Two Elderly Passive Smoking Cats

I wish I didn't but I still smoke and have for many years. To date I have never seen any one of my many cats, some for up to 15 years old, have a problem from it. If you will do the research and check, you cannot find one single person, or cat, who has died with the cause of death listed as passive cigarette smoke.

I'm a bit late with reading this, but I didn't realise it was even on here until Finn mentioned it on one of Elisa's articles.

I'm going to have to disagree with you, Finn. I dispise smokers and whenever offered a cigarette I tell the offerer that I'm not interested in suicide. If human children can be affected by passive smoking then animals can too.

I didn't think you of all people would be like this around an animal, Finn. You're a good person who clearly loves animals, but you can't deny the horrific killer that the cigarette is, and the danger within it. You could at least make the effort to smoke out of the presence of your cats.

I thought smoking around children was bad, but animals? I can't imagine anything worse... =(

I stopped smoking two years ago. I also had two biologically unrelated cats die before they were ten from bladder cancer, which is not that common in cats. I have since read about the fact that cats clean the smoke and residue from their fur and it can end up causing cancer of the bladder. Glad I quit smoking, for them and me. It saves me more than a hundred bucks a month and my mind is not always thinking about cigarettes. I miss it sometimes, but..... Others can smoke in my house if they want, but glad I kicked the habit. I've stopped coughing and clearing my throat too and I sleep better. But to each his own.

Hi Finn,I must come down on your side over this. I don't smoke as when I was young my dad advised me against it.I said 'But dad, YOU smoke' He packed in that very day but dropped dead of a heart attack at only 55 years old. My mother smoked all her life and lived to 75, her death was not smoking related.
We had dogs and budgies all our childhood days as our dad bred them, and my mother had cats after she was widowed, all the pets and the birds lived to old age with no health problems from smoke in the house.
They never smoked right near the animals of course.
No one, person nor animal, can live in a fume free atmosphere, it just isn't possible.
I've heard of people in drunken rages or drugged stupors, doing more harm to animals than smoking in the house ever could.
Declawing is totally different, it is cold,pre meditated abuse resulting in mutilation !

http://www.petitionthem.com/default.asp?sect=detail&pet=4312

My Mother was a smoker, all her life. My sister has followed in her footsteps. Mom had two dogs over the last 10 years who both died of complications from heart disease as my Mother and Sister arogantly refused to admit fault OR to take it outside for the sake of someone/something other than themselves!
We burried Mom last year... a horrible death, she basically suffocated to death... yea, lung cancer is a bitch. She died in much the same way as my Grandmother and Granfather (also smokers) died... a long slow horrible death that we all got to watch. My sister, at 45, is undergoing tests this week for spots found on her lungs. Two of her four children have Asthma.
Smokers tend to get very angry when someone points out that they have no right to cause harm to another living breathing thing. At the end of their arguments, however, they still DO NOT have that right.

Think of someone other than yourself. Sharing a room with a driker does not cause you to have health problems. Sharing a room with a smoker who does not have the decency to take it outside WILL. Wake up!!!!!

Hi Finn,
I have in the past enjoyed your fight against declawing.
I had a friend for many years, she was a heavy smoker, her dogs would choke and gasp, and when she lit up, they would leave the room.
Your comment, The more I am pushed the more I resist was her motto, she died on September 16, 2009 at the young age of 56 to lung cancer.
I am older, and I just last year adopted a Norwegian Forest Cat, She may outlive me but I will do everything possible to see she is cared for in the event that that happens.
Yes I used to "push" my friend, but it was in her own best interest, and the interest of her dogs.

I am a 60 year old smoker, my parents were smokers and we have had inside animals all our lives. Not one of them were ever diagonsed with breathing or heart problems and none were diagnosed with cancer or any other smoking related problems.

I agree wholeheartedly with Finn on this one. It is much more dangerous to allow pets outside and to live on cities!!!

You make a good point. Smoking is one detriment to a cat in my view but it can be offset by many things that are beneficial.

Hi Michael. Actually I felt quite hurt when I read your article this morning, but I held my fire until things had worn somewhat off during the day. No hard feelings now.

What I actually meant to say on this page, is that maybe we all should be a bit careful not to discard some people right away as unsuited for keeping animals. A drunkard's dog may be more loved than anybody else in his life. A person with mental problems may be wonderful with animals. And this smoker's cat are indeed very well loved and cared for too...

We have been stretching things in order to make our points, but sometimes that's what it takes. Most of the way we agree, so let's just agree to disagree on these few points. 😉

Hi Finn, thanks for the article. You made your point. I may have stretched it a little when I said that people who smoke shouldn't adopt cats but I also said they could smoke outside. I am thinking of an ideal world (as mentioned). As the world is not ideal I don't expect that suggestion to be workable.

I don't see much difference in a parent smoking when there are children in house to smoking when a domestic cat is in the house. People do smoke with children around but in an ideal world it shouldn't happen.

I also said it "was somewhat akin to declawing". This was meant to mean that it is to some extent (but the full extent) like declawing (a form of abuse but accepted as the norm in large parts of the USA). So what I meant (and I wasn't clear it seems) was that it is a low level form of abuse but it depends obviously on the amount of smoking. A chain smoker smoking in the same area as their cat is clearly wrong but a light smoker smoking some distance away is more acceptable.

I think smoking is more harmful in a passive sense than the other things you mentioned.

You don't believe passive smoking is harmful. That is fine and your choice but I think it is fairly well established that it is dangerous if done over long periods in a confined space (indoors for example).

It certainly makes sense that it is harmful as smoking is harmful.

Of course you are obviously a very able cat keeper and I am sure that your cats are extremely well cared for but if you didn't smoke it would be better for them, I think.

I hope that you will continue to make some comments!

When I make some of these posts I am stepping out of the box and thinking of ideals, what things should be like but I accept that in the real world there has to be compromise and practicality.