My husband got one of them when they charged our front door and the neighbor got the other when it charged him after killing his pocket dog. it's why I'm so hesitant to even build a catio and I hate that my cats do without because of my fear.
I hate to bug someone else's thread but I didn't like to leave this unchallenged. I absolutely disagree. Killing dogs who kill cats is like killing cats who kill mice. The owners should be heavily penalized for letting their dogs run loose but I don't think the dogs should be killed.
This started because I was trying to explain why it's so hard for me to conceptualize putting my cats on a harness and taking them for walks or building a catio. These were huge dogs with aggression issues running loose daily. I may not like my SIL but I would never wish her children to be mauled by one of these dogs and we seen it as no different than taking out the 5 foot rattlesnake that took up residence on the corner of our property where school children get on and off the bus. I've posted plenty of times that I think cat owners should keep their cats on their property. And with that I am done with this.
That's good they have a lot of ear.
Sorry, sorry, the OP doesn't want to discuss this. . .but just let me say, NO. Just NO. I have a coonhound mix and a Husky mix, both very prey-driven breeds, and I have no intention of killing my dogs, thank you. Almost all dog breeds were bred to kill something, so we would have to kill almost all dogs. Tbh, I didn't expect this kind of thing from you---you usually seem to have respect for animal life.
We've converted each window into a type of sanctuary for the cats. The banter between the cats and the birds is hilarious. The resident birds will land an inch from the cats nose and sass them. I had to stop filling the hanging bird feeders we were getting flocks of scavenger birds that drove off the songbirds and some of the rarer species. They were also pack rat and skunk magnets from the spilled seed. Until we hit sub zero weather I usually have one window I can open for at least an hour every day of the winter.
The window on my storm door becomes lizard watch in the summer months. I think doing the best you can with what you have. My cats seem happy. If you're like me you find little ways to provide enrichment when you can.
I used to have an aviary going on in my back yard and then the price of bird seed went up and we just kept buying it and then it really got expensive in the middle of winter and we had to keep feeding all those hungry mouths. We now have a bird food budget. A lot of the birds left when they had to start landing on the window mesh to get the seed cakes.
They've filled the cheaper bird foods with milo which the birds don't really seem to like so it was getting tossed on the ground attracting less picky vermin. I don't really have much of a beef with things like skunks or even coyotes. When the newbies here killed off every coyote they could find instead of making more secure pens the jackrabbit population exploded. We had someone with peacocks who got so bent over a hawk getting one of his chicks ( uncovered pen ) he shot all the hawks he could find. So then we had a flying rat problem. Someone shot all the skunks instead of cleaning up their trash and we had rattlesnakes show up. Thankfully as of now no one has decided to shoot my turkey buzzards.
Yeah, a lot of "ours" did, too. Sad. My ex started with putting up feeders and suet baskets when we were in the Mojave, and I just kept it going when we split up and I moved here. It's been a real pleasure for my cats and me. Sorry to have to discontinue it after the same scenario as with your birds. Everything goes up and up except what we get to pay for it.
