Stray cat advice stirs people up

#MiddleburyCT #Cats #StrayCat

DEAR PAW’S CORNER READERS: I received quite a few responses to my recent article on a stray cat that was being fed by a neighbor! Here are a couple of them from opposite sides.

DEAR PAWS: Bad advice in your article regarding stray cats. The complaining neighbor never mentions she has a cat while expressing concern for neighbor cats. This means she’s a busybody or a cat hater who should mind her own business. Why should she care if the cat feeder buys specialty food? Not her business, and you should have said so.

Your answer mentions contracting FIV. This is a small risk. If cat owners are worried about disease, they should keep their cats inside. You didn’t mention that the complainer could help by getting involved with TNR (trap-neuter-return), by working with the feeder to help the homeless cats. There are proactive ways to help.

You should have commended the person who feeds the cats for helping. We need more people like her and less like the person who was complaining. – Debbi J.

DEAR PAWS: I completely disagree with your answer to feeding outdoor stray cats. Those cats would not be strays if PEOPLE would act like grownups, spay and neuter their pets and stop dumping cats whenever they feel like it.

One unspayed female dumped outside will struggle to survive and can have two or three litters a year. Her babies will be feral because they don’t have human contact. At three months of age the kitten can also reproduce. There could be 40 or so by the end of the year. Relocating them does not work. A trap/neuter/return program reduces their numbers humanely.

Getting a pet is a 15- to 20-year commitment. If you can’t do it, then don’t acquire a pet and certainly don’t dump them. – Linda G.

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