Hurricane Florence: nearly all the pictures are of rescued dogs not cats

I’ve been searching Google images for a while, looking for good pictures of cats being rescued during Hurricane Florence. In my estimation about 90% of the photographs are of dogs being rescued. Why is this?

Stranded dog
Stranded dog. Photo: SPCA.

I can think of several possible reasons. Firstly, more dogs are being abandoned than cats during Hurricane Florence (unlikely). Secondly, dogs being rescued are photographed more often than cats being rescued. My guess is that the former argument is the better one.

However, there may be a third reason which in fact may be the right one. An equal number of cats and dogs are being abandoned, unreasonably and without proper excuse some of the time, but the cats have disappeared, hidden somewhere because they are outside cats. When the floods hit the cats just disappeared and are therefore not photographed. Dogs are more visible.

There may even be a fourth reason which is that the excellent people who are volunteering to rescue these animals feel more able to rescue a dog than a cat. This is because they are more fearful of cats or cats run away. I note that when they have captured a cat they hold him or her by the scruff of their neck in order to subdue the animal.

You can do this for a short time. In my experience adult cats become very restless if held this way for more than about 30 seconds. You could injure the cat if he is not supported. Therefore it is not ideal. I’m wondering whether cat rescuers should be provided with some form of instruction as to how to handle cats under these extreme circumstances.

Cats are more vulnerable during mass flooding

Cats being harder to rescue leaves them more vulnerable to drowning or being injured in some way. It seems to me that when you abandon a cat during flooding you are jeopardizing that animal’s life more so than would be the case if you abandon a dog under the same circumstances.

Do you have a good idea as to why we see far more pictures of rescued dogs than cats when searching images on animal rescue during Hurricane Florence?




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