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@#*%)^@ Cats!
[someone said]
You can't just leash a cat into your yard like a dog. Though the greater part of me laments the days when every neighborhood had dogs & children & cats & chickens running loose without fences or supervision or cages or leashes, short of cutting back the human population by about three-fourths immediately, we are not apt ever to see those days again, not in regions anywhere near cities, towns, or suburbs. It was once regarded as normal to let the dogs do as they pleased & if they did per chance begin biting children or killing chickens, the dogs were sumarily shot, and no one was sued. Today it is simply illegal to let them run loose. It was once normal if one's five-year-old child played in an empty lot or the nearest woods with a couple other little friends, but now without adult supervision, a parent could be arrested for criminally endangering a child or putting it at risk of being carted off & molested by some adult member of our increasingly psychotic society. I've lived long enough to see so many ordinary behaviors become criminalized, & our rights & privileges whittled away from ourselves, our children, our pets, for all sorts of rational-seeming reasons. The only wonder is that with everything else restricted or banned, how is that in most places it is still at least legal to let the cats roam loose, annoying the bejabbers out of non-cat people. It's easy to see in what direction we're "evolving" & the same sorts of neighbors who helped pass laws so your rooster won't wake them up in the morning, so your dog won't be unfenced or unleashed, so you can't have a pony or a llama or sweet little jenny inside the city limits, so that even your safely caged pet python is illegal in a growing number of places -- does anyone REALLY think this same spreading attitude against animals will permit cats to roam at will for a great many years yet to come? To me it is strange that the ferret, which is the third-most-popular pet mammal (other than rodents) after dogs & cats, is an illegal pet in California. The pet skunks I cared for as a child, if I had them now, I could be arrested, & my pets destroyed, if I had them today -- even such domestic strains as the white, albino white, & chocoalte skunks raised in southern skunkeries & hand-raised as the sweetest pets imaginable are no an exception here in Washington. Nowadays increasing breeds of dogs are being made illegal because of a few irresponsible owners turning public sentiment even against Man's Best Friend. The way things are going, cat lovers will have to count themselves lucky if cats are even still LEGAL a few more years down the line! They carry more diseases to people, some of them fatal, than do dogs, so just think of the excuses that can be made to ban them. This indicates the INEVITABLE future for cats, too. In fact indoor cats that have no liberty to carouse neighborhoods live much longer lives than outdoor cats, & it WILL be argued that letting cats run free is very cruel & their shortened lives prove it. I sure don't say it's a good thing that such restrictions are coming. I really don't mind the neighbors' cats visiting me, never understood why the occasional cat turn gets some non-cat people up in arms. But it's a fact, the days of the free-range kitty is going to go the way of the free-range family dog or even the free-range human being. Animal lovers will say its to protect the life of the cat, others will say it's because letting cats **** in neighbors' gardens is a public health issue, or that letting cats roam about killing whatever little bit is left of native fauna, particularly songbirds, is criminally irresponsible. Someday -- sooner than they may right now believe -- cat owners will risk fines, arrest, or imprisonment, as well as the "putting down" of the kitties for scratching a neighbor kid (a greatrer source of disease than dogbites, & happens more often too), or for being off leash. Here are a couple cool websites about cat leashing; you might as well start preparing now: http://freeairpress.com/Cats/leash.html http://www.peoriahs.org/catleash.html -paghat the ratgirl Looks like I was behind the times on that post. Cats outdoors & off leashes have already been banned state-wide in Florida (will soon be banned state-wide in Illinois), in several entire counties, & in such diverse cities as Gaitherburg & Rockville MD & all Prince George County ; Houston & Arlington TX (Austin considering it); Laurel City, Montana; Naperville, IL; Hendersonville TN; Fayetteville Arkansas; Tulsa OK; San Jose, CA & all of Holister County; Akron OH; & many other places, with Cat Leash Laws under consideration in every other part of the country. Laws typically levy fines of $100, sometimes less, but can be much more, especially for repeat violators. Second offenses commonly require full court appearances. The Akron cat leash law resulted in thousands of cats just trapped & killed. Witham & Charlotte Counties in Florida had cat leash laws before it went state-wide, as did many Florida towns & cities. When the Witham law went into effect, there were some outcries against it, but the voices in favor far outnumbered the voices of cat advocates. And the only reason a great many more cats weren't trapped & killed was because the Sherrif's Animal Control Unit did not have funding for the extra staff to answer the sudden radical increase in complaints demanding the trapping & removal of neighbors' wayward cats. Leash laws kill cats in two ways. First because any cat that is not also collared & liscensed will be taken to animal control and in the majority of cases destroyed. Second because cats on leashes frequently hang themselves on trees and fences. For this reason a good cat collar has "pop bead" break-away feature so that when it struggles in the hanging position, the collar comes off before it strangles to death. Then it is trapped for wandering free, taken to animal control, and destroyed. The real reason so many legislators want these laws is NOT because of a sudden burgeoning of hatred for cats. It's a windfall of hidden taxes. Every time Bush cuts taxes for the richest 2% in the country, everyone else gets higher local fees, fines, liscenses to pick up the slack -- fees, fines, & liscenses that regulate every aspect of daily life. The Illinois legislation will permit multiple fees be charged every one who has a cat even if their cat never roams free. High fees that will be raised higher year by year. The public health & well being is NOT the real consideration of (as present example) Illinois legisation. It is a MAJOR revenue-enhancer for the state, as even if they don't get to fine you, you'll be paying three separate fees or your cat is not legal. There will be a cat REGISTRATION FEE, annual LISCENSE fee, a LITTER TAX if your cat reproduces, FINES if your cat so much as suns itself on the sidewalk in front of where it lives. Plus the cost of cutting out its sex organs, plus the cost of legally required microchipping, because the Illinois legislation also proposes to require microchipping of all cats. Note that microchipping protects animals only if an owner signs up & pays for a 24 hour service for tracking lost animals; otherwise the whole purpose of microchipping is to track down & levy fines against owners. If there is insufficient funding to call & let an owner know its cat will be killed if not picked up within the day, then no phone call will ever be made, but a ticket will arrive in the mail since come what may money must be given to the state. If Illinois does get this state-wide legislation in place, which is by far the most draconian of cat leash laws to date, it will be the model for all other states that need to come up with novel methods of raising revenues -- & there aren't a lot of ways to get MULTIPLE hidden taxes all in one swell foop, so this one's a big winner. In favor of cat leash laws: bird advocates have claimed increasing populations of some of the more easily captured songbirds after cat-leash laws & mass-round-ups & cat-killings lowered the population of roaming cats. It is estimated that in an average small city, cats kill a quarter-million birds annually, with delicate birds more easily preyed upon. Cats kept indoors also have longer average lifespans, no longer susceptible to diseases from encounters with feral animals, getting run over by cars, poisoned by irate neighbors, or mauled in cat fights or by dogs. For these and other reasons, the Humane Society supports cat leash & confinement laws. So my prediction that cat leashing was going a FUTURE certainty was offered too late to be merely alarmist. My sense that such laws would mainly occur in cities & suburbs but not rural areas was dead wrong, as it is already a counties-wide & state-wide bans are in effect or pending. It is estimated that in less than ten years the age of the free-roaming cat will be over. Since cat-disdain recurs so often in this gardening group, among people who don't want cats fertilizng their gardens, I assume there is more support for this than I personally feel. To me it's just one more of the million little ways every breath any of us take, man or beast, is criminalized or otherwise regulated by the government. These laws empower loony animal-haters to harrass even the most responsible pet owners at risk of fines or having animals carted off & destroyed to the delight of Mister or Missus Evil****s who wish they could also burn down your whole damn house with you & your kids in it, but will settle for the legal right to trap & destroy your cat if it sets foot in their yard, or report you to the government if your cat lounges even so far from the house as the immediate sidewalk. -paghat the ratgirl -- "Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher. "Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature. -from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers" See the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com/ |
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