1. The nope picture isn’t the least bit funny to me.
   I hate to see any animal harnessed,horses,dogs,particularly cats.
   A lot of people have no patience at all with animals and jerk them along and how I’d love to harness those people and give them a taste of their own medicine.
   I love the Spunky’s medicine cartoon though had seen the rest before.

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   • Funnily enough Rose, what you suggest is one of the most effective ways I have of showing horse owners, exactly how damaging to their horse rough handling methods are. Not just leading, but for grooming, bridling, saddling, handling their limbs to pick out their hooves.

     Yep, I put a rope on people and lead them around doing exactly to them what they have shown me they do to the horse. They are amused by it, but shocked and it gets the lesson across efficiently.

     Nothing like experience for true learning.

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     • Good on you Jane do as you would be done by and all 😉

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2. I hate collars on dogs, I still see people using foul choke collars too, made of chain or leather, they are evil. Most people who have a dog on a lead (of any type) haven’t the remotest clue how to use it kindly. I see “respected” trainers on TV STILL promoting jack-knifing to pull the dog around or make it “heel”.

   Dogs suffer from what people consider to be normal handling on the lead. Their cervical vertebrae are often hurt, their muscles bruised, their confidence shattered.

   I also detest those Haltis which loop around the dog’s upper and lower jaw and when pulled crunch up into the lower eyelid. One of our vets commented that before Haltis she never saw dogs with tear duct problems that weren’t a result of breeding.

   The thing is, dogs without a harness can run out into the road, so can cats when they are running free, so can any animal. The dogs I grew up with never needed to be on leads unless I walked them up to the village where there was a road. Not one of our dogs ever attacked a human or other animal, they would stay with me or my parents because they chose to. They were very well socialised.

   Unfortunately dogs today, don’t get much in the way of kind training.

   For my cats, harness wearing has never been part of the norm, it’s been used humanely as a short term means to an end. The end being, their safety, especially in Teddy’s case and initially with Mungo due to his FIV status. I’ve never had one cat struggle or fight the harness, the key is how you introduce it to them. With animals, approach everything like you have all the time in the world and whatever you are aiming for will take far less time and be achieved without harm to either party.

   Patience with animals seems to be a forgotten concept to many.

   I have seen cats walked like dogs in cities and for some cats, they seem to enjoy it. I don’t think it’s ideal by any means, but depending on the cat and the competence of the human, it can mean the difference between fresh air, exploring an environment or a life inside without a whiff of nature.

   The cats I have used a harness with have never been treated like “mini dogs”. That’s because they are cats and have a completely different set of behaviours. Who’da thunk it?

   The world we have created is complex for us and the animals we are stewards for and it’s up to us to learn the most humane ways to carry out our stewardship to the highest standards.

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3. I like the last two – maybe because they aren’t real – but they are funny – I will put them on my Facebook.

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4. For dogs a harness is kinder than the collar round the neck in my opinion and dogs DO have to be restrained when outdoors except in their own gardens for their own and everyone else and other animals’ safety, and of course everyone accepts dogs have to go out without an argument, not so for cats sadly lots of people begrudge cats their freedom. I can see your point Everycat, maybe in some cases a harness is appropriate but I remain convinced that cats are free spirits and shouldn’t treated like mini dogs normally

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5. I love the last set of cartoons on petting. The cat is just brilliant.

   As for harness training, for cats or any animal. If an animal is resisting the leash to the degree in the picture, then the person has got it 100% wrong.

   I know that many detest the use of harnesses on cats, and refuse to accept that sometimes they have a place. I once took on a very elderly deaf cat (20+ yrs) who insisted he needed to go out every day, twice a day on patrol. I couldn’t allow him to do this on his own, because his new home with me was not deep in the countryside where he grew up. Without any force at all, I worked with him to accept the harness and we had twice daily walks (wherever) he wanted to go for the time he was with me. He loved it and really enjoyed his daily expeditions. He always took the lead and if I had to climb over a wall to let him go where he needed, I did. He also had a slight degree of cognitive decline and would have easily got confused and lost if loose. So this was a compromise that worked.

   I trained Gerry to the harness to enable him to safely learn how to be amongst my other cats (he was 100% unsocialised to other cats)

   For Mungo, I couldn’t risk him running off and getting into a fight before he was fully rooted in his new home after being a stray. He took to the harness easily and quickly learned that his garden was the safest place to be.

   I don’t see the same loathing of harnesses where dogs are concerned. I wonder why this is? Cats have that unique essence of freedom about them I suppose.

   For me, cats on harnesses isn’t a permanent or ideal solution to getting a cat to have some outside time, but in some instances for brief periods it has been very useful to me and my cats.

   Using any harness or system of restraint/control on any animal requires extreme patience and an understanding that the drive of the animal is of prime importance. Reward is everything.

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6. I’d seen most of these before but not the poor cat on the harness and I’m sure you know I hate that one too. It looks like the person is almost dragging the cat as he is desperately trying to show how reluctant he is.
   Pictures like that greatly upset me because it’s not natural for a cat to be led, yes I know some get used to it including poor Savannahs who have to be lifelong prisoners or shackled like that for no crime committed.
   Oh people say they are happy enough, but accepting is the word, because they have no choice.
   All cats are born free spirits but sadly too many are not allowed to live their natural way of life.
   Again it’s down to humans who ‘own’ the world and all the creatures in it and are able to control, use, or abuse animals for their own egotism without as thought to what the animal wants or feels.

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7. Great pics all but the first one (as you probably expected)which I think is sad and humiliating for the cat. I worry that this scene is happening for real in many a home and I’m sad for those hybrid cats that are not allowed to live a cat’s life.

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   • I agree it is amusing to some people but there is a serious side to the picture. The trouble with very exotic and expensive cats like F1 Savannahs is that you can’t let them behave “normally” because someone will steal the cat or in America shoot it because they think the cat is a wild cat of some sort. That means training to walk the cat on a leash like a dog. They are relatively easy to train but this does bring into question the whole process.

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8. That last one is brilliant. I’m impressed that these are all new to me! Yeah for me. 🙂

   My favorite lolcat is one of a cat caught licking his foot. The caption is “I has a flavor!” I love it.

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   • I am pleased you have not seen them before! It can be hard to find stuff that is “new”.

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