How to stop cats killing?

"Ryan Robbins" wrote in message
news:C7hWf.511$tZ.360@trndny03...

"Justin L" wrote in message
...

ok, I get the vehicle, and the schmuck, but I don't get the fisher?

people that fish?

are fishers big cat killers??

They seem like such a peaceful bunch..

It is a wild animal that is known to prey on cats. It's a rather nasty
animal, actually.


Here in Texas, in the suburbs or country, coyotes are notorious for killing
cats and small dogs. One good reason to keep pets indoors if you know they
live in your area.

Of course, they leave larger dogs alone.

-- maryjane

A fisher is larger than the average size domestic cat, with males up to 25
inches long and weighing up to 15 pounds. It will kill and eat just about
anything it can get its teeth in, including porcupines.

"Ellie Bentley" wrote in message
...
The harness and leash aren't an option but I am concerned that any
other
suggestion doesn't, as you say, pose a danger to them.

Ryan Robbins wrote:
Why are they not an option?

I moved to a very sparsely populated area of countryside full of fields,
woods, forests, streams, and waterfalls. It's paradise for human AND
cats (and dogs, and all other creatures who love to roam free). The
cats delight in this countryside as much as we do. Each morning when we
walk the half-mile down the hillside through the fields to collect the
mail from the nearest road the cats bound along with us, playing tag,
ambushing each other, all the way there and all the way back. You only
have to see their joy in this freedom to play to understand why they
would hate the harness and leash. If we were living in the centre of a
city, or even a town, I might well be inclined to use the harness and
leash. (I did, many years ago, when I lived in a high-rise.)

I hope you understand.

I think it is you who doesn't understand. In a perfect world, yeah, we could
let our kitties and our doggies outdoors without fences and leashes and
runs. But we do not live in a perfect world. Domestic cats are not
well-equipped mentally or even physically to survive in the wild. This is
because we humans bred them specifically to be immature and cute and cuddly.
These attributes do not fare well at all in the wild.

You are doing your cats a great disservice by forcing them to fend for
themselves against other cats, motor vehicles, pranksters, wild animals, and
the elements. It is naive to think that your cats will have a better life if
forced to fend for themselves. They won't care whether they are in your
house 24 hours a day. My cat joined my family as a stray. She adapted
perfectly to becoming an indoor cat, and she adapted perfectly to going
outdoors in a harness and on a leash.

I can't say the same for the cat I found dead in the street a year and a
half ago, the blood still fresh on the pavement. Or the cat I rushed to a
vet hospital after a car crushed its abdomen irreparably. Or the two stray
cats my family gave food to when we lived in the country but were never seen
again. Both of those cats used to emerge from the woods with open wounds.

On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:35:47 GMT, "Ryan Robbins"
wrote:

We're more intelligent than cats. At least some of us are.

So. there is no gun crime or deaths on the road where you live? I bet
the property prices are astronomical.
No matter how intelligent you claim humans are - nobody can predict
the criminal mind or lousy driving.


http://www.black-cat-gfx.co.uk/

"A cat is only technically an animal,
being divine" - Robert Lynd

deci wrote in message ...
On Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:35:47 GMT, "Ryan Robbins"
wrote:

We're more intelligent than cats. At least some of us are.

So. there is no gun crime or deaths on the road where you live? I bet
the property prices are astronomical.

I live in Maine. Life is good.

No matter how intelligent you claim humans are - nobody can predict
the criminal mind or lousy driving.

What does this have to do with cats not being able to fend for themselves as
well as humans?

wrote:
Ah, makes sense. We thought you had crazy cat killing fishermen around.

Eeeeeek. Nasty-looking things those fishers. A creature I had never
heard of. Thank heavens we don't have any in my area. The closest
enemy of cats we have is the mink. They got loose from some mink-farm
project that somebody started in a nearby valley.

Anyway, pics of the evil-looking fisher can be seen at:
www.mass.gov/dfwele/ dfw/dfw_fisher.htm

Ellie.

Ryan Robbins wrote:
This is
because we humans bred them specifically to be immature and cute and cuddly.
These attributes do not fare well at all in the wild.

You are right on this. However, my cats are not JUST "cute and cuddly".
The come from a line that have lived in these hills of centuries. They
are tough and they are hardy. They could survive out there very easily
without us. There is an abundance of prey out there for them to survive
upon. My cats fare exceptionally well in the wild. They thrive on it.

You are doing your cats a great disservice by forcing them to fend for
themselves against other cats, motor vehicles, pranksters, wild animals, and
the elements.

I have not said or implied that I "force my cats to fend for
themselves"! I have not said that they ever meet any other cats. (In
fact, there is only 1 other cat within a two-mile radius and she is an
old thing that stays mainly indoors.) I have said that my cats live in
a house which is half a mile from the nearest road. That road is also a
quiet country road with little traffic. I have not given you any
indication that there are pranksters in these hills. In fact, I have
lived here a good number of years and have never heard that there have
ever been pranksters around here.

I would suggest that my cats are more likely to get themselves out of
fixes than any five-year-old might find him/herself in in the
countryside and I hope you would not advocate that children should never
be let out of the house because of what MIGHT happen to them. A little
bubble-wrap is comfortable: a LIFE lived entirely in bubble-wrap is no
life at all.

They won't care whether they are in your
house 24 hours a day.

You don't know my cats. When they wake up in the morning and look out
the windows and see the green grass sparkling in the sunlight they race
around trying to lure us to the backdoor so they can get out there and
enjoy it. When they wake up, look outside, and see it is grey, gloomy,
and rainy, then yes, they shut their eyes, sleep in, and aren't
particularly keen to go outside. They still do though. And for a
reason which you should find very interesting. My cats have ample
litter trays available to them indoors at all times. However, due to
the good discipline in this house, i.e. they KNOW they will be allowed
out between 11.30am and 4.30pm they actually HOLD their poo for this
period. They also try to hold their pee for this period too, though if
they can't then they will pee in the litter trays. In other words, my
cats WANT to go outside each day, find a secret place, well away from
the house, usually in the middle of an adjacent field and poo there.
They do this although they could quite easily use the litter trays
indoors. Some days there is nothing in the litter trays to clean out.

My point remains. Is there a way to lessen the killing which my superb
little killers inflict on the wildlife around my house. It seems that
at least the people at Willana Life-Sciences are addressing this problem
and working towards answering the need - though there is clearly a long
way to go yet. Their current Sonic Collar lessens predation on birds,
but has no effect on mammals. But I am sure that with time and
imagination they will sort that out too.

See:
http://www.willana-lifesciences.co.uk

wrote:
Let us know if the sonic collars work. I'm certainly interested. Glad your
cats (and family!!) have such a nice place to play outside.

Hi MaryJane. I've booked marked
http://www.willana-lifesciences.co.uk
and will be watching them in the next few years.

Because my cats have got six bells each on each of their collars AND I
trim their claws they don't actually manage to kill too many birds. And
yes I take your point about the advantages of keeping down the mouse,
vole, and rabbit populations. It's a case of balancing this against the
discomfort the cats feel once they have swallowed several voles whole,
or even a baby rabbit. Some time ago I had to pull a baby rabbit out
of one of the cat's mouth by the rabbit's back legs! (The vet explained
they prefer to eat them from the head first so the far doesn't rub the
top of their mouths "against the grain"!) About six months ago one of
the cats slept for three days with a very big belly, which I suspected
was full of rabbit. (Snakes do this, don't they, once they have gorged
on prey.) Anyway, when he eventually "woke up", what did he do?
Immediately threw up quite a large parcel of rabbit fur and bones,
including teeth, skull, etc! It appeared that during those three days
everything else of the rabbit had been efficiently digested. I know
cats are completely carnivore and their systems are quite unlike ours
and maybe this is just the way they are so maybe I should simply adapt
to this behaviour! (Maybe even I lean a little bit towards wanting to
think that my cats are nothing but cute and cuddly little balls of
heaven!)

Bells are still a possibility. I have a couple of cats who would never
figure out how to keep the bells silent.

Let's not introduce your cats to mine then. They'ld be a BAD influence,
perhaps! :-) ("Hey, guys, THIS is how ya do it!")

Ellie.

"Ellie Bentley" wrote in message
...
wrote:
Let us know if the sonic collars work. I'm certainly interested. Glad
your
cats (and family!!) have such a nice place to play outside.

Hi MaryJane. I've booked marked
http://www.willana-lifesciences.co.uk
and will be watching them in the next few years.

Because my cats have got six bells each on each of their collars AND I
trim their claws they don't actually manage to kill too many birds. And
yes I take your point about the advantages of keeping down the mouse,
vole, and rabbit populations. It's a case of balancing this against the
discomfort the cats feel once they have swallowed several voles whole,
or even a baby rabbit. Some time ago I had to pull a baby rabbit out
of one of the cat's mouth by the rabbit's back legs! (The vet explained
they prefer to eat them from the head first so the far doesn't rub the
top of their mouths "against the grain"!) ..... I know
cats are completely carnivore and their systems are quite unlike ours
and maybe this is just the way they are so maybe I should simply adapt
to this behaviour! (Maybe even I lean a little bit towards wanting to
think that my cats are nothing but cute and cuddly little balls of
heaven!)

Let's not introduce your cats to mine then. They'ld be a BAD influence,
perhaps! :-) ("Hey, guys, THIS is how ya do it!")

Ellie.

Very talented and graceful cats.

Could they teach my cats to be 'buggers" (ooo that sounds bad )?. I
don't have mice in my current apt but could use some dedicated insect
hunters.... Oh well, back to the Raid. I felt so sorry for the mice dying
in the traps, would have preferred a clean kill by the cats. They now sell
mouse traps which are trays filled with invisible glue with food scent.
Mouse climbs in - never climbs out - dies of thirst/dehydration. (Always
made me feel guilty - old fashion traps are much quicker - but a lot of mice
get wise to them. I caught a few under bowls and carried far out into
field. You can tell I had pet mice as a child.)

Actually, if anyone has cats eating is spiders you REALLY need to discourage
this behavoir. My best friend's cat loved to catch/eat spiders. Until one
day she caught a very poisonous one and it must have bitten her while in the
mouth. Poor kitty had terrible seizures for 30 minutes, then stopped
breathing 5 minutes before we could get her to the vet. I'm not sure the vet
could have helped anyway - don't think they stock spider antivenin.

This is a very unusual accident, but it can happen if you live where
poisonous spiders are common. A human could probably have tolerated that
spider's bite with just bad swelling around the bite, but small cats don't
need much of a venom dose.

By the way, I did learn afterwards its possible to perform CPR on dogs/cats.
(Check out web sites.) I don't know if I could do the heart massage, but
you blow in their noses to provied artificial respiration.

Anyway - crickets. lizards and other insects are okay. Spiders (including
house spiders) BAD!

-- maryjane

wrote:
Could they teach my cats to be 'buggers" (ooo that sounds bad )?.

Hmmm. I think they would. On the other hand, you might like the drama
of it. I was working in the vegetable garden this afternoon and I
looked up to spot my ginger cat running down the hill behind the house
with something large in his mouth. As he approached the fence he
paused. I called his name encouragingly and he leapt over the fence
with the rabbit (dead) still in his mouth and brought it to me. I
decided to "go with it" and gave him much praise and stroking and
biscuits (which I always keep loose in my right pocket). One less bunny
to nibble on my vegetables, at least. It was then a matter of
distracting the cat while I disappeared, a bit like you with your dead
mice, into a field on the side, to find a tree where I could lay the
rabbit for the owls, crows, and birds of prey.

Mouse climbs in - never climbs out - dies of thirst/dehydration. (Always
made me feel guilty - old fashion traps are much quicker - but a lot of mice
get wise to them.

Yup, I used a "humane trap" too for a while. Then I found these cheap
new mouse-traps which look a bit like bull-dog clips. All rounded and
not looking at all lethal . . . but, my God, they are! A bit like yours
they come with a pad of something that mice can't resist. I snapped up
six of these traps and they are always on the go. I've often wondered
what I could save on cat-food if I had one of those old-fashioned
turn-handle meat-mincers: I could just drop the night's mouse-catch in
every morning and that would several days of nutritious food for the
cats . . . and I am sure it would be more comfortable for them to digest
than the mice and voles and baby bubbies they devour whole!

Actually, if anyone has cats eating is spiders you REALLY need to discourage
this behavoir. My best friend's cat loved to catch/eat spiders.

Thanks for this advice. Up until reading this I've often thought,
"Great! This old house was always full of spiders before the boys
arrived but I haven't seen any since they moved in!" They ARE gobbling
them down. Flies too which we can get hundreds of during the summer.
Yes, after I've seen them doing this I do pause a bit before I let them
come snogging me while I'm watching television or sitting reading.

By the way, I did learn afterwards its possible to perform CPR on dogs/cats.
(Check out web sites.) I don't know if I could do the heart massage, but
you blow in their noses to provied artificial respiration.

Blowing up my pussies' noses! Eeeek! (Especially after they've been
you-know-where!) But I'll certainly remember this, Mary Jane, and brace
myself if ever it's needed!

Thanks for all the advice.

Ellie.