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Location: Notts UK
Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 1,137
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It's good to see the old stereotypes about ALL cat owners coming out here - come on show your true colours guys.
Let's lay my credentials on the line. My cat is an amputee - likely because of a dog (possibly a fox but I think a dog was given as the more likely culprit). She was a semi-feral farm cat spotted limping one day, trapped, treated and rehomed via Cats' Protection - by the time I rehomed her she was the tripod. She does NOT go in other people's gardens - because of the nature of her amputation being that she's missing a back leg and so lacks jumping ability (she's firing on one "spring" so to speak) - she was rehomed with the express condition that she went to an indoor only home. I was looking at the time for an indoor only cat because the house I lived on was on a main road - and because, being brutally honest, I can't be bothered with the incessant moaning about cats in gardens and having an indoor cat cuts that off stone dead.
My other two cats still live with my mother on an isolated woodland area - they roam the local area - but since the nearest neighbour is half a mile away... they don't go in gardens either because there are none to go in.
Surprisingly considering what's happened to her - mine doesn't fear dogs at all - she resents the furry intruder into "HER" house (she generously lets us pay the mortgage and catfood bill to live here), and she can sulk for England - but fear... nah - she's been known to strut up and down in front of the dog when he's focused on me as if she's trying to train him.
I've had her for pushing 7 years, she's been my friend, my companion and at the time I was having a breakdown - she's the reason I didn't end it all. I would go to jail for how I would react toward the owner of any dog that hurt her - and I'd do it willingly. She's no less of a member of the family than any dog is - and dogs have all manner of other instincts and drives people will happily work to moderate - but there's a large section who'll happily stand there and drool innanely that "he's got a high prey drive" and regard other people's pets as acceptable collateral damage. I do everything within my power to ensure my cat is safe - but if she did get out and a dog went for her... I'd go for the dog to protect her, and then I'd go for the owner.
I will not leave the dog in the same room as the cat if I'm not there - I could not live with myself if either of them were harmed (although I'd suspect the dog's nose would be more in danger than anything else). I do everything I can to make sure that there is never ever a situation whereby either of them are at risk - and I went for the most cat-unreactive can't be bothered they hiss and have claws and stuff that for a game of cricket dog I could possibly get to further minimize it.
You get endless threads about how you're working out X dog's reactivity toward dogs, about how you're trying to work to ensure that your dog doesn't go ballistic when confronted with little old ladies carrying polka dot newspapers... yet it's deemed perfectly acceptable for you to have a dog that will rip another person's beloved pet limb from limb. Just because they're not dogs they don't matter... I've got naff all time for cat people who want dogs obliterated as an inconvenience, likewise - I've got naff all time for dog owners who regard other people's animals as just potential fluffy chew toys. You might not like them, their brains are definitely wired very very differently - but both sides are beautiful, intelligent, often graceful (I'll disregard my dog here since he's the most gangly badly coordinated lump of fur you'd ever see and it's just a fluke coincidence if all the bits move int he right direction properly) animals... I could watch a cat clean themselves for hours - it's so meticulous, so careful and utterly fascinating... likewise - I could watch my dog wander around a field for hours fascinated by everything that is the most utterly utterly amazing thing he'd ever seen before (even if he left the field less than an hour ago).
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