Cats the perfect pets.

Oh I know all you dog lovers out there are yelling, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Rescued from a flea infested hovel, so infested with fleas he and his sister were anemic and dying. Now he is a Therapy Cat

Doesn't matter cause I am right.


People need to wake up and see the value of these beautiful animals.

They need to become responsible companions to cats.

The first thing is they need to see a cat as a sentient being.  A cat can and DOES feel pain.  A cat can and DOES feel fear.

Cats can be sad and depressed, they can be loving.

Cat's care for each other and their humans.

A cat that is treated like a member of the family will behave like a member of the family, just like a dog does.

Cats do not need to be walked every day, they can get all their exercise in a smaller space

They do however need medical care, they need vaccines, and they should be spayed or neutered until the over-population is under control, until there are only as many cats as can be cherished and treated with the love they so much deserve.  They need to be treated against fleas, mites and worms.  They need to be fed decent food.

Cats are not disposable beings, you can't and should not just throw them away, letting them figure out how to fend out in the big world.

Cats will give you their world if you give them yours.

Some say cats even have healing abilities, their purrs sends off an sonic healing pulse.

As some of you know, I foster cats for the Cat Rescue Network.  I try to do my part in reducing the unloved and unwanted suffering cat population in a way that does not kill them.  Sometimes my home is filled to overflowing with cats.  (have had up to 12 cats at a time 8 fosters, 4 of our own).  Stray cats brought into our home very rarely try to escape or go outside.  If they do go outside they plead to be let back in in a very short time.  They remember the harshness of the streets and don't want to go back to it.

There is a better way of controlling the cat overpopulation than euthanize them.

Pile of dead cats from a shelter waiting for disposal.

BACKGROUND ON THE ALLEY CAT PHENOMENON

 THERE ARE HUNDREDS, AND PERHAPS THOUSANDS, OF HOMELESS KITTENS AND CATS WITHIN OUR REGION.
 FORCED TO LIVE A MISERABLE, DANGEROUS EXISTENCE THEY BECOME HELPLESS VICTIMS OF THE COLD, DISEASE, ACCIDENTS AND CRUEL PREDATORS, INCLUDING HUMANS. FEW KITTENS SURVIVE THE WINTERS. ALLEY CATS ARE NOT DOMESTIC BUT NEITHER ARE THEY WILD; SO THERE IS NO FORMAL ORGANIZATION WITHIN OTTAWA WILLING TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEM. MANY CARING VOLUNTEERS PROVIDE WHATEVER HELP THEY CAN. SOME PROVIDE AN OCCASIONAL MEAL, OTHERS ALLOW THE CATS TO LIVE UNDER THEIR PORCHES OR IN RUDIMENTARY SHELTERS. HOWEVER, WHEN LEFT PRIMARILY ON THEIR OWN TO FORAGE, AND WITHOUT ACCESS TO VETERINARY CARE, THE DISMAL EXISTENCE OF MOST ALLEY CATS CAN BEST BE DESCRIBED AS A LINGERING DEATH.
 IN THE LAST FEW YEARS FERAL CATS HAVE BECOME THE FOCUS OF NUMEROUS STUDIES. THE ABUNDANCE OF INFORMATION ON THE ALLEY CAT PHENOMENON HAS REFUTED MANY PRECONCEIVED OPINIONS ABOUT THE ANIMALS. FOR EXAMPLE, ALLEY CATS ARE NOT VICIOUS, A HEALTH HAZARD OR A PRIMARY VECTOR SPECIES. ALLEY CATS ARE FURTIVE SCAVENGERS WHO TEND TO AVOID PEOPLE. AS SUCH THEY POSE MINIMAL RISK TO PUBLIC HEALTH. IN FACT, THEY HAVE HISTORICALLY BEEN RECOGNIZED AS BENEFICIAL BECAUSE THEY CONTROL VERMIN. MANY ADULT ALLEY CATS CAN BE DOMESTICATED BECAUSE THEY ONCE LIVED IN HOMES BEFORE THEY WERE LOST OR ABANDONED.
 THE MOST HUMANE, AND ULTIMATELY THE MOST SUCCESSFUL, WAY TO REDUCE THE NUMBERS OF ALLEY CATS IS THROUGH VARIATIONS OF THE TRAP-NEUTER-RETURN (TNR) METHOD. MANY FERAL CAT COLONY KEEPERS EXPAND TNR TO INCLUDE VACCINATION AND DOMESTICATION WHENEVER POSSIBLE. THE DOMESTICATED CATS ARE PLACED IN HOMES, AND THE WILDER CATS ARE CARED FOR IN MANAGED COLONIES. THE EXISTING CATS IN A COLONY WILL KEEP THE CAT NUMBERS DOWN BY CHASING AWAY MOST INTERLOPERS. THE COLONY SIZE REMAINS STABLE, AND EVEN SHRINKS BECAUSE IT'S MEMBERS ARE STERILIZED. CATS GRADUALLY LEARN TO TRUST THE COLONY KEEPER, A FACTOR WHICH PERMITS REGULAR VETERINARY CARE. (Louise Hindle of the Cat Rescue Network)

Fabian Smiling after his rescue

Dumped in a forest at no more than 5 weeks.

Haskem happy to have humans again.

When I come home from a long hard day at work, I have a few fur babies at the door, waiting for my return.  I say hello and a few say hello right back.

If I do something that one of them disagrees with they let me know, vocally.  They tell me when they are hungry and I am late feeding them.  When I am relaxing one or two of them will come lie on my lap or next to it and keep me company.  When I say "bedtime" a few of them run upstairs and wait for me on my bed.  Precious will sit on my bedside table and watch over me when I sleep.  There is nothing like seeing that look on the face of a rescued cat once they know they are not going back out on the street, once they know they have a safe haven. Yes some of them actually smile, looking at you with so much love...

My cat Trix will often come to me and sit on his hind paws, his front paws on the side of my legs, waiting, asking for some cuddling.

Valentine still lives with us, she is technically a foster, from Hungry and Homeless Cat Rescue.  She is still feral, but no longer wants to live on the streets.  She will not let us approach her and cuddle with her, nor will she even think of attacking us.  She plays with the other cats.  Loves the laser pointer and cat nip.  Come running to the kitchen when she hears a can being opened and talks to us with her eyes.

This is Valentine's story: - "My sister & I were born in October 2009 and we were known as the Tuxedo Twins, (she was Tuxedo-1 and I was Tuxedo-2). We were born outside in a feral colony. Our grandfather Socks, an old feral who was born and has lived out on the streets for 7 years, took us in the dead of winter to our foster's deck. He showed us that there was food, fresh unfrozen water and shelter there. We were a couple of months old at that time.
 We set up camp close to the feeding station and ate there regularly from that day on. Our granddad and other friends and family visited us regularly. We are scared of humans because they had never been nice to us before. However, we came to rely on our foster's food, and started to trust her more and more. I am the more timid one, but my sister ended up spending  Spring and Summer days lazing around the garden and laying beside our human. We got to know our feeder's cats, and they were always happy to play with us. As we grew up, my sister and I got pregnant one after the other.
 We found a place to live and have our babies. It was a hole that led us to a mould-infested filthy crawl space of an abandoned house. My sister had her babies first - three daughters: Summer, Solstice & Miracle. When our feeder found out that our hole to our home was going to be plugged up, and the abandoned house was going to be torn down by the business that owned it, she spent a lot of time stalking us and eventually caught us to save us. I went to a new foster home that day. They were very nice and petted me and fed me. That was my first contact and being touched by a human. Two days later, I gave birth to my four sweet babies....

What would I like>  I would like that is not be possible to own a pet unless you passed certain criteria, and then only be allowed to adopt a spayed or neutered animal.  Puppies and kittens would then not be adoptable until they were at least 6 months old.

To be able to breed animals, you would need to apply for a special permit to be allowed to adopt an unspayed or neutered animal, and very strict controls would be put on you.

Maybe in some future world.  There would probably be underground puppy and kitten mills, but so many less unwanted and unloved animals.

I have no much more to say but I'll leave it at that for now.

Thanks for reading.