Also, anyone interested in discussing the OP?
Cats in general have a personality that is not like us. I mean there are overlaps and some humans are more catlike. A child wants to connect with humans in a profound relational way that includes mutual understanding. This is much more like dogs than cats. Sure cats want to be close and they do, I think, even care about humans, but generally not in the way a dog does. Dogs want to enter an ongoing relationship. They want to be in a tribe with their humans. To fit in in a network of kinship relations. And they will give up their lives for kin much more that cats will. A dog further wants to be understood and understand. CAts like the warmth and how it feels. They are more hedonistic in their relations. Obviously dogs are hedonistic, but their relations are much more filled with altruism and concern. A dog is much more likely to get concerned if you are crying or scared. About you that is, not about IS THERE A THREAT. Cats are not learners like dogs. They are likely wiser than dogs. Less like to bite the moving car tire of a car. They have some better heuristics which one could call a kind of wisdom. Dogs, have less of that and are willing to try stuff out that a cat would avoid. But dogs can learn in part because of this social connection they want and have. Dogs are more like children. Cats are set in their genetic ways. They are more like old men and women. They would happliy retire to a condo in Florida, sit in the sun by the window, never sniff the crotch of someone visiting the apartment to see where that person has been and been with. And that’s a young cat. And generally you will not find a god torturing it’s kill. It may wiht the pack eat the entrails while the animals is still alive. But you will not find them injuring, releasing, capturing again and injuring more. CAts are older and more cynical and more addicted to intrumental relations rather than intersubjective ones.
When I read this last post, I saw a image of twenty cats trying in vain to take down a annoyed moose. Meow meows flying everywhere off the antlers.
Can you name a DNA based life form that isn’t?
Compared to dogs, cats are more stuck. They are gonna do what they are gonna do. Dogs, for better and for worse, can be trained, and also from their own motivations adapt to more situations and social groups. The cat will sit on the shelf and look at most groups like they are inferior idiots. I am not making some claim to free will in dogs, but I see them as more like humans in that they can adapt from both internal and external motivations. Cats will work with the proclivities they are born with. Now, one can say that dogs are working with proclivities they are born with which lead them to change and adapt more than cats and that’s fine. I am not making some ontological counter Darwinian claim. I am talking in practical day to day living with another creature terms. If you have a cat, get used to it. If you have a dog, you can negotiate over time an incredible range of activities, types of relations, games, behavior, goals and so on. Perhaps this is because cats are more lone hunters as opposed to pack dogs, who knows, and for this topic, who cares. But dogs, like children, will learn and adapt. They are more flexible because they deeply give a shit about what others think, want, do. Cats can take it or leave.
Of course I am generalizing, individual personalities will vary. But I agree with your questioning your treating a cat like a human child. They are not like human children, less like that than dogs, my example.
Perhaps your projecting your qualities on a dog, and that’s why it seems more humanly relatable to you. Your focusing on another aspect of personality present in you, that you’ve learned to find in dogs, because your dog like in your character. Woof Woof.
But, does this dominate the dog, or all dogs, or are they equally trainable and untrainable at birth, and we just focus on making them accept a range of “dog modes” not really native to their species, perhaps not even present, we just culturally project it on them. They have complex mammal brains too. The main difference between dogs and wolves is the capacity to tolerate humans. Its why the Coy-Wolf is glorishing in the US… it has that 10% dog DNA that allows a otherwise wolf/Coyote breed to tolerate humans and live on the outskirts of our city. They are very wild, very feral, don’t know how many, if any, have been trained.
Is it possible for a dog and a cat to be more than what we culturally limit them too? If I gave a kitten a GI Joe, could it grow up to become a soldier, or a puppy a Barbie doll, grow up to become a secretary? Are we not just assigning roles, limiting them to fixed ways, and they’ve adapted to accepting it in order to be fed? Food is fucking great, especially when it is just given to you. Yum yum yummie in the tummy.
With wolves and dingoes you ultimately take the risk of “The dingo took my baby”.
With all the homeless abandoned and cruelly treated animals, I would gladly choose a couple of these over wanting to take an animal from its natural habitat to train it, just for the entertainment of mindless human beings. It is no different than taking an elephant out of its habitat and putting it in a circus to perform for the dumb nuts.
Today people live in a ‘disposable’ society and unfortunately ignore the fact that “A dog is not just for Christmas but for life”.
So I’m mindless to saving the cat’s life?
Sure perhaps, though I don’t see many tracking see many seeing eye cats, epilepsy helper cats. I don’t see cats being used by police or military. Seach and rescue cats. Cats being used as herders. YOu know those dog shows where dogs run around and perform all those actions under control, I haven’t seen similar cat shows. I haven’t seen sled cats or hunter companion working cats. Water rescue cats. Cadavar search cats. Adn then the whole range of tricks.
Dogs can be trained to have all sorts of roles. I do not see house cats or cats in general being trainable in this way.
How we train dogs may have to do with our projections. THAT WE CAN train dogs to do so many different things has to do with dogs. THAT we cannot train cats like this has to do with cats.
And then anyone who has lived with them and not tried to do anything in particular with them knows they have different needs, interests, abilities, temperments that can be generalized across species.
Yes, we make them accept and they reach out and try to accept. WE could just try this with cats and if it would work we would have done it, but it doesnt work because they do not want to learn that shit. They do not want to adapt for us like this. They are not interested like dogs are.
Sure, of course.
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Yeah, try to use food to train a cat for the roles I mentioned. That cat will look at you like hey asshole you got the wrong animal are you fucking insane.
Of course we limit through our needs what we train dogs to be, but the fact that they are trainable says something about them. And just the way they relate says something about who they are. I have had, lived with, both species. And spent time with their wild counterparts. They are different. They have tendencies. I am sure some cats have been trained to do some amazing things. But in general they are not like dogs in that respect. I suspect it is because they are more loners as hunters and use invidual stealth often. Whereas dogs depend on each other and run down prey. But then I know female lions hunt together sometimes.
Let me tell you this: there is a reason why we can have large dogs in our homes and not large cats.
No, it is especially admirable given your circumstances, but
what will happen to the cat if you are forced to move and become homeless?
Only if you choose at some point to just throw it out in the street because you feel you can no longer take care of it.
At least try to find it a home.
I found Yoda out in the street when he was less than a month screeching and carrying on like a bird. It was only because of my interest in birds that made me stop to see what kind of a bird sounded like that. I eventually saw what it was making that commotion, spoke to him for a few minutes then walked away. I managed to walk one long block, feeling guilty then I just couldn’t do it. I turned back around and got him. He stopped screeching the moment I picked him up. I didn’t want to keep him but I wanted to bring him to an animal shelter. They wouldn’t take him in because I lived the next town over - not in that town. Imagine that. Then I was told I could bring him to a particular animal shelter, where, if he didn’t find a home, he would be put to sleep. Unfortunately that is the reality though it is sad and harsh to put a perfectly healthy beautiful kitten to sleep. I had no other choice, emotionally and psychologically speaking, but to keep him.
There have actually been times I’ve regretted it lol 
but the larger picture is that I’m glad I kept him. Seven months before I found him, I had to put the most wonderful cat, Georgie, in the world to sleep because he had kidney cancer. Believe it or not, that was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to do. I was a coward for more than two weeks. The vet told me that when the time came, I would know when it was time to put him to sleep, though I know the time had already passed. It was actually Georgie himself or my own projections which gave me the courage to do what I had to do - to step up in love.
Sometimes I will reflect on what would have become of Yoda had I not picked him off the street and taken him home. Would someone else have? Would he have gotten run over by a car as I sometimes see cats and kittens laying out in the street do? When I think of these things, I’m really glad he’s a part of our family even though at times he can be a bit feral but heh, it’s kind of nice having a wild animal in the home when he’s not being a little lamb. 
We actually can learn a lot about ourselves through our animal friends. Our childhood experiences can go a long way in teaching us empathy and compassion and in learning more about who we are and what drives us through the way we relate to them.
Trixie wrote:
Not unless he has learned how to pick locks. Now if he has crow’s blood in him, he might just find an open window and fly out (like any bird might) or just go out an open window like any cat might.
Intelligence is more about gathering in all of the information which you can and using it as a tool to solve a problem. Now we know that no cat can pick a lock, unless he has really long and sharp nails, so the next-best thing to do is to find another solution to getting out. Change the focus away from the lock - and being resourceful.
Cat’s are good at that too.
It will stay with her, it’s not mine. She has, way to many fucking cats, and I’ve been on the constant verge of running from this place for a while. Every once in a while, Ill step in something and just freak out, and so many of them run in herds from me. Unless I got food, then suddenly I’m their best friend in the whole damn world.
I really, really wasn’t a cat person before. I don’t do “poop” very well. If she diesthem while I’m still here, Ill try to get two adopted, but her family doesn’t want themhere, and she has a mortgage, so I would likely just leave the Backdoor open. If the go to the pound, most will be put to sleep, but if they run for it, good chance to survive in the nearby woods two blocks away. Half were strays to begin wife, and the mommy hissing my eyes get occasionally still when I walk in and one is hiding on a bookshelf doesn’t reassure me they’ve been tamed or are adoptable.
This isn’t my cat, it is hers. I just didn’t want it to die, it chose me. If something seeks out your protection, you don’t let it die scared. Not willingly, ethical contradictions aside.
A letter written to a newspaper.
I have had the unpleasant task of taking stray animals, to the vet to be put down, animals that will never have the opportunity, or are not cute enough to be adopted, or will always be passed over each time for the fluffy little kitten. I would always choose the oldest dog or cat, or the ugliest that no one wanted and see them blossom over the coming weeks and months.
It is far kinder to have them put down than live a life a trying to get enough food, to suffer sickness without the attention needed or be freezing in winter, if you can’t do that bring them to a shelter.
I know it is difficult and I remember each time I have had to do it, but looking back I did the right thing, for each particular case.
There doesn’t appear to be any quality of life for that cat without you.
I have no respect for people who neglect animals. (not you), I apologise for the berating sounding post, but I feel very strongly about this.
Animals cost a lot of money to feed and take proper care of, I have a few myself, but one has to remain realistic about each person’s limit of how many or none they can afford to have.
To just abandon the cat is similar to your childhood. No?
No, it’s similar to my adulthood. The main predator killing animals in Australia is you apparently. They don’t become a candidate for death just because you think you know better. Half these cats were stray before, if they are approached by a coyote, they have a 50-50 chance of eating the coyote. Crazy, wild pissing hissing oversized rats.
My area has a few cat communities, a few locals cage them, fix them, feed them year around. I don’t support mass murdering them, they keep the rat population down. It be really hard for a plague out great to happen here.
We don’t have the ecological issues with feral cats here like in Australia. Its a nice balance between rural and suburban here, on the outskirts of a few metropolitan areas. If some crack head feminist decided to walk around as the angel of death, killing cats out of her own self righteousness, they would be pelted with rocks by the elderly, and her tires would be slashed. They are pit to death when brought to the shelter, but can last years feral. Why in the fucking hell would anyone choose to purposely kill a cat when you can just release them?
If you have to get rid of your cat, and you have the choice between top if a mountain, or a animal shelter that kills cats, be respectful enough to choose mountain. Always choose mountain, they at least have a chance if survival. Apparently their top predator us crazy ass fucking liberals trying to lure them into their candy vans to be pit to death.
Seriously, Fuck Me. Your crazy. Go harass some bouncing wallabies and leave those poor kitties alone.
TF wrote:
U.S. Faces Growing Feral Cat Problem
Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News
You may have seen them wandering through parks or languishing behind restaurants. At first, these cats look domesticated. But they’re really wild animals.
Feral cats are the offspring of stray or abandoned household pets. Raised without human contact, they quickly revert to a wild state and form colonies wherever food and shelter are available.
Many city and county animal control agencies are mandated only to deal with dogs—not cats. So for decades feral cats have remained untouchable.
Some feline experts now estimate 70 million feral cats live in the United States, the consequence of little effort to control the population and of the cat’s ability to reproduce quickly.
The number concerns wildlife and ornithology organizations that believe these stealthy predators decimate bird populations and threaten public health. The organizations want the cats removed from the environment and taken to animal shelters, where they are often killed.
The preferred course of action if you can no longer keep your dog/cat is to find a new home for him/her, such as with family or friends. The next best option is to surrender your dog/cat to a pound, shelter or rescue organisation. However, as a last resort only, if you cannot find a new home for your animal, it is kinder to have a veterinarian put him/her to sleep (euthanase them), rather than dump or abandon your animals. If you are having an animal put to sleep it must be done humanely. A veterinary practitioner is best placed to do this.
Agriculture - Victorian State Government, Australia
Leave em be, regardless of the fact many can and do die of flea and worm infestation, but no matter they will get by, why?
because they are Homeless in the Land of Milk and Honey………. America, beautiful one day and perfect the next, isn’t that so?
Why don’t you get your head out of your ass.
Cats do rather well on their own, not a threat to livestock or humans like wild dogs are. Only two places in the US have feral dogs issues, Detroit and Ft. Benning, Georgia. Soldiers don’t like to sentence their dogs to death, and troops are loathed to shoot another soldiers dog, so there are feral pacts roaming Ft. Benning. You can hear them barking at night when out on training missions. They don’t harm humans, or vice versa.
As to birds, our population is doing well, overweight if anything. They are migrating less, because of the availability of food. Lots of fat birds around McDonald’s.
If anyone needs to be put to sleep, it’s the batshit looney liberals who absolutely feel it’s necessary to kill pets. Of you honestly can’t keep your cat, let it go. Its better than it being killed, or worst used in animal experimentation so shieldmaiden can have makeup, or harvested for insulin. If you love it, bring it to the woods, near a cat colony, give it it’s cushion, build a shelter, give it some food. If you can afford, get it chipped, you might be able to take care of it down the line if it is caught. No need to murder it for liberal metaphysics of righteousness. If given a choice between living and dying, I always choose living for those I love. I’m not going to execute a village of impoverished farmers just cause there is a drought, not going to kill a cat willingly just because of financial difficulties. Its one thing not to be able to pay the money upfront, but it us another to do it out of moral impoverishment. If your willing to make a bind with a animal, humanize it, you shouldn’t guarantee it’s death. It needs to live, it wants to live, for crying out loud, at least give it a chance to live.
Drop your cat off on top of a mountain, it is the right thing to do in desperate straights.
And my head isn’t up my ass, my fist is up yours. First you want to kill babies, now cats. Your maternal instinct is twisted. Give life a chance.
Came home today and the door was open. Couldn’t have been my ex this time, because she is dead.
I could a swore I locked the door when I left, maybe the cat figured out how to move the switch when I was gone. Gonna dead bolt it.
My cat may be a stray, but I can’t see it taking down a coyote. Either TF seems to have his head where the sun don’t shine, or I am a mega badass of epic proportions. As a matter of fact, I was thinking about getting some pet hyenas, and after that, a pet tiger.
Buy a Black & Decker Door Lock Installation kit. I don’t recommend getting anything other than a Schlage, the other brands take seconds to pop open. The money you save doing it yourself pays for the cost of a locksmith.
Walmart sells the item, but you’ll have to go to a nice hardware store to find the right deadbolt. Pick resistant means nothing, I’ve pucked them in pitch black no problems.