Nebraska City Ponders Cat Leash Law (AP)

[Liberal Classic]

In the interest of posting some other topic (any other topic) in Justice/Public Safety I am posting this here instead of Health/Social Policy.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/nation/8930672.htm?1c


LINCOLN, Neb. - If city officials get their way, cats roaming the streets here freely may be a thing of the past. Attorneys are drafting a cat-at-large law aimed at eliminating strays by requiring that cats be on leashes when not on their owners' property. Officials have cited both health and annoyance concerns.

No cases of rabies in cats has been reported in Lancaster County this year, but rabies in cats have been reported elsewhere in the state.

Cats are one of the most common, domestic transmitters of the deadly disease nationwide, said Jim Weverka, director of Animal Control.

...

Debbie Borner, vice president of the Cat House, wondered if the law would be practical.

"Have you ever tried to walk a cat?


Certianly rabies in stray pet populations is a public safety issue, but it seems to me that the same result could be achieved under existing law. Most municipalities already have licensing of pets, which require vaccination tags.

On the other hand I was outside having a beer when I saw a nice fat rat tiptoe down a telephone line...

[TexasMexican]

1. I'm against regulating cats or dogs.

If an animal is causing a problem then remove it or kill it, otherwise let them be.

We have a few animals in our household, 2 dogs, and a cat. We keep the dogs outdoors in the backyard, and our cat is an indoor and outdoor cat.

[Warpy]

2. keeping dogs restrained is necessary

because they're pack animals who will attack anyone outside the pack who trespasses on what they see as the pack's territory. The best way is in a fenced yard.

Cats are solitary and shy and no threat to non-cat intruders, although they can be hard on the songbird population.

However, for the cat's own safety, it should be kept indoors.

Anybody who mandates a leash laws for cats needs to try to break an adult cat to a leash. It can be done, but it aint easy. Likely that law is one of those "one size fits all" efforts by somebody who thinks all domestic animals should be treated equally despite their different natures.

The law is unenforceable. It aint gonna work.

[Liberal Classic]

13. A solitary stray dog does have the potential for harm

because a stray dog might attack. Packs of feral strays have the potential to do a lot of harm. Stray cats don't attack people, though I suppose a rabid cat might. Cats, on the other hand, do not hunt in packs the same way dogs to, they don't think they can take down much bigger game while running with the group as do dogs. This is what makes feral dog packs really dangerous.

Generally speaking, enforcement of vaccination and licensing laws are already poor. They do help, even with spotty compliance because vaccinations last longer than a year. I know a *lot* of pet owners who refuse to vaccinate their pets every single year, claiming that over vaccination can harm the health of their pet. I am not sure if this is true, but it seems to be the common perception.

[TexasMexican]

17. perhaps but so do humans.

I'm against rounding up and executing strays just because they are stray.

Yeah you can make the argument that a stray dog might attacks someone, but a homeless person could attack someone too.

We dont round up and execute people just because they are homeless. I dont see why we should do it to animals too.

[Liberal Classic]

18. Animals are not people

We dont round up and execute people just because they are homeless. I dont see why we should do it to animals too.

I'm sure I'm going to run afoul of an animal rights activist for saying this, but here goes. Putting aside the problem of mental illness and vagrancy, hobos and tramps are people. People have rights. Animals do not. Pets are property, but feral dogs and cats belong to no one and are a nuisance. It breaks my heart the number of dogs and cats which are destroyed every year, but the alternative of simply letting them run wild causes other problems such as the spread of disease to you and your pets.

Nothing in this post can be construed as being in favor of animal cruelty, which I am most certianly not. I support strong laws punishing neglect and abuse of animals. That having been said, if you have ever lived in an area with a bad stray pet problem you should be able to understand why they are a nuisance. I have been forced to take many stray cats to the pound to be put down who were torn up by tomcats or wild dogs. I'm sure some of them could make good pets, but a lot of them are too sick for that. The animal shelters can only keep so many animals at a time and they are always getting more. They are forced to destroy so many because the alternative is worse.

I have four cats and a dog, all rescues. I love them all, and hate to see any pet come to a bad end. However, just ignoring the problem only makes it worse. That's why I donate money to spay/neuter and vaccination programs and the SPCA. It's a drop in the bucket, but fewer sick feral cats around means that my cremepuffs can nose around outide without coming to grief.

[TexasMexican]

19. but people are animals.

If stray animals are causing a problem then I can understand doing something about them.

However if they are not I will not sentance them to death just because they exist.

[Liberal Classic]

11. I don't totally agree

The primary purpose of pet licensing ordinances is to require owners to get their animals vaccinated. Even though I have libertarian leanings, I believe that the transmission of disease is legitimate public safety concern.

I do feel it is unfair to single out cat owners, when there are plenty of other urban animals which can spread disease, such as rats, squirrels, and birds.

I also not think it is necessary to require cat owners leash or tether their cats in order to capture sick or diseased strays for destruction. I would think that all the city council needs to specify is un-tagged animals. Leashing of dogs is a response to agressive behavior which cats don't exhibit.

[saracat]

3. Stupid,stupid, stupid.

Have they ever tried taking their cat for a drag.Because that's what it is. This was not dreamt up by a cat owner!

[Wickerman]

4. I don't think cat leashes are constitutional

freedom of expression and all. You can't put that cat on a leash. Don't tie that cat down. Go cat go.

[TexasMexican]

5. RKBA

Right to keep and bear animals?

[Wickerman]

6. precisely

[Unperson 309]

7. Leash Training, Starting In Kittenhood, is a Snap!

In fact, tomorrow, we're taking the kitlet to a nice pet boutique to get her her first harness and leash.

I've never owned a cat that couldn't walk on a leash. Untrained adults, no way, they hate it, but if you simply start when they're young, it's very easy.

309

[TexasMexican]

8. So the poor animal...

will never know freedom outdoors?

[thatgemguy]

9. I have two cats

that are leash trained. I'm amazed when people comment when I'm walking my meezers and say that they have never seen a cat walk on a leash.

It does take some patience and training, and is something not every cat can manage. Two of my four siamese will walk on a leash, the other two want nothing to do with outside.

I don't believe any animal should be let outside unattended. It's not a thing a responsible pet owner would ever do.

[Liberal Classic]

16. I tried to leash train my kitten once

I could not handle all the pointing and laughing.

:cry:

[iverglas]

10. you made my teeth hurt

"No cases of rabies in cats has been reported in Lancaster County this year, but rabies in cats have been reported elsewhere in the state."

"Cases" is plural; "rabies" is singular. Aargh. Are there no copy editors??

(They were obviously one of the first things to go when Conrad Black bought out every newspaper in Canada. Despite his own penchant for high-falutin' lingo, articles in his publications seldom contained a complete sentence after that.)

I have four at the moment, cats, that is, and the ferals and strays who hang around. And the neighbours' cats who prefer my gardens.

Mine are outdoor cats, because they were all outdoor adult cats when they showed up, and trying to keep 3 adult males shut up in a house with a menopausal female (I'm talking about Bouchée the cat, not me) would be more than one's sanity could take. They're vaccinated and spayed/neutered, of course.

When my mother was growing up in the Depression in Toronto, her father, a wonderful kind man and a union activist to boot, drowned kittens. When she had to go to the butcher to ask for a bone for the non-existent dog so they'd have soup for supper, spaying a cat wasn't on the agenda, and feeding litter after litter of kittens wasn't either. After a couple of times, though, my grandfather just swore he wasn't doing it again, so I guess they were kept busy after that finding homes for kittens.

When I was growing up, we had a cat who had kittens a few times that we also couldn't cope with -- there are only so many catless, cat-wanting households in anyone's acquaintance -- and my father insisted she go to the pound. Spaying pets also wasn't a common practice among the lower income a few decades ago. My mother then put her own foot down and said never again, and we embarked on the next evolutionary stage of pet ownership, spaying and neutering.

Maybe the next generation will switch to indoors cat-keeping, as the next step in responsible pet ownership.

Pets are good things. In my neighbourhood, the Chinese-Canadian kids (the neighbourhood is heavily Chinese-Canadian) don't have pets; it isn't a cultural practice of their parents. When the neighbour kids were young, they developed relationships with the cats on the block, and that was a good thing. Relationships with animals are important in developing empathy, and people themselves benefit from them. My grandmother always had a cat until the day she died, still living alone in her house at 95. My mum has 2 indoor cats in her senior cits' apt. (one a rescued female feral who just lives under the bed most of the time, but who, it is agreed, is better off there than scrounging in my sister's suburb).

Our neighbourhood cats create and strengthen bonds among the neighbours, and any who might object to them have the sense to be quiet. The positives outweigh any negatives. And heck, the squirrels and pigeons do far more damage to gardens and roofs than the cats do to anything -- and my one neighbour and I did reach a meeting of minds on the wildlife feeding issue: she stopped feeding the pigeons who were ruining my new roof, and I switched the squirrels from peanuts to sunflower seeds so they didn't dig up her garden burying things. Mind you, I have sunflowers sprouting all over my garden ...

Anyhow, aggressive spay/neuter campaigns are by far the best way of dealing with any pet population problem. Here we have a public clinic where the surgery can be done for under $50. A sterilized animal both doesn't reproduce and is less likely to be a problem for itself or others if it's outdoors.

[Liberal Classic]

12. Good post

I think I made an incorrect statement above: rabies is a mammalian disease, but there are plenty of other dieases that are spread through birds.

I wholeheartedly agree that having animals are good for children in many ways.

I also agree that spay/neuter programs are good things, though I believe they are most effective at controlling diease when combined with vaccination programs and having an animal control department to destroy sick animals.

The humane society and the pound are depressing places for me, but I realize their existance helps keep my cats and dog healthier.

[iverglas]

14. vaccination of course

Theoretically, the humane society here will vaccinate my ferals if I can trap them. I haven't bothered. Trapping my squirrel-pox infected squirrel a few years ago, for treatment at the now closed local wildlife care centre, was a lengthy and annoying undertaking that put me off the idea. I should. Generally, if they're catchable, they're domesticatable, and we just let them move in and do the job ourselves. Not literally, of course.

Vaccination isn't covered by the at-cost city program here, and it certainly should be. The shots for a cat run over $100 at a vet. We have a desperate cost-cutting city council at the moment, so it ain't likely to happen.

I'd make spay/neuter the priority anyhow. Disease transmission is one of the effects of uncontrolled population, and particularly the population of free-ranging and aggressive males.

Cdns aren't as animal-dotty as Brits (one of the side effects of Black's take-over of dailies here was the sudden upsurge of dotty animal-lover stories, mostly reprinted from the Telegraph), but we have our moments:



http://www.occdsb.on.ca/~sel/cyberpal/cats.htm

http://www.etext.org/Poetry/Ygdrasil/Yphoto.htm
Photos of the cats of Parliament Hill



"Since the late 1970's there has been a refuge, past the Peace Tower on the Parliament Hill and overlooking the historic Ottawa river, though not a refuge for people, rather a place for stray, homeless cats. Shaped like two miniature Parliament buildings, the cat houses provide shelter for stray cats. Each house can hold about ten to twenty cats. Each cat has its own bowl which they eat from twice a day. Every two metres there are miniscule round-shaped windows which the adorable cats climb out of every morning, eager to be fed."

I'll bet there isn't a cathouse built onto the side of the Capitol Building (and maintained at public expense ... socialism for stray cats, no incentive to go catch mice) in DC. :P

[Liberal Classic]

15. The only reason I mentioned vaccination is in the article

The justification for the cat leash law seems to ostensibly be disease.

Your right of course that if the population is out of control, risks of spreading disease are greater.

And yes, Washington D.C.'s cathouses are different in kind.

:party: