else - when a litter is born, they just pick one to keep and leave the rest somewhere. And that's how you get packs. With cats I think there are also many people abandoning them. Breeding/adopting animals is a commitment and people should learn responsibility.

Curiously enough as humans we have arbitrarily decided that some animals are cattle and some are pets. And of course it's society's mission to enforce this view. Of course I know this is just random, but I fully endorse it myself by eating pork and beef and seeing cats and dogs as pets. A lot of morality and laws are purely subjective, but it's what keeps order.

Therefore if we don't want strays we need to actively punish the people responsible. Violence/abuse against the animals is not the solution here and is not something society should endorse. After all most civilized countries have animal rights and some even have pet police.

Even if a state decides to euthanize animals, it should do so in a humane manner. Causing further suffering is just perpetuating a cycle of assholery.

Anyhow for some reason it's not socially acceptable to euthanize irresponsible/shitty people who create problems for society by breeding tons of dogs and cats and leaving them to roam the streets. 😀
 
ErichPryde
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"...and that's when I said that there was a difference between what I WANTED to do and what I ACTUALLY would have done... but you know how the court of the internet is. So anyway, that's how I wound up homeless under this bridge..."
Edited:
 
Davidt
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mseamaster mseamaster
Stray animals are a manmade problem.
There’s very few stray cats in the UK. I remember going on holiday when I was young and finding out ‘street cats’ were a thing in continental Europe etc.

The issue in the UK is most cat owners believe their pets should be let out several hours a day to satisfy their natural instincts, to roam completely free in local streets, gardens, woodland etc. I completely understand why that would be ideal scenario but I don’t think it’s acceptable to simply assume your neighbours are happy to clean up after your pet day after day.
 
Archer
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Davidt Davidt
There’s very few stray cats in the UK. I remember going on holiday when I was young and finding out ‘street cats’ were a thing in continental Europe etc.

The issue in the UK is most cat owners believe their pets should be let out several hours a day to satisfy their natural instincts, to roam completely free in local streets, gardens, woodland etc. I completely understand why that would be ideal scenario but I don’t think it’s acceptable to simply assume your neighbours are happy to clean up after your pet day after day.
Outdoor domestic cats kill literally billions of birds and small mammals annually...

https://abcbirds.org/news/outdoor-c...rtality-for-birds-and-mammals-says-new-study/

While some seem upset that these cats would be disposed of, they are responsible for untold suffering of wild animals. I've seen a neighbours "stray" cat with a small bunny - repeatedly letting it go and catching it again, each time digging it's claws into the bunny. I have little sympathy for these killing machines when this is the near daily reality here.
 
Trev
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Davidt Davidt
There’s very few stray cats in the UK. I remember going on holiday when I was young and finding out ‘street cats’ were a thing in continental Europe etc.

The issue in the UK is most cat owners believe their pets should be let out several hours a day to satisfy their natural instincts, to roam completely free in local streets, gardens, woodland etc. I completely understand why that would be ideal scenario but I don’t think it’s acceptable to simply assume your neighbours are happy to clean up after your pet day after day.
Yeah, letting them roam around residential or urban neighbourhoods makes no sense at all. Really bad form. We let our cat (Brian) outside on the balconies and patio area, but he has zero escape drive or urge to roam. He's too attached to people and his home.

I think in some places you're allowed to trap roaming cats and take them to the city pound. That's probably the best approach and what I'd do if a cat was shitting in our yard.
 
mseamaster
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I don't know much about UK. That being said, people shouldn't let their cats roam free outside. I would only do that if I somehow magically got a house with huge yard and a 10 ft tall fence. I.e your cat shouldn't be able to go outside your property. Ditto for dogs. And again people not respecting private property is a manmade problem.

Lots of European countries however totally have an issue with strays and it's manmade. And there are usually no laws to prevent it(or at least no one cares to enforce them). So people can freely breed dogs or cats and just abandon them. And there are certain people who do so a lot for various reasons.

On the topic of dogs, personally I see them as more problematic and potentially dangerous even when they have an owner. I don't hate dogs though. But I hate aggressive ones. And their owners. Dogs are also much better predators than cats, even killing hedgehogs for example.

I can't help but despise the dog owners who are letting huge dogs roam free without a mouth cover. Not once or twice did a random pitbull or dobermann chased me while barking on the street until the owner came and said: "Don't worry, the dog won't do anything to you." Yeah, buddy, I've been bitten before to know better, just keep your beast on a leash.
 
ErichPryde
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This is inaccurate. Dogs can take down larger prey, but cats are, in fact, much more capable predators able to hunt a wider range of prey.

BOTH are dangerous to wildlife, But cats tend to threaten the majority of the prey animals That dogs do in many environments, and are additionally a greater threat to arboreal animals, birds, and many nocturnal small animals. In terms of typically non-ecosystem damage, dogs can threaten livestock... and obviously cats can't threaten goats, sheep, small cattle, &c.


However, that said, dogs are a much from a much greater threat to people when they run wild, while cats are just not Capable of threatening the average person.

With non-pets, rats probably cause the most damage to ecosystems around the world as they regularly will invade nests and prey on baby birds, small reptiles and amphibians.
mseamaster mseamaster
Dogs are also much better predators than cats, even killing hedgehogs for example.

Edited: talktext fail and cleanup
Edited:
 
blufinz52
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Archer Archer
Outdoor domestic cats kill literally billions of birds and small mammals annually...
It's all about survival of the fittest.
 
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