It Is Very Quiet In His Little World (About our New Deaf Kitten)

[Cassidy]

48. Thank you for not letting your cats roam

I have always thought it was cruel for pet owners to let their pets wander for all of the reasons you state. In addition, in the U.S. roaming cats kill 2.4 billion birds every year (estimate from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service).

We have found 3 dead songbirds already this spring because our neighbors let their cats roam outside. (It is not natural causes when you find the headless body of a finch under the feeder and you regularly see the same cats leaping at the birds.) We chase the cats out of our yard every time we see them, but they keep returning. None of them wear collars, so we don't know whose cats they are, and we can't directly ask their irresponsible owners to keep them off our bird-friendly property. Incidentally, our yard is completely fenced with layers of plastic netting around the tall wooden fence to try to prevent cats and dogs from digging under or squeezing through. Still, they get in.

If any of you cat owners know how the rest of us can keep your pets from making killing fields out of our yards, we would welcome your advice. Also, for those of you who let your cats roam, what could a person like me say that might convince you to do otherwise? Can you begin to understand our frustration? Can you understand why such a free-roaming cat might end up at the Humane society?