Friday, September 9, 2011

Visitors of the feline kind

I like cats. 
We had a beautiful big Larry the lion that adopted us, a long time ago.  
He would hear our car and run a block to greet us, a kind of dog cat. 

Ethically, I'm not so keen on cats.  Larry, even with 4 bells attached to him like some sort of cat jester, would find birds and frogs to eat. He once brought a frog to the back door alive, it was screaming (yes they do) in his jaws. We kept him in at night, but there was no controlling those hunting instincts. He killed rats and mice but I think he did more harm than good.  I love our little native critters (and the big ones too) and think they should take precedence in our backyard. 
So we have no cat.

This week I arrived home to this site. 

Sprawled across our old lounge as if it was his


We had a chat

And a scratch

And he hung out with us in the garden all afternoon.  He did give the little one a scratch but she was a little too keen on him, and I think he wanted some space.

Gussy is a lovely cat from next door. He's very soft says our littlest.
It's quite nice to get the cat love without the guilt. 
 I hope he's not eating any critters at our house.......


How do you feel about cats?

4 comments:

  1. Um... you don't really want me to answer that question do you?

    Actually, I'm a firm believer that cats should be kept indoors. Too many are hit by cars or killed by foxes or other predators, not to mention the number of birds etc that the cats themselves kill.

    Virtually every cat I've had in my adult life was a "stray" that obviously belonged to someone at some point in their life. I'm sure some of them were just abandoned, but I'm also sure that some got spooked, ran off, and never found their way back home again. So much heartache could be saved if people would just keep them indoors.

    I'm also a strong advocate of getting cats fixed. But even if people don't fix their cats, if they'd keep them inside they wouldn't be out mating and making more kittens who can end up homeless.

    All that being said, I also have a soft spot for the so-called "feral" cats who are the offspring of lost or homeless strays. These cats have never known human contact and it's really hard to tame them. In that case I believe the best thing to do is to trap, neuter and release them. At least that way they can have some sort of a life and won't be making more homeless cats.

    Sorry to go on and on, but if you ask a cat person how they feel about cats...

    :)

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  2. Love them, especially ours! Found a gorgeous pic of the big one and the middle one when searching for some pics of our feline family members :-)

    http://kimbamel.blogspot.com/2011/09/max-and-lily.html

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  3. Great photos kirsty, but i hate cats as they give me hayfever besides what they do to the environment

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  4. Some pretty contrasting opinions about cats in those three responses. I'm not so sure about releasing feral cats,if you manage to catch one, they do so much damage to wildlife. Even though it is sad to kill a wild cat, it's sadder that all the native animals it will eat are disappearing - some forever.

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In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.
Margaret Atwood

“She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young