I'm kinda upset about something.

[stevekl]

Hi. I'm a strange combination of a gun-nut that's never been hunting and never will. I don't have a problem with hunting, however, and I won't give anyone a hard time for shooting a deer or a squirrel or a duck or anything like that.

I'm upset because once in a while on these forums (and others) I read posts like "shooting stray cats" or "putting down the stray dog in the backyard". I'm upset because some people like to shoot common domestic animals.

Maybe i'm just misunderstanding the definition of 'dog' or 'cat', but why would you ever need to shoot a non-rabid cat or dog?

I can' t think of a single reason why a cat or a dog could bother you, your home, your family, or your property. If anything, they'll hide from you. How do you know they're not property of someone else? How would you feel if one of your dogs got loose, or if one of your outdoor cats wandered onto someone's property and they shot them, and then posted about it on the internet?

I guess what i'm saying is, shoot squirrels and wild rabbits and stuff on your property, but there's no good reason to shoot what could possibly be someone's pet.

Am I just missing the point here? I hope I am, I hope by "cat" they mean mountain bobcat or "dog" they mean fox. Or something.

 

[formerflyer]

Like you I'm more of a shooter than a hunter, but I do have experience with events that would cause me to dispatch a dog or cat roaming my neighborhood. I'll give you two concrete examples that occurred in the last two years.

My neighbor across the street owns a mixed breed (Pit-bull/Great Dane) dog that weighs upwards of 90 lbs, is very fast, territorial and aggressive. It has "nipped" at one neighbor child (left visible marks but didn't break the skin) and killed one cat on one of the many occasions that it got loose. These breakouts were a semiweekly occurrence. The neighbor has an invisible fences that requires a shock collar to restrain the dog when it approaches the boundary of the yard, and their live-at-home 20-something daughter "doesn't like it when the dog has to wear the collar all the time" according to the mother, and so would routinely take the collar off and forget to lock the dog in the back yard.

After the second time in 2 months that I pulled her dog off of my cat, I brought the dog back with the request that they do something about the situation. With a look of helpless exasperation the mother said she just didn't know what to do. With my best boardroom style smiling-but-serious expression, I told her that I sincerely hoped she would figure something out because I did not relish the idea of shooting her dog the next time it attacked my cat. She looked at me, silently, for quite a long time, and the expression on her face was quite a study. She finally said quietly that she'd see that it didn't happen again. There were no further incidents of the dog leaving the yard. As with most antisocial behavior, correcting the problem simply required an appropriate understanding of the of the consequences, along with a firm belief that they would, in fact, be imposed.

Our neighborhood has developed a feral or stray cat problem over the last few years, as we are on the edge of town and near a large farming/undeveloped area where folks began dumping unwanted pets. There was one very large and feisty uncut Tomcat that had knocked the stuffing out of several of the house cats in the area, and it was too smart to be captured on those occasions when the county animal control office set traps. It put my cat, plus three neighbor cats that I know of, into the vet's office for body and fender work (my bill was over $400). The vet commented that the wounds were very severe for cat-on-cat fighting. After confirming that nobody in the neighborhood owned the cat, I took remedial action. One pellet from my old but powerful RWS pellet rifle, properly placed, finished up our problem.

I am not advocating shooting neighborhood pets for sport or enjoyment, nor am I suggesting that this kind of thing happens very often. But there are times, and circumstances under which dispatching a dog or cat in your neighborhood is not an antisocial or predatory action, when it is both proper and justified by the events.

 

[c_yeager]

As far as stray cats are concerned the problem is that they play hell with the local wildlife. They are a non-indiginous predator and they can wipe out entire populations of birds and rodents that are a vital part of an areas natural balance.

Im not sure about dogs though.

 

[Dave McCracken]

When young,I had to shoot feral dogs that were killing livestock.More recently, some ferals were attacking deer on a friend's hunting leases. One attacked a friend who tracked a doe he had shot with an arrow and arrived at the scene as the dogs were feeding on her before she was quite dead. There's less ferals there now.

Killing for killing's sake is wrong. Sometimes, predators have to be removed from an area to maintain the balance or minimize a threat. Killing a feral German Shepherd living in the wrong place is like taking out a Copperhead in the back yard.

 

[hillbilly]

House cats that go feral, or that get dumped by their owners, are absolute death on small animals and birds.

They will kill simply for the pleasure of killing........and people like to think that it's only those nasty, evil humans that do such things.

Feral house cats need to be whacked.

Same for feral dogs.

Where I live, city people routinely dump unwanted dogs.

My neighbors and I have to deal with them.

hillbilly

 

[trapperjohn]

hillbilly:
I have seen some feral cats in the ONF up hwy 59. Do you encounter many feral cats in your neck of the woods? Do you know if there is much of a problem with feral dogs forming packs in our area? Not to many years ago a kid was killed by a pack around weddington.

Because of the devastating affect on local wildlife by feral cats and dogs my policy is to cap them, not because I am sadistic, but because i see myself as a conservationist working to conserve our natural wildlife. feral animals are incredibly damging to it and should be eliminated.

 

[hillbilly]

I don't encounter as many feral cats as I did when I first moved out here.

Bang....

As for dogs, with my own pack of three dogs, the feral dogs usually steer clear.

I've had one pack of ferals try to set up shop on my property, but the dogs and I chased them away.

I never actually fired at them, but I did have a gun and the dogs and I did pursue them hotly and they got the messge.

I see the ferals and the newly dumped dogs out on the dirt roads all the time.

Up and down the road, every one knows which dogs belong to which house, so it's easy to tell which ones don't belong.

hillbilly

 

[NoBite]

Stevekl, I share your feelings about wanton killing. I do, however, have three indoor/outdoor cats that I love. There are an assortment of deadly diseases that can occur as a result of two cats tangling, especially if one cat is feral (no shots). We've had family pets killed as a result.

Thus, I have a loaded BB gun by the back door. If, after several exposures to BB pellets, an aggressive feral cat comes back, the loaded .22 comes out.

That being said, I see lots of stray cats and dogs that never bother us. They might get the BB gun treatment to convince them to keep on moving, but I do not simply go out and kill 'em!

 

[CannibalCrowley]

stevekl

How do you know they're not property of someone else?

Most of the time one doesn't know for sure until afterwards, and that's only if the animal was tagged. If the animal was someone's pet, then they should have taken better care of it. A lot of people let their animals roam free because they either don't know, or don't care that their animal is a danger to both people and the environment.

My grandparents had a problem with a neighbor who owned a rotts, and only after we killed a couple did they decide to keep them in their own yard. At the time my youngest brother was four and he shouldn't have to be kept inside just because someone is careless with a pet.

 

[joab]

I'm a strange combination of a gun-nut that's never been hunting and never will

First off gun ownership and hunting are not mutually inclusive 2A is not about hunting so there is no irony.

I have commented on many of the threads you talk about. My only problem with them is that they invariably bring out the antifreeze and "gut shoot them and let them bleed out" crowd, and those that just plain like killing and cats are an easy target.
Cats are nasty animals when they go feral. That sweet lovable Garfield at home is a vicious long range predator when it is away. They are also vectors for many diseases.The fact that their owners cannot keep their animals in check does not mean that other people should have to be subjected to the risks that these animals pose.

Feral dogs will pack and revert back to their primal instincts very quickly, with one exception they don't reclaim the natural fear of man that helps to protect us from other wild animals.

30 years ago the small towns outside of Orlando developed a feral dog problem. A few people were attacked, one woman was horribly mauled while riding bike with her children. In another incident a young boy was being attacked by a pack, his older brother was killed trying to help and so was the younger boy.

I came across this same pack the day before, about 2 blocks from the attack. They were about 20 dogs ranging from scruffy 10lb mutts to well groomed Shepards, Labs and one beautiful Pit.

In response to the attacks the county took very decisive and aggressive action against the packs and irresponsible owners and the problem ended quickly.

Outlying areas don't get that kind of response and many counties these days are reluctant to violate the "rights" of anmal owners. And many parents are not willing to be that last straw incident that does incite the county to action.

 

[Bigjake]

Cats and Dogs

I don't care if its a pet or a feral, if you love your pet kitty, keep it indoors or on your land. If for no other reason than to be respectful of other peoples property.

Feral dogs are toast, but domestics get a bit more slack from me simply because they don't tear stuff up or kill things for no reason (usualy)

 

[ojibweindian]

Why would I have to shoot a domesticated pet?

Easy. I live in the country. Lot's of "city folk" like to take Puddles, the incontinent pooch, for a one-way trip to my neck of the woods. Puddles, after a period of time, will go wild, get rabies, try to eat my cats, fight with my Emily (a Boxer) or whatever.

So, in order to protect MY RESPONSIBLY CARED-FOR pets, Puddles gets whacked.

 

[halvey]

Thus, I have a loaded BB gun by the back door. If, after several exposures to BB pellets, an aggressive feral cat comes back, the loaded .22 comes out.

That's my policy. After a couple hits, most cats/dogs figure out not to come back.

 

[Brian Williams]

I can' t think of a single reason why a cat or a dog could bother you, your home, your family, or your property. If anything, they'll hide from you. How do you know they're not property of someone else

This is kind of like the DEM/REP idea a Liberal is a Conservative who has not been mugged. Have you done any research or been in the woods where a couple of feral "Domestic" house kitties have been loose??? There is no small game including predators like foxes. Feral cats and dogs will clean out an area faster than you think.

Besides it is a cat not a human being, It might have nerves but I will never be persuaded that a cat or dog or any other animal has anything other than natural instincts and trained behavior, i.e. litter box training. If I shoot it, it is because it needed to go away, not for spite...

 

[JohnKSa]

Feral animals:

Spread disease. Feline Leukemia and Feline Aids would virtually disappear overnight if we could eliminate all the feral cats.

Encourage and spread parasites. Ever wonder how your dog gets fleas in your back yard when there are no neighbors with pets?

Are not afraid of humans. When a big dog or pack of dogs get hungry, a human is just protein. Especially small humans.

Destroy natural wildlife. Typical of animals introduced into an ecosystem not their own.

Are a nuisance and health hazard to humans. Do your kids have a sandbox? Does your wife have a planter on the porch? Nuff said...

 

[Nathanael_Greene]

Even in areas with fairly active animal control officers to round up the strays, the brutal truth is that most animals that go to shelters end up being killed anyway.

Sorry to say it, but literally millions of unwanted dogs and cats are put to death every year in this country.

 

[Stand_Watie]

I'll add to the discussion that a well placed bullet is the kindest act that any feral dog or cat is likely to experience.

Of every 100 feral dogs and cats that you see, I'll bet 99 of them die painful, frequently slow, deaths. Of even the animals that are picked up by the animal control people, many if not the majority, are euthanized, after a great deal more pain, fear and suffering than if they'd just been shot while blissfully unaware.

 

[mustanger98]

This thread is reminding me of an article Sheriff Jim Wilson wrote in Shooting Times. The main focus of the article was "ranch rifles" which are rifles deemed handy for everyday work as a truck/saddle gun. One aspect he covered was that country people as much as anybody can sometimes sit around and discuss feral dog/cat problems and philosifize about the best way to handle the problem. But, you take dogs- who don't have a clue why they were unwanted- who have formed packs, and when they're running your goats, cows, or horses through the fence, you make a lot better use of a good rifle in a hurry than you can any philosophy. It's not that you want to kill the feral dogs, but rather that you don't want them killing your stock.

 

[Art Eatman]

stevekl, this is a short-version repeat: Some years back the state of Wisconsin's game department did a survey of feral cats vs. songbirds.

It was estimated that one feral cat kills and eats maybe 100 songbirds per year. The estimated feral cat population of Wisconsin is approximately one million (1,000,000).

Even if they're off by a factor of ten (one order of magnitude), it's still a lot of dead songbirds killed by a non-native animal.

Even in my desert wilderness, I'll cut slack for any dog with a collar. However, if I see several collarless dogs, they're dead. And, I like the native quail and rabbits a lot more than I like wild, feral cats.

Feral cats and dogs ARE NOT PETS!

Art

 

[Harve Curry]

There are feral people who turn loose dogs and cats who then become feral. It makes me sick to have to shoot a dog because the feral owner refuses to keep the animal in his yard and it is about to run my horses through the fence.
My dogs no the boundary without a fence. They like it in the yard and are not comfortable out of the yard. I taught them that.

 

[jeffsig220]

feral/stray cats/dogs

people drop off cats all the time near my place. i live in a very secluded rural area and the location is great for drop offs. i've spent hundreds of dollars on vet bills for our cats that have been torn up by strays. i had one orange tom that messed up my male cat(who is fixed and does not look for trouble). it was very ellusive and would not go into a live trap even when baited with tuna. it took me about 3 weeks to get a shot at him with the shotgun. about $300 later,my cats were safe again. i've offed about 6 others since then. one has to protect his family/pets as well as the checkbook.

 

[FullClip]

Sounds like a lot of folks have the same problem I do with the wild cats. There were a bunch of them around when I moved in to my place 20 years ago. Most of them seemed to live under the vacant camps around the area, left behind by some summer folks and multiplied.
Have thinned out the population substantially. Not something I enjoy, but they are not a natural part of the food chain in the woods. Every partridge chick or rabbit they kill is one less for me, or for a fox, bobcat, fisher, or other natural preditor.
Haven't had any dog problems, but the coyotes are moving in fast. They're a lot smarter than the cats so I haven't done much to decrease thier numbers.

 

[mustanger98]

Coyotes eat foxes and ferel dogs/cats. If feed's not showing up outside town, the coyotes will go into town and chase down pets.

 

[Bigjake]

about $300 later,my cats were safe again.

Lota shotgun shells!

 

[jimbo]

Shooting a human being is murder, other than self-defense or war.

Shooting an animal, is just that. I don't much feel bad about any animal being shot, beyond exercising common sense.

I especially like cats. Shooting feral cats that are the grandkittens of Mr. Kitty is OK with me if they are infesting and dominating an area. Shooting your neighbor's favorite horse to test your newest Elk load is not so good.

Use common sense, I don't care if folks shoot feral cats & dogs or dangerous strays.