The better a cat owner you are the more intensely you feel the responsibility of cat caretaking. It works in the other direction as well. The less concerned a cat owner is about her cat the less responsibility there is.
For a good cat caretaker, the feeling of being responsible for the safety and welfare of your cat can be intense.
In fact a measure of the quality of “cat ownership” could be how intensely the person feels towards discharging their responsibilities. The level of concern comes from an empathy with your cat’s predicament and emotions together with knowledge.
Casualness indicates poor cat caretaking. Concern as demonstrated in what a person actually does rather says is a measure of the quality of cat ownership.
Failing to take on the responsibilities of cat ownership leads to failing to neuter your cat and to let her/him breed and a reluctance to take your cat to the vet if required. These are just two examples.
A good person can be a bad cat caretaker because of a lack of knowledge. The more you understand cats and the dangers the more aware a cat caretaker is. Knowledge brings awareness which in turn brings greater responsibilities.
It is the old adage: ignorance is bliss. If a cat owner is unaware of what is going on in terms of cat welfare generally, he/she does not feel the weight of responsibility. The truth is a lot of cat owners are, to varying degrees, ignorant about cat welfare in all its facets.
People like Dee and Ruth have a high level of intensity when it comes to cat welfare. This comes from knowledge combined with concern.
For the cat owner sleep walking through their role, cat caretaking is easy. The less easy it is to look after a cat to high standard, the more concerned and aware you must be.
All cat owners should feel the responsibilities of caring for their cat. It has a similar degree of importance to looking after another person.
Think I’ll move to Florida, Dee! If there are any TNR caregivers in this town, I’ve yet to hear about their activities.
Last time I made contact with the local ‘Animal Control’ (euphemism for ‘End of the Road’), the woman director sternly lectured me for daring to sabotage the A.C.’s modus operandi by feeding hungry stray cats. I have no way of knowing how many cats down here are neutered. Certainly none where I live. I.e., the A.C.’s birth control method is to starve the strays.
AC is my arch enemy. Until TNR came in here is 2012, it was illegal to feed any free roaming cat. Now, I just feed and shoot them the bird. There is nothing they can do about it.
They only know about my closest colony, and I guard them with my life. Believe it.
Some people feel that we are ‘over the top’ in the way we care for our cats but we chose to have them in our lives and we owe it to them to give them the best life we can. Anyway to me it’s a pleasure to make them happy!
I think those of us who do passionately care for our own, also care about other peoples cats and the welfare of cats not only in our neighbourhood but worldwide. We try to educate people as much as we can.
Anyone can be excused for not knowing much about cats if they haven’t had any around, but there is no excuse for not finding out more or listening to good advice.
Kylee is right, cats don’t ask for much.
Agreed with Ruth and Kylee <3
Well I loved this Article Michael. You are right those of Us who feel deeply for our Cats and doing the right thing. I once before I became so concerned about Cats. Was Probobly on the other Side. I still Cared well, but Not as I am Now. Always been a big Believer in Having all Cats Fixed. As dont want to OverPopulate the Cat Kingdom. I dont think just cause someone is poor or Uneducatated that they are any less of a person. They just do things differently. Have always felt a deep responsibiity to the Cats as without them would be complety Lost. They dont ask for much in return Just UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, Lots of Cuddles and Patts. Water good quality food. A roof over their Head and someone that Cares for them. Thats not too much to ask I think. 🙂
I live in a nice house in a dicey neighborhood, which is why it seems incredible that your neighbor would have the same hardened indifference to his/her cat as mine have to theirs. Unless, that is, your neighbor is as loutish as mine.
I had always linked a neglect of companion animals with a low intelligence. Either that, or catastrophic poverty. One neighbor has hung on my gate now and then, looked into my yard and, when he’s spied Sidney Vicious, drawled ‘Oooo…muh faaa-rit KIH-deee! I lu-u-u-v-v that guy!’ And he means it.
He’s also been pleased & proud to inform me he wouldn’t think of taking the cat indoors during the winter – nine months down here – and that he feeds him Walmart kibbles: i.e., cornmeal & sawdust pellets.
This neighbor mowed the edge of my lawn last month, a strip of grass on the property line, and I told him I’d thank him for being so thoughtful if he was disposed to thank me for having fed his cat three times a day for a year and a half. At that, he got a faraway look in his eye, gazed off into the distance – way, way out beyond the cottonwoods, clear out to the ocean – and smirked a mite, his lips enigmatically sealed.
This indifference to cats is related to income and education? The explanation’s too pat.
Several summers ago the president of an art club who lives in a mansion struck up a conversation with me during an afternoon tea for her artist friends. She said she bought the cheapest sacks of kibbles from Costco (a store similar to Walmart), and there was no need to give the cats anything else, because they supplemented that diet with hunting. I made the mistake of suggesting that if she went online she could find any number of websites that stressed the importance of a high-protein diet now and then for a healthy cat. She glared at me, flushed rooster-wattle red, turned on her heel and strode off, as if I’d plucked that blarney out of thin air to offend her. This woman and her husband enjoyed a high-rolling lifestyle.
While it seems few people in this outpost care much about cats – they love their retrievers – two other ostensibly decent friends come to mind. They both live on farms, have several cats to keep down the mice around their barns, and wouldn’t think of feeding their cats canned or fresh meat. The cats are lean, but still alive and active.
It goes w/o saying it would be impossible for someone who cares for TNRs to feed dozens of cats canned and fresh meat: the cost would run into the high hundreds every month. Yet well-heeled families are feeding their one, two or three+ cats this fare non-stop.
I understood her position when, shortly after moving here, I took a stray cat to a privately operated shelter to be adopted, if possible. The director was a near-to-being elderly woman who was perturbed that I presented the cat to her, along with three shopping bags of canned cat food. ‘No! she objected. ‘We wean our cats off that right away!’ Naturally, the best she could do, when her shelter was deluged with abandoned animals.
What is perplexing, a year ago I offered an animal shelter man bags of unopened cat food. He was more than nonchalant: he disdained the donation. ‘NO! We have too much canned food now, and don’t need any more.’ And yet these shelters are euthanizing unwanted animals every day because the parents can’t afford to feed them, nor could the shelter. Or maybe thy could, but had no run. Meanwhile, the sanctuaries in England and Malta struggle to make ends meet
A finishing touch? Don’t ask for an attribution, as I don’t remember where I read it. But last week, likely on the Net, a physician wrote that anguish and over-solicitude for a companion animal is a sign of mental illness. Some sort of flaming neurosis, or worse.
Whether or not, I’m convinced that people who couldn’t care less about their kids enjoy an immense peace of mind and turgid self-image. Their tranquility hasn’t a ripple. It’s glassy smooth. They’re strangers to the smallest concern for their animals. To people blessed with this happy disposition, Golgothas of grief over their kids are unheard of. Their freedom of movement is unrestricted. Their incomes intact. Their spirits Tinkerbell-airy. All of which, this M.D. assured his readers, adds up to RADIANT mental health. Only the ill are dangling upside down from a meat-hook.
As always, Sylvia Ann… WOW! to your comment.
At least where I am at and know many feral colony caretakers, they feed their ferals no less than they feed their own domesticated cats, myself included.
Yes, it’s hard and so many sacrifices have to be made.
But, when we hopped onboard to caretake, we weren’t allowed conditions.
Caring for cats is very hard work if we are doing it right. Honestly, I wish, so many times, that I could just open a door and let them out to enjoy the outdoors for 3-4 hours a day and I could relax or even sleep an extra hour without feeling guilty that cats are hungry and need to be fed.
No such luxuries.
If there is any soul in this world that feels caretaking cats is easy, they need to not to have any.
Thanks for all advices and really good written article, Michael <3
I know you feel the burden of responsibility.
I know what you mean. For those who are casual about their companions we are called fanatics. They do not feel that connection we feel. But the well being of the cats must come first in my opinion.
I agree. There are two camps. The ones who feel the concern and those that don’t really. My neighbour is an example of the latter.