Secret life of the cat

[dp106]

Just watching the program I recorded from earlier in the week. I think they';re using the ubloc gps to track the cats :-)

[Hands0n]

That just what I exclaimed to the Mrs last night. She shot me *that* look ... 

[Biffa]

She shot me *that* look ... 

Know that look well, ually when I say "I have just ordered this."

[nub]

would have been good if u were part of the test group, sure they wouldn';t of minded leaving behind a couple

[kym]

[Braindump ahead. Consider yourselves warned].

When you hear/see stuff like this TV spot, it kinda hits home I am living in a much different country.

Over the past couple decades cats in AUS have tended to become demonised as wildlife killers. Of course the people promoting the "final solution" and terminate domestic cats altogether are still a fringe. But I can see it coming.

I';ve only had an association with the animals for 4-5 years. It seems MUCH longer. First living next to units where people were always giving away kittens. Then  selling or buying property that';s been unoccupied for months to years and taken over by groups of cats. And  trying to prevent the local council or RSPCA swooping in and killing the lot.

In my last move I was trying to get official permission to take animals from one address to another so they wouldn';t get the chop. But there seemed no way that could be done. There was a finger-pointing war between the 2 councils and the Primary Industry dept (that also handles domestic animals).

All domestic animals these days must have an official owner. All animals are regulated and -- of course -- taxed. If you find an animal on your property you are not officially allowed to become its owner. It must be handed into the local council, go through their procedure, and most likely be killed. You are still allowed to go to the local pound and select an animal; but it will not likely be any you gave your council. The kill rate is at least 80%.

When I took a sick kitten down to the local vet a few years back there was a huge wrangle even then (the laws have been much tightened since) about who owned it. I didn';t do the expedient thing and just say it was mine. The vet -- it seems -- was caught in the middle. They are not permitted to treat un-owned animals on threat of fine or loss of license. So we had to do a little paperwork dance and pretend it was from a litter of an mother that I owned, and that mother needed a paperwork trail.

These days the paperwork dance is even longer. All animals must now be chipped by an independant body  as well. So claiming you owned the mother of a sick kitten is not easy anymore.

All in all, if you are the type to take pity on a stray  mangy cat and want to take it in and give it a bath and some warm cat milk -- in AUS you need to first understand what it was like to shelter Jews in Nazi Germany.

Fortunately, some of the rels from Norway had this experience during the occupation, and they did pass on some of their tricks. Not all of them nice tricks, or ones that have a happy ending for everyone. There was an old B&W film about people in a life-raft, lost at sea. The person in charge has to make hard choices and shove a couple out so the rest might live. You get the picture, I';m sure.

Just a short time ago only dogs needed to be registered and be taxes. Now all domestic animals are chipped and registered. Recently laws were enacted to make it illegal to feed stray animals, shelter stray animals, or medically treat stray animals. In some locations you are permitted to kill stray animals out of hand. And, unfortunately, I live in a neighbourhood where a lot of people take this to extremes. We see kids on quadbikes with dogs chasing cats and dogs around the local park and trails near the local railway track. One of my neighbours seems to use a bull-whip on cats that he finds on his property. When I first came here I wondered what all the screaming was about sometimes at night. I also wondered why I saw so many cats coming to my door at night, clawing to get in, and finding they had broken legs, ripped-off tails, and missing ears.

In my new location I tried to take in some local strays. When I moved in there were at least 2 adult cats and a couple kittens on the place -- living under the house or on top of the toolshed under a tree.

I went through all the "proper" legal channels. All animals were chipped, vaccinated, de-sexed and otherwise health-checked at around $500 each. The council even encouraged me to do this. I gather it costs a lot for them to come out and catch strays, esp given some of the wild areas near me.

Initially it was enough the erect 2m nets on all fences. I later put in some 3m mesh fences around the house and another layer of nets around the back patio.

But unfortunately the neighbours lodged a series of objections and my permit was withdrawn within 2 wks of it being granted. It took 6 m to get in the first place, incl quite a few inspections of the place.

Eventually, all animals were  surrendered or confiscated. There was even talk of having to pay a $500 fee to have them destroyed.

Amusingly, the objections continued well after all animals left my property. Just proving the claims of cats sitting on vehicles and leaving scratch marks in paintwork, or pooping in front of windows making it impossible to open them, etc -- were either all baloney or nothing to do with me.

So when I hear of cats wandering around villages in the UK and no-one out on quadbikes to kill them on sight, it';s kinda jarring.

Do I live on the same planet as that?

[Ross]

See...the UK ain';t so bad after all....despite the "knockers" who emigrated to the "greener fields"  saying the UK was finished!

[dp106]

That sounds terrible kym. I guess in the uk we don';t have a problem with stray cats so it hasn';t become an issue.

Not sure how I could deal with seeing any animals being treated like that be they domesticated or not.

[Hands0n]

@kym - Thank you for sharing that harrowing tale.  It is dreadful to even imagine that such things are going on in so-called civilised western nations.  In the UK we take animal welfare rather seriously, and I would like to believe that what you describe in Aus could never happen here.   We have our share of thugs who will deliberately harm an animal but there are plenty of statutes in place to take care of them when they are inevitably caught out.

Unbelievable that we can treat animals so very badly when only these few species trust us enough to come into our families.

[kym]

Domestic animals are an easy target, I guess.

In a fight for resources of one kind or another it';s 25 mn Australians vs 3 mn cats. Cats lose.

Trying to justify it with (recently) headlines that domestic cats kill 60 mn small animals in AUS annually
is just blame-shifting.

If the rest of AUS is similar to me, we kill up to 30 billion chickens a year between us just for lunch and dinner. Heaven knows how many other animals die because of housing built, roads paved, bushfires started, 4wd convoys into the wilds, land cleared and planted and whatnot.

And let me underline everything I';ve described is done more or less in accord with present laws and with the blessing of the RSPCA. But not all animal groups agree, of course. I support a couple of "zero kill" organisations. But they';ve apparently been rendered impotent by current national legislation. Even getting them to answer emails these days is a problem.

If I wasnt old and twisted enough, my recent cat-related experiences here would have been enough to do the trick. :)