Owning a cat can be lots of fun.  Generally speaking cats are highly social animals that thrive on human attention.  If you don't own a cat or have not had much interaction with them you might think otherwise.  For a long time I had thought I was not a "cat person".   While I certainly did not dislike cats I did not take the time to learn about them or their personalities.  I have always been a dog lover and found watching dogs give chase when they encountered their smaller four legged furry arch enemies amusing.

About seventeen years ago my ambivalence of these creatures changed when we adopted our first cat Jasper.  He was my girlfriend's at the time pet who we adopted as a young kitten.  He is responsible for revamping my concept of what a cat really is which I now consider to be a breed of self indulgent incredibly smart and funny acrobats.  They typically spend their days playing, investigating, eating and sleeping and in my experience seem to be very happy.  Jasper taught me that cats do interact and enjoy interacting with people.  As a matter of fact the problem with Jasper was that he wanted to play all the time.  At the time I was still a smoker and was at first was amused how Jasper liked to play with cigarettes and then somewhat astonished when we started playing fetch with them.  We also learned when we needed a break from his antics we could get some reprieve from strategically tossing cigarettes into places where he needed all his talents to retrieve them, like into a giant pile of shoes in the closet.  No matter how long it took he would always come back with the prize.

Over the years my appreciation of them as a species has grown and several years ago I became aware of the plight of the ferals'.  Without going too much into the feral situation I realized that these animals were ill-fated misunderstood domestic animals that because of circumstances were forced to survive in unbearable harsh conditions their entire lives.  Having to find scraps in garbage for food, being chased and harassed by people and surviving brutal winters without shelter and water, these animals were given a challenge to survive that is often impossible to beat.  They are by nature frightened of humans for the reason this is trained by their mother as a survival instinct.  It was the realization that these animals desperately need help that prompted me to become involved with feral cat rescue.  These animals are trapped, sterilized, medically treated and vaccinated by a veterinarian and then returned to their colonies.  Typically they are fed, cared for and receive a properly constructed hutch for them to live in.  I personally have trapped a good number of the cats in my area and have had them fixed, medically evaluated and treated, vaccinated and returned them to their territory to continue their lives.  I now have a colony that lives in my yard in a heated house that I built for them.  I receive satisfaction from caring for these animals that I had not expected.

My feeling is that cats make great pets.  They are easy to care for and the attention they require does not involve a great deal of effort.  The reward that is received from having these wonderful creatures exceeds the costs of caring for them.  If you have never thought about owning a cat and making it a pet then I would highly recommend that you do.  Not only will you be repaid from the joy that these animals bring to life but you can take great satisfaction in knowing that you have helped a species in need.  It is estimated that in America between six to eleven million cats and dogs are killed in shelters each year because of the inability to find homes for them all.  Encourage trap, neuter and release as the preferred method of cat population control and adopt from a shelter near you today.

 

One female cat can, in five years, be responsible for 20,000 descendants and many of these must inevitably become homeless, with a life that offers only misery, hunger and disease.
 

LongIslandAnimals 2004