Here is a gallery of three photographs showing how an individual cat is dumped at a shelter outside the door, anonymously. The shelter is the Mayhew Animal Home in London, UK. These are thumbnail photographs. If you click on any one of the photographs you will be taken to a larger version and a description (more discussion).
I think it is quite instructive to see these photographs. Also instructive are the comments on Facebook that accompany the photographs. The following two comments more or less summarise the whole. On the one hand are people who criticise cat owners who dump their cats outside shelters anonymously and on the other hand there are people who, while not defending the person, make the point that you cannot judge a person who dumps their cat like this because we do not know the circumstances under which it happened.
“She’s better off with you guys, than with the shits who dumped her (pardon my French)”
“Not everybody lives in great circumstances, or is sensible, or completely able in mind and body; the cat was secure, had food, was placed where there was help. They might not have done the very best but at least they tried. These comments might put off someone from even doing that.”
What sort of comment would you make? I completely understand that we should be careful about being judgemental about people. Sometimes people fall upon hard times and although, at one time, they were good cat caretakers they find themselves unable, due to financial constraints, to do a good job and on occasions, such as this, they decide that it would be better that their cat is re-homed. They seek the assistance of an animal shelter to do it.
Personally, I would prefer if the person attended the shelter in person face-to-face and not anonymously as this would allow the person to provide some input to the shelter staff regarding the health of the cat and for example food preferences and any other information that may help them to look after the cat and re-home him/her.
Also, although there are many people, decent cat caretakers, who are forced to abandon their cats, there are also many people who are not good and who don’t care, They abandon their cats anonymously in this way sometimes in large numbers. What I mean is they do it anonymously as if they feel guilty or ashamed of what they are doing.
That probably tells us something about the person and to be frank I believe that on many occasions people do use financial hardship as an excuse to dump their cats, when in truth if you were able to analyse their budgetary constraints you will probably discover that they are in fact able to care for their cat properly but have not prioritised caring for their cat with the money available. It is often about prioritisation and where your loyalties lie.
The word “commitment” comes to mind. Is a person is committed to doing their utmost to look after their cat throughout the life of the cat notwithstanding unforeseen difficult times?
I Think I’m probably judgmental too. I just cant understand why people would Dump and injure animals especially intentionally.
Maybe some people think I’m judgemental, I probably am, but I look at it from a cat’s point of view and if our roles were reversed, a cat would never ever abandon a human once they were in their care.
We have a moral as well as a loving duty that once we have taken a cat (or dog) into our lives we should care for them as long as we are able, the only good enough reasons not to in my opinion are death, serious illness or homelessness.
There are too many people who see animals as disposable possessions instead of the living feeling creatures they are.
We both think in the same way about people who abandon their cats in this manner. It seems that quite a few people disagree with us. Perhaps the problem is that we set relatively high standards of cat caretaking compared to many other people. That is not a boast in any shape or form; it is just trying to find a reason why we find abandoning a cat in this way objectionable. It is something that we would never consider. It would never enter our head which is why it is shocking to us but people who set lower standards and you don’t know about good standards of cat caretaking see this behaviour as acceptable. Ultimately is about commitment and standards and millions of people have quite modest cat caretaking standards if we are honest.