Nothing new here. Less desirable kitties have become important rodent hunting 'barn cats' as long as I can remember. The problem is they tend not to discriminate prey, and decimate already hurting bird populations.
The real unspoken issue here is overpopulation, please spay and nuter your pets! /rip bob
The study for the amount of birds they eat made a lot of assumptions so there's doubt on whether it's actually accurate or not. I do agree on the spay / neuter, though. Also it's news because these are cats shelters generally kill
I'd believe it, cats have the urge to hunt whether there are mice to be hunted or not. We had one particularly ferocious hunter who would go after chipmunks, birds, and snakes after the barn was clear of mice.
No, my wife studies dogs (but wants to study cats) and her friends were talking about how that paper was a big impediment to getting better policies regarding feral cats so sadly I don't have the references in front of me.
Edit: if I remember a large part of the problem they had with it is that it's very very hard to estimate the number of feral cats and also how many birds they eat in a scientifically accurate way.
RAPS located in the suburb of Richmond, which is an odd urban, farming, industrial fusion of a municipality, and a perfect mix sort of environment for feral cat colonies to go unnoticed. They trap lots of feral cats, and over time some times some of these feral cats chill out enough that they're only semi-feral and can be a good fit for living on farms and killing rats.
They also have all sorts of other unadoptable cats that would be killed at any normal shelter. Some times this is due to high aggression, problem urination, special needs or some disease such as FIV (HIV but for cats).
Yeah at RAPs the FIV+ cats have their own little closed off zone. RAPS will potentially let people adopt them if they promise that they'll be inside cats.
FIV+ cats can live ok with other cats so long as they don't fight. The disease is spread from cats exchanging blood through fights, so from my understanding it's mostly a feral male cat disease.
(I adopted a FIV+ cat from RAPS so that's why I'm a bit familiar with the RAPS setup)
Adopted a very loving FIV+ cat that lived way longer than the shelter said he would. Adopting him was one of the best decisions I ever made. He never went outside, but he never showed one hint at ever wanting to go out. He went from feral cat to comfy spoiled house cat.
I picked up a stray (ok, so she jumped in the car) took her to the vet for the eye crusties found out she was unadoptable due to FIV+ they said they could put her down, or I could keep her indoors and she would just have a shorter than average life, six or seven years if she was lucky... that was 14 years ago and and is still doing fine.
Has no interest in going outside, ceilings are too tall out there for her, suspect that is why she jumped in the car in the first place
Well, yes. They're predators. That's what cats are for.
When I kept a horse at the Stanford barn, we always had a few barn cats. The cat people tended to overfeed them, so they wouldn't hunt much. Arrangements were made with the people who catch feral cats at Stanford to exchange the fat cats for some lean, aggressive ones they couldn't place in homes. Worked out fine. Soon, they'd cleared the barn, and started hunting further out until they'd cleared the whole area.
Working cats should be fed about half the food they need, so they have to hunt, says an old British G.P.O. manual.
I'd recommend keeping an eye on the cats' body condition.
Domesticated cats are surprisingly efficient hunters, but if mice are too scared/scarce or the cats depress their population, there's only so much the cats can catch.
On the other hands most cats should get about half as much food as they currently do, but that's another story.
I really don't know. You certainly don't want to give "working cats" a daily diet they go nuts for.
On the other hand, I don't think food is their main motivation for hunting, anyway. They just enjoy it so much.
To me it seems the hunting drive in dogs and cats has no relation to their dietary needs. Another example is that escaped ferrets are able to bring down prey, but don't hunt enough to survive.
I grew up in the sticks. We had cats, but not specifically for keeping mice out of a barn. They were pets.
The character of the cat seems to be the key thing. One cat would spend all day hunting. She was a killing machine. She had no need for food, just really liked killing things. Also, a pretty sweet cat, unless you were carrying milk. Then she'd bite your ankle.
Perhaps she was just an outlier. But, uh, if you believe in the 10x programmer, trust me. There are also 10x hunter cats.
Behavior problems in dogs are all about training. Behavior problems in cats are mostly about environment, and virtually never about training.
A cat really is a mirror of its environment. Most problems arise from pent up energy, group dynamics, clueless Humans, bad toilet placement (yes cat toilet makes the cat happy, as a German saying goes).
Lots of space, hunting activity, ability to choose contact at will and a well structured habitat makes such cats a lot more well regulated.
As someone who has dedicated years of behavior modification training a rescue dog with genetic fear aggression (actual clinical diagnosis), I wish we'd get away from the "there's no bad dog, only bad dog owners" dogma. I'd agree with you that the majority of behavioral problems with dogs can be removed or mitigated with training. However, dogs as with all other species have their temperament spread a long a distribution - and the outliers rarely survive their first 2 years, and those how find the right owners who can provide the right training and management still will never live a normal household dog life.
People working at shelters can be rather obnoxious. They are willing to sacrifice a lot for improving an animals welfare, and can't understand if someone isn't willing to upend their lives for a totally miserable relationship to a new pet.
Rescueing animals should not be about making people miserable.
I call BS on that "diagnosis" (and I'm a Veterinarian btw). That being said, there is such a thing as a dog whose behavioral problems are insurmountable. I just don't want to ascribe it to genetics or anything else specific in any individual dog.
If training doesn't seem to work, the only option is medication. Especially if fear is supposed to be a factor. I don't know what you tried and I don't want to judge because I believe every owner loves their animals, no matter what.
>> I believe every owner loves their animals, no matter what.
I have run into a couple situations where this was not the case. We had an incident in Vancouver with a dogsled company (Whistler, post-olympics). Dogs owned for commercial purposes are often not "loved". Similarly, fighting dogs. There are many people in this world for whom dogs are not pets but a source of revenue, status, or fashion.
Even those people tend to love their animals more often than not. I've seen farmers being affectionate to their cows or their pigs. I knew a poultry professor who kills chicken all the time but seems to cuddle them when people aren't looking.
My presumption has proven relatively useful in dealing with owners. Even loving an animal doesn't preclude abuse, though.
I agree that knowing the accuracy of the diagnosis is hard - it was established by the Behavior Service at the Veterinary Hospital of UC Davis by small animal behavior specialists. Our dog is on medication now (SSRI), and I would say the primary help is not a direct effect on behavior, but improved results of the behavior modification (presumably due to lower stress levels). In the end, we're fighting behavior that does not seem rooted in any specific experience or medical condition, so genetics does not seem far fetched. Please feel free to chime in if you have ideas.
A dog's parents, grandparents, and all ancestors for the last n hundred years may have been selected for their ability to grab something and shake it until it's neck breaks.
This isn't the fault of the dog, but also not always fixable by training.
My point is that behavior problems in dogs are addressed through training (successfully), and problems with cats are most successfully addressed through modification of the environment. Both can benefit from medication, and cats do respond to training.
"My cat from hell" is an eye opener in that regard.
I never heard it as a saying, I know it as song of comedian(Helge Schneider),i don't know if he is the origin of this phrase or if he derived it from a saying
One of the local breweries in my city partnered with a local animal shelter to do something similar. They're the happiest cats that never want want to meet you. (they are all spay/chipped/collared/vaccinated and get yearly checkups)
I used to work with a cat and I was quite amazed at his contribution to software development. This cat lived a few hundred yards away from the office and there were multiple gates and doors for him to get through. Often he would start work before anyone else, often he would want to work late. He chose my desk rather than the sixty or so others to work at. He was very adept at using a mouse, however, this would not be like how most 'people' use a mouse. Essentially he would stretch out, see the mouse move on the screen, then reposition himself so the mouse would move again. It looked like he was moving the mouse properly but he was just reacting to his own actions. Quite incredible to see a cat 'using' a computer like so, engaged with the screen and convincingly moving the mouse.
His contributions to software development were many. One thing this cat worked out that no Apple/Microsoft/Ubuntu software engineer managed to notice was that repeatedly holding down the 'Print Screen' button would permanently immobilise a computer, making a reboot required. Try it for yourself - the multitude of dialog boxes builds up and makes the computer not usable. This is also the case if the computer is locked, on Ubuntu (and maybe Windows) the dialog box still pops up on pressing 'Print Screen' at the login prompt.
I would say that the H.R. department also liked the cat as on any tour given to a new employee the introductions would be made. At least one of my colleagues joined the company because they liked the cat friendly working environment. So he was definitely a hit for recruitment and retaining employees.
There certainly was no rodent problem but I was on the side of the mice and have prised his jaws open on a few occasions to let some terrified creature escape to die from shock a short while later.
To get to the office this cat would take a stroll through an artist's studio. One time he arrived covered in pink, orange and grey paint. He had ruined a painting that was due to be sent to a posh gallery in New York. As it turned out a lot of people wanted to buy that particular painting as it had been 'improved' by the cat, so it sold for an absolute fortune, unlike the rest of the collection. The paint lasted quite a long time on him as it was oil based. This was one of many legendary stories concerning this hard working cat, he also stowed away on a boat and went missing for a fortnight, eventually making his way back home all by himself.
His actual owners had a fireplace showroom as part of their building business, so this cat chose our office over his own 'workplace' where he had a dozen or so fireplaces to sprawl out in front of. Needless to say he did a good job of selling the fireplace lifestyle to people too.
I think there were a good half dozen or so elderly ladies that he would check up on so another of his roles was as a care worker. Without his visits they would have not had as much exercise and contact with 'people', they would let him in but shun human 'care workers' so he did take his care work seriously.
This cat did have actual staff, so the handyman would go to a posh supermarket to buy fresh king size Icelandic prawns for him on a daily basis. If the prawns were a day old then he would turn his nose up and dine out on mice.
As for his hunting skills, his agility was a mix of Houdini and those oriental style martial art films. His breaking and entering skills were tantamount to magic. He could also move mid-air in a way that defied physics, making 90 degree turns mid-leap. He defended his territory and as well as keeping the vermin down he would teach dogs who was boss. Once he broke up a fight between two dogs giving both of them bloody noses, intervening where no human dared.
He also made timely entrances in company meetings, once when the boss was called to the front this cat decided that he should spring forward and beat him to the stage. This had everyone in hysterics.
Well, the cat happens to be extremely photogenic and a lot of time was spent taking pictures of him. So maybe a calendar? With a legendary tale that is based on a true story, mildly embellished, every month, proceeds going to the local animal rescue charity. There is talk of that.
HUGE cat lover here. Dogs are great too but a lot of work. No point to make, just a fun anecdote:
Growing up in the country, some of my earliest memories are of my older brother, my little sister, and me sneaking down to the barn to discover new kittens, and excitedly telling our mother.
Cue weeks of sneaking down and snatching fat little kittens and carrying them around loving them.
Plus, they would hunt and keep mice out of the barn. Useful AND adorable.
The problem is not so much these shelter cats which are hunting vermin. The real issue is normal domestic cats where the owner does not care or belief that their fur child is a supreme bird killer. Even when well fed.
Have one of them purring at my legs. He loves walking outside and catching birds, mice, etc.. but he will have to play inside instead. He gets out, but not often alone.
I understand not everybody can take care of their cat like that, but it would help if people kept their cat in when there's young birds outside.
I do not remember the title of a sci-fi book I read that mentioned in passing that many spaceships had ship cats to manage rodents, just like sailing ships. It wasn't a feature of the story, just part of the tapestry.
I'm about to eat the equivalent of a cat for lunch (Ok, probably a 1/3 of a cat). Just kill them and use a breed that's nice to humans and kills mice.
Why would you want a shitty cat in your life? They are shitty as it is. Pretty sure the peer review articles conclusively show dogs increase happiness better.
I also doubt they are more efficient than poisons and traps.
And of course they massacre hundreds of native animals, yes human urban environments are not natural.
But still seeing the occasional native lizards, mammals and birds gives me much more pleasure than your shitty cat in my yard which I can't even pat, at least with a dog I get my endorphin rush when I pat it.
I think its interesting we have acceptance of this basic hunting behaviour, and belief it works, and we have simultaneously denial that cats cause an overwhelming majority of bird deaths in economies where cats are only an introduced species. By denial I mean both the wider 'we're in denial about this' and the specific 'oh... not my cat' response.
Pet cats, feral cats, both. Mainly now, feral cats because we (Australia) have a huge self-sustaining population of them. The numbers are calculated into the millions of surplus bird and lizard and small marsupial/mouse deaths per year (native mice btw, not european mice or rats).
I like cats. I was a cat owner. I grew up with cats. Cats are amazing. They also are wrecking fragile ecologies.
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[ 0.24 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadThe real unspoken issue here is overpopulation, please spay and nuter your pets! /rip bob
A good idea is to put a little bell on free roaming cats. The mice are still probably going to make themselves scarce.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Barker
Any link to reputable/scientific doubts on this? All my Google Fu churns up in reiterations of the popular narrative.
Edit: if I remember a large part of the problem they had with it is that it's very very hard to estimate the number of feral cats and also how many birds they eat in a scientifically accurate way.
RAPS located in the suburb of Richmond, which is an odd urban, farming, industrial fusion of a municipality, and a perfect mix sort of environment for feral cat colonies to go unnoticed. They trap lots of feral cats, and over time some times some of these feral cats chill out enough that they're only semi-feral and can be a good fit for living on farms and killing rats.
They also have all sorts of other unadoptable cats that would be killed at any normal shelter. Some times this is due to high aggression, problem urination, special needs or some disease such as FIV (HIV but for cats).
FIV+ cats can live ok with other cats so long as they don't fight. The disease is spread from cats exchanging blood through fights, so from my understanding it's mostly a feral male cat disease.
(I adopted a FIV+ cat from RAPS so that's why I'm a bit familiar with the RAPS setup)
When I kept a horse at the Stanford barn, we always had a few barn cats. The cat people tended to overfeed them, so they wouldn't hunt much. Arrangements were made with the people who catch feral cats at Stanford to exchange the fat cats for some lean, aggressive ones they couldn't place in homes. Worked out fine. Soon, they'd cleared the barn, and started hunting further out until they'd cleared the whole area.
Working cats should be fed about half the food they need, so they have to hunt, says an old British G.P.O. manual.
Domesticated cats are surprisingly efficient hunters, but if mice are too scared/scarce or the cats depress their population, there's only so much the cats can catch.
On the other hands most cats should get about half as much food as they currently do, but that's another story.
On the other hand, I don't think food is their main motivation for hunting, anyway. They just enjoy it so much.
To me it seems the hunting drive in dogs and cats has no relation to their dietary needs. Another example is that escaped ferrets are able to bring down prey, but don't hunt enough to survive.
I grew up in the sticks. We had cats, but not specifically for keeping mice out of a barn. They were pets.
The character of the cat seems to be the key thing. One cat would spend all day hunting. She was a killing machine. She had no need for food, just really liked killing things. Also, a pretty sweet cat, unless you were carrying milk. Then she'd bite your ankle.
Perhaps she was just an outlier. But, uh, if you believe in the 10x programmer, trust me. There are also 10x hunter cats.
A cat really is a mirror of its environment. Most problems arise from pent up energy, group dynamics, clueless Humans, bad toilet placement (yes cat toilet makes the cat happy, as a German saying goes).
Lots of space, hunting activity, ability to choose contact at will and a well structured habitat makes such cats a lot more well regulated.
Your dog is not bad, and its owner (you) are also not bad.
Now, if you took your dog, who you know to have behavior issues to a home and locked him in with some kids...then you are now the bad owner.
You are smart and caring enough (thank you!!) to recognize and properly handle your dog.
Your dog is not bad, he is just a dog.
The worst thing is that many people are fucking awful to other people who return a dog to a shelter when it doesn't work out.
Rescueing animals should not be about making people miserable.
If training doesn't seem to work, the only option is medication. Especially if fear is supposed to be a factor. I don't know what you tried and I don't want to judge because I believe every owner loves their animals, no matter what.
I have run into a couple situations where this was not the case. We had an incident in Vancouver with a dogsled company (Whistler, post-olympics). Dogs owned for commercial purposes are often not "loved". Similarly, fighting dogs. There are many people in this world for whom dogs are not pets but a source of revenue, status, or fashion.
My presumption has proven relatively useful in dealing with owners. Even loving an animal doesn't preclude abuse, though.
This isn't the fault of the dog, but also not always fixable by training.
"My cat from hell" is an eye opener in that regard.
wat?
What's the saying in German, and does it have an idiomatic meaning?
https://translate.google.com/translate?u=https%3A%2F%2Fde.wi...
It is not all together surprising to me that the original article is only there in German ;-)
His contributions to software development were many. One thing this cat worked out that no Apple/Microsoft/Ubuntu software engineer managed to notice was that repeatedly holding down the 'Print Screen' button would permanently immobilise a computer, making a reboot required. Try it for yourself - the multitude of dialog boxes builds up and makes the computer not usable. This is also the case if the computer is locked, on Ubuntu (and maybe Windows) the dialog box still pops up on pressing 'Print Screen' at the login prompt.
I would say that the H.R. department also liked the cat as on any tour given to a new employee the introductions would be made. At least one of my colleagues joined the company because they liked the cat friendly working environment. So he was definitely a hit for recruitment and retaining employees.
There certainly was no rodent problem but I was on the side of the mice and have prised his jaws open on a few occasions to let some terrified creature escape to die from shock a short while later.
To get to the office this cat would take a stroll through an artist's studio. One time he arrived covered in pink, orange and grey paint. He had ruined a painting that was due to be sent to a posh gallery in New York. As it turned out a lot of people wanted to buy that particular painting as it had been 'improved' by the cat, so it sold for an absolute fortune, unlike the rest of the collection. The paint lasted quite a long time on him as it was oil based. This was one of many legendary stories concerning this hard working cat, he also stowed away on a boat and went missing for a fortnight, eventually making his way back home all by himself.
His actual owners had a fireplace showroom as part of their building business, so this cat chose our office over his own 'workplace' where he had a dozen or so fireplaces to sprawl out in front of. Needless to say he did a good job of selling the fireplace lifestyle to people too.
I think there were a good half dozen or so elderly ladies that he would check up on so another of his roles was as a care worker. Without his visits they would have not had as much exercise and contact with 'people', they would let him in but shun human 'care workers' so he did take his care work seriously.
This cat did have actual staff, so the handyman would go to a posh supermarket to buy fresh king size Icelandic prawns for him on a daily basis. If the prawns were a day old then he would turn his nose up and dine out on mice.
As for his hunting skills, his agility was a mix of Houdini and those oriental style martial art films. His breaking and entering skills were tantamount to magic. He could also move mid-air in a way that defied physics, making 90 degree turns mid-leap. He defended his territory and as well as keeping the vermin down he would teach dogs who was boss. Once he broke up a fight between two dogs giving both of them bloody noses, intervening where no human dared.
He also made timely entrances in company meetings, once when the boss was called to the front this cat decided that he should spring forward and beat him to the stage. This had everyone in hysterics.
In North London there is a s...
Growing up in the country, some of my earliest memories are of my older brother, my little sister, and me sneaking down to the barn to discover new kittens, and excitedly telling our mother.
Cue weeks of sneaking down and snatching fat little kittens and carrying them around loving them.
Plus, they would hunt and keep mice out of the barn. Useful AND adorable.
Have one of them purring at my legs. He loves walking outside and catching birds, mice, etc.. but he will have to play inside instead. He gets out, but not often alone.
I understand not everybody can take care of their cat like that, but it would help if people kept their cat in when there's young birds outside.
I'm about to eat the equivalent of a cat for lunch (Ok, probably a 1/3 of a cat). Just kill them and use a breed that's nice to humans and kills mice.
Why would you want a shitty cat in your life? They are shitty as it is. Pretty sure the peer review articles conclusively show dogs increase happiness better.
I also doubt they are more efficient than poisons and traps.
And of course they massacre hundreds of native animals, yes human urban environments are not natural.
But still seeing the occasional native lizards, mammals and birds gives me much more pleasure than your shitty cat in my yard which I can't even pat, at least with a dog I get my endorphin rush when I pat it.
Pet cats, feral cats, both. Mainly now, feral cats because we (Australia) have a huge self-sustaining population of them. The numbers are calculated into the millions of surplus bird and lizard and small marsupial/mouse deaths per year (native mice btw, not european mice or rats).
I like cats. I was a cat owner. I grew up with cats. Cats are amazing. They also are wrecking fragile ecologies.