There is a woman on the mumsnet.com website who is completely at the end of her tether. She hates the cat that she adopted. She had waited all her life to adopt a cat of her own. When she finally bought her own one-bedroomed flat on the second floo she adopted an older male cat. …
When it is time to admit failure and rehome your cat Read More »
There is a tortuously tricky decision to be made about which owner is liable in terms of criminal behaviour and compensation under a civil claim after a cat wandered onto a next-door neighbour’s property (front garden) and was killed by the dog living at that property on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. The complexity in …
Who’s to blame when dog kills cat on the Sunshine Coast, Australia? Read More »
There is a policy called the Five Freedoms which applies to farm livestock, and which has been mentioned in a study about the adaptation of domestic cats to confinement. It is something that I had not considered before. There are challenges in keeping a domestic cat confined to the home particularly when it’s a small …
The 5 freedoms and full-time indoor living for cats Read More »
A German town, Walldorf, ordered residents to lock their cats indoors over the summer for the next three years or face a fine of €500. The move was designed to protect ground-nesting, endangered crested larks; particularly the hatchlings who are very vulnerable. Fines could rise as high as €50,000. Ornithologists were clearly delighted at the …
COMMENT AND NEWS-WALLDORF, SOUTHWESTERN, GERMANY: The environmental officers of this German town have banned domestic cats from roaming free in an effort to stop them preying upon and eating crested larks during their breeding season. They said that their order would remain in force until September. People in breaches of the order would face fines …
Cats in German town under strict lockdown to save crested larks Read More »
Usually, the discussion about protecting wildlife from predation by domestic cats is binary: either you confine them to the home or you allow them to be free-roaming. A lot of people think domestic cat should be allowed to roam freely in the interests of their cat’s health. People generally prioritise their cat companion’s health over …
Targeted domestic cat confinement a better solution to protecting wildlife Read More »
I have the feeling that Australian Capital Territory (ACT) leads the world on domestic cat containment. I think that in the future humankind will look back and decide that it was the Australian Capital Territory Legislative Assembly which was at the leading edge of the concept of permanent domestic cat containment. I can foresee in …
Australian Capital Territory leads the world on cat containment Read More »
There is no doubt that there is a distinct trend towards domestic cat confinement. The world is changing. Cat owners are more aware of the dangers outside the home. The world is busier. There is more traffic. There are more people. And arguably there’s more theft and more animal abuse as the world is going …
Cat breeders should selectively breed for cat confinement Read More »
Please use the poll below. Knox, A suburb of Melbourne, is in the news for making it law that their cat owners keep their cats confined to their homes 24/7. They are the second council in the world to take such draconian steps to protect cats, protect wildlife and prevent nuisance (after another Aussie council). …
I probably don’t have the right to provide advice to Giles Coren about how to care for his domestic cat companions but I’m going to anyway. Although, I suspect that he knows the answers already as he is as sharp as a tack. But he provides a very laissez-faire and casual record about the wanderings …
Advice to Giles Coren on how to be a good cat guardian to Mo Tenzing Read More »
Cat owners must agree to confine their cats to protect wildlife – all of them ideally. In other words there must be a voluntary agreement by cat owners because it’s the only way to stop wildlife predation by domestic cats. Why is this? Because any law enacted by any government which confines cats to the …
Governments can’t force cat owners to confine their cats to protect wildlife Read More »
Arie Trouwborst, an environmental law specialist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands and Han Somsen, at the same university, say that European Union law insists that cat owners in Europe should keep the cats inside the home to protect wildlife. In any event, from the EU law perspective it is ultimately the result that counts, …
EU law says that cat owners must keep their pets inside Read More »
NEWS AND ANALYSIS: if you read the online news media on the subject of cats as I have over more than a decade you have to notice a very gradual trend towards domestic cat confinement to protect wildlife. Attitudes are changing. There’s no doubt about this trend which has been accelerated by the public’s increased …
Another nail in the coffin of free-roaming domestic cats? Read More »
For American who don’t live with a cat (and even those who do), one of life’s annoyances is their neighbour’s cat peeing and pooping on their carefully tended backyard. We read about it quite a lot online. It is an area of domestic cat ‘ownership’ which is liable to cause friction. Another is the ubiquitous …
Proposed local law to deal with domestic cats pooping in neighbor’s backyard Read More »
This photograph has mood. It puts us into the mind of this young cat at a shelter as she looks up and out surrounded by her cage. I’m not criticising animal shelters as, in general, they provide a very valuable service to society and to domestic and stray cats. But perhaps we’ve become too accustomed …
Picture of young cat in shelter like being in prison Read More »
