Friday, July 16, 2010

Asshole Animal Abusers and Activists Handing Out Unfixed Kittens

I get a call from a Lebanon woman. A week ago, a car pulled into her driveway. It was dark. She thought it was her nephew at first. But then they just sat there, and finally backed out, but they then idled out of sight. Then she heard a "thunk". They had hurled three kittens against her fence. She did report it to police but it was too dark to get a license number. She thought it was two younger men in the car.

The kittens are a white or Siamese manx female, who was injured when thrown against the fence, she said. She thinks it's leg or hip was broken. Another is a mostly white or Siamese female and the third is a black and white male. She can't keep them. Her husband is raising hell and they have no money.

Safehaven turned them down. I also never know, when someone tells me a story like this, if it is just a story, made up because they can't find their own cats' kittens homes. I usually find out somehow, however, and if a person did lie to me, there is hell to pay. I suggested to her to get a news story on the kitten dumping and the kittens, that that might help get them homes and help. See, all the shelters and rescues are full and overflowing with unwanted cats and kittens right now. And the assholes out there just keep letting their cats breed more.

I was calling free kitten ads, and a woman who found abandoned kittens in Jefferson now wants to become an activist and make licensing cats mandatory and rewards for people who turn in those who abandon cats. I said, "The problem isn't reporting it, it's there is no enforcement." Which is true. I gave up reporting animals abandonment in Albany for that reason.

The case against cat licensing is easily made. You put more burdens on responsible pet owners. The irresponsible people won't license and they don't license their dogs either. I think licensing rates for dogs in Oregon is only like 10%, but that number is highly area dependent.

She said "Well why don't you see lots of dogs out roaming then?" I said "Because dogs are not the same as cats and when a dog is out roaming, people see the dog very easily and immediately think if its not with a person, that it is in trouble. Not so with cats. Dogs also create a public menace if free roaming."

She is adopting out the rescued kittens unfixed because she doesn't believe in early age spay neuter.

She says she talked to the paper editor, because she'd written a letter to the editor and plans to become active in this, like open a Jefferson branch of Salem Friends of Felines. Well, good for her, but the real need is spay neuter, not more shelters, not more laws that are expensive to enforce and so are not enforced.

If a cat is picked up, where is it going to go, in Linn County? Nowhere, because there is no shelter for cats. In Marian County, if a cat is taken in by animal control, it's a dead cat. Are you really helping cats?

I urged her to focus on spay neuter rather than creating laws, that harm responsible pet owners and small rescuers, like licensing, and are not enforced anyway.

She claims she wants to get people together to talk, about how to change things. I am certainly not a committee type and I know how to change things. I know what works and what doesn't work. I know where the money needs to go and where it shouldn't go. And wasting time reiterating these ideas in committees is not my cup of tea. It's time and energy wasted and usually for nothing. Especially when people have not done their basic research already.

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