Nothing like an evening of just me with my kitty friend sitting together on the sofa watching our favorite old film, "The Sound of Mewsic".

With all the well-cared for "cats" we have around here, how come Portland is ranked as the most depressed city in the country? Something is seriously wrong.

Why do so many cat owners think its ok for their cats to roam unattended but somehow its not the nature of a dog to do the same?

Why do so many cat owners think its ok that their cat craps in other peoples yards and in particular, flower and vegetable beds? And when the owner of those vegetable and flower beds complains, then they become the bad guy..

I think there's more irresponsible cat owners than dog owners.. because most dog owners I observe don't let their animals go into peoples back yards and crap.

I think the city needs to revise whatever cat friendly laws they have to make cat owners held responsible for damages... My potato patch was rendered unusable by my neighbors cats that used it as a toilet... and when I said something about it, I was told that cats really like my yard as though it was my fault because I made it so appealing to them... not what I wanted to hear...

I don't mind cats in general, its the actions and attitudes of their owners I find objectionable..

http://www.abcbirds.org/abcprograms/policy/cats/index.html

Cats are a plague on native wildlife and should never be allowed outside off leash.

Too many people see cats as "dispensible" or "low maintenance" pets. A cat that is kept inside, going outside with supervision has a much longer, healthier life than the cat that roams free during the day or night picking up parasites, dodging cars, breeding, eating anything it pleases and killing birds and squirrels for sport.

Years ago people used to argue that it was cruel to confine dogs and that it was their nature to roam free. Nobody says that about dogs anymore but they continue to say it about cats.

It's a mystery to me how some cat owners can let their cats roam around all day and then allow them back into the house, on the kitchen counter and into their beds full of fleas, ticks, motor oil, and tapeworms.

Personally, I think a bunch of cats could run the City of Portland better than the sorry lot of human politicians we have now. Have you ever heard of an adult gay cat kissing a young gay cat in a City Hall restroom? Has any cat ever proposed spending $80 million to build a stadium for a second-rate professional soccer team? Would a cat committee spend several years just trying to decide how many lanes wide a bridge across the Columbia River should be?

We humans think we're so smart. We greatly overestimate ourselves.

Well...Let's see...How can we allow cats to roam free, while dogs need to be restrained?

When was the last time you heard of a pack of cats roaming your neighborhood, killing other animals, attacking people, mauling children, tearing up lawns, or leaving huge piles of feces in walkways.

Cats do none of these things.

This is why, to answer your stupid question. Try thinking things through some time, willya?

This is why, to answer your stupid question. Try thinking things through some time, willya?

Cat haters are sick people.

Thinking is not part of hating.

Try to understand how difficult their sorry lives must be, willya?

There are indeed many,many cat lovers living in the Portland area, and it would be in their best interest to educate themselves about the humane deception that has plagued Portland area shelters since at least the early 1990s, related to their association with animal users, particularly the National Animal Interest Alliance, a front group-headquartered in Portland- for industries that use animals. (see Sourcewatch.com/NAIA Portland Shelter Project.)

Since animal shelter reformer, Nathan Winograd, spoke in Portland in November 2007, area animal shelters, including the once genuinely progressive Cat Adoption Team in Sherwood, have dug in their heels to resist real reform by creating the Animal Shelter Alliance of Portland (ASAP); this unholy alliance uses the Asilomar Accords record keeping method, which permits shelters to exclude any group of animals it deems "unadoptable" from euthanasia statistics.

Instead of really looking into the issues, Ted and Randy approve this stuff in concept, listening to ugly gossip about well-informed critics, instead of paying attention to the information they provide. It is unfortunate that cats and cat owners pay for their intransigence and politiking.

I have had nothing but good experience with the Cat Adoption Team in Sherwood. When a feral cat had kittens under the porch of the abandoned house next door, we were able to capture the kittens when they emerged after their eyes opened and before they could wander into the busy street but couldn't catch the mother in our rented live trap because she was so thin that she couldn't trip it when she went inside to take the food. Because of that, the Humane Society wouldn't take them, claiming that they wouldn't deal with such young kittens without the mother.

We kept them in the garage, giving them plenty of human contact, feeding them with baby bottles and stroking them with cotton covered with baby oil to stimulate their bowels as their mother would do (at that age they can't do it themselves). Finally somebody told us about the folks in Sherwood who came immediatley and took them to rehome. We would probably have kept one or two but had two dogs at the time who were not used to cats.

When my sister's elderly cat passed away we made a donation to CAT in her name.

I don't really understand your post, Cynthia. Can you go into more detail about what the Cat Adoption Team is doing that is so wrong?

I hope I don't get banished for this but here goes: DOGS rule and cats drool. Enjoy the rest of your day.

I never met a cat who didn't want to go outside, unless it was brain damaged. Living indoors is a lot like living in a zoo--or a prison.

My cat sits on my lap in the morning when I drink coffee and read the newspaper and he always greets me when I come home in the evening. Yet, unlike a dog, he doesn't demand all my attention, just an adequate amount of food and water and a little recreational fun now and then.

In about three years, he has caught several mice and one blue jay. The main rap against outdoor cats is that they kill birds. Most of the birds in my Southeast Portland neighborhood are starlings or blue jays and we all can do without more of them.

Dear Godfry writes:

When was the last time you heard of a pack of cats roaming your neighborhood, killing other animals, attacking people, mauling children, tearing up lawns, or leaving huge piles of feces in walkways.

Scientists estimate that free-roaming cats (owned, stray, and feral) kill hundreds of millions of birds and possibly more than a billion small mammals in the U.S. each year. Cats kill not only birds that frequent our backyards, such as the Eastern Towhee, American Goldfinch, and Song Sparrow, but also WatchList species such as the Snowy Plover, Wood Thrush, and Black-throated Blue Warbler, and endangered species such as the Least Tern and Piping Plover. (Source :Audubon Society).

When was the last time you heard of a pack of dogs killing hundreds of millions of birds and possibly more than a billion small mammals in the US each year?

Which raises the philosophical question, if godfry has not heard of something, does it exist?

Check your scientists, tastone, cats kill birds,but are not a major cause of songbird population declines; air polution and habitat (particularly breeding ground destruction are).

It is interesting how cats and cat keepers have been scapegoated over the centuries. A veterinarian recently told me about national animal control groups "profiling" cat horders: highly educated single women over 50. She went on to say that a female veterinarian who fit this profile was "hoarding" diabetic cats in her clinic that "should have been euthanized. "

What this says to me is that we are criminalizing compassion and respect for life- and the desire to study and cure disease. You can't overgeneralize that everyone with mulitple cats who respects their lives is filthy and irresponsible. Over the ages, older single women have cared for stray cats. The witch of the 16th Century is the hoarder of today. I have noticed the same thing with the tendency to correlate mental illness such as depresion with criminal behavior. Churchill and Lincoln suffered from it. I pray that the resurgence of Demoncratic principles may signal a return to sanity in these areas, as the law enforcement perspective seems to have overwhelmed common sense.

Sorry NW Portlander that I just now saw your question. My objection is that it has entered into an alliance with other shelters (Oregon Humane Society and Multnomah County Animal Services) that keep statistics in accord with the Asilomar Accords, a shelter statistics- keeping methodology that permits shelter communities to use "community standards" to determine which cats are adoptable and to leave "unadoptables" out of the equation. This makes euthanasia statistics appear to be lower that they actually are,as whole categories of cats-such as ferals- need not be accounted for. An article that explains this is Nathan Winograd's "Does the Road to No-Kill lead through Asilomar"" (Available online).

Community standards in the Portland area means a long association with animal use groups (see the URL I posted above) and a lack of transparency. These problems are not limited to the Portland area, but as in other areas of public policy, it is disappointing that Portland pretends to be a leader when there is deep backwardness and deception right under the surface of the assertions of superiority.

Evan Kalik, who founded CAT, was embraced by veterinary insiders, such as Robert Franklin, who have been in the thick of the animal use question. This is usually what happens when Oregon "good old boys" know they cannot discredit a very accomplished "outsider" like Evan. They bring him into the fold.
If shelters are going to be involved in deceptive practices,the public needs to know. CAT does have some good programs,but has hesitated to embrace the No-Kill Declaration, which lists proven life-saving programs and is the position statement of experienced national reformers. It is also available online.