Letters to the Editor
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we've got one like that too!
Dear Cary,
our cat Maggie is also very aggressive.
Do NOT waste your money on a cat behaviorist, we consulted two and spent over $1000. All it was good for was a void in our bank account and Maggie is still vicious.
I think yours was not properly socialized. Meaning that he didn't learn normal behavior from his mother and therefore does not know that you are the number one cat.
Same happened to Maggie ... She was in a pet store alone in a large cage.
Our cats don't know how to behave properly because no one (another cat) told them.
So, my advise to you is, take charge and show him who is boss.
Tell your visitors to come prepared (boots and long pants) and just simply ignore him. Have a toy ready for distraction shall he try to attack.
As far as the vet is concerned, just avoid taking him there. You will know if something is wrong with your cat if you pay attention. Maybe you can even give him an exam once in a while. Maggie gets crazed by the vet also and no one wants her back. Consequently I check her myself (no shots, but if they don't go outside what good is it anyway). She lets me take temperature, check ears and teeth and her belly. I can administer pills if needed and bathe a foot if she is insured (she stepped into a glass splinter from knocking down a glass vase and also declawed her thumb while attacking my husband).
So you see your cats problem isn't so rare.
Nevertheless, we love Maggie dearly and wouldn't want her gone. She is eight years old this summer ...
One other thing, he might have a chemical imbalance and kitty Prozac might be helpful. Just an idea ...
Good luck with Oliver.
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Chickadee, I don't know why you are getting your knickers in a twist . . .
when my post was addressed to Anonymous and not you. How else am I supposed to address someone who is using Anonymous? You are mistaken if you think I have any objections to people posting as Anonymous, although it does get confusing when there are several people using Anonymous to post. People can use Anonymous to post all they like as far as I am concerned. However, I do get amused at some people who obviously shift in the same thread from their Salon nick to Anonymous and back again in a rather childish eagerness to boost their points of view.
I always post as AKA Smith and won't be posting as Anonymous unless I have something more sensitive and delicate to post. Somehow "Kill the cat!" seems neither sensitive or delicate.
I don't post in my own name because I sometimes use anecdote to make my point and I wish to maintain my privacy and freedom to do so. You are chickadee WHO?
And how did you get mixed up and think I was addressing you?
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Well...
Your letter may have been directed elsewhere, but your points are that cats are happier outdoors than in, which I don't believe is necessarily true based on my own experiences, that birds are diseased and as dangerous to other birds and to humans as outdoor cats are, which is patently false, and that people shouldn't post anonymously when most of us, including you, are posting anonymously. Based on the strong feelings many of us have about this topic, I can appreciate why "Anonymous" is keeping his/her identity even more secret than the rest of us.
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And further more my little chickadee,
I actually knew a man who died of toxoplasmosis. He was a meter reader for a gas company and was not around any cats or sandboxes. His doctors speculated that he got the disease from touching bird shit while he was reading meters.
About sandboxes, I have two words for you: Sandbox covers.
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According to the CDC
How do people get toxoplasmosis?
A Toxoplasma infection occurs by:
* Accidentally swallowing cat feces from a Toxoplasma-infected cat that is shedding the organism in its feces. This might happen if you were to accidentally touch your hands to your mouth after gardening, cleaning a cat's litter box, or touching anything that has come into contact with cat feces. Eating contaminated raw or partly cooked meat, especially pork, lamb, or venison; by touching your hands to your mouth after handling undercooked meat.
* Contaminating food with knives, utensils, cutting boards and other foods that have had contact with raw meat.
* Drinking water contaminated with Toxoplasma.
* Receiving an infected organ transplant or blood transfusion, though this is rare.
From http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dpd/parasites/toxoplasmosis/factsht_toxoplasmosis.htm
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You must be a Republican chickadee, or else
your literacy skills must be on par with Bush. You seem to think repeating a lie makes it so. Nowhere in anything I have posted in this thread or any other thread here have I said anything against people posting anonymously. Why are you so strangely sensitive on that point?
Maybe you just don't understand the difference between anonymous and pseudonymous. You keep going back and forth, so to speak. LOL! Soooo transparent!
Before you reply again, why don't you try reading what I have posted. If that is too hard for you, begin with "My Pet Goat."
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Here is a link how bird feces spreads disease to humans:
http://www.azwns.com/Healthrisk.htm
It is from a site about controlling bird pests to prevent disease.
The simple truth is that you, chickadee (and the "troll" who accompanies you) are not the least bit interested in helping the LW find a solution for the cat that allows the LW to keep the cat, make the cat into a good pet, and maybe even come to love the cat.
This thread is full of stories about people who came to love their aggressive or irritating pets and some who actually learned how to improve the pet's behavior.
You and your buddy, who is sooo very much like you have (has) only one solution repeated like a mantra over and over which is, effectively, "Kill the cat!"
I happen to live in a neighborhood where many people let their cats run free. They also let their rabbits run free. Some, of whom I don't approve, let their dogs run free with not so much as a leash. Since it is a low crime area, their kids also run free. You know something strange? Most people and animals here seem pretty happy.
Is it PERFECT. No. But it's not bad.
The simple truth is that you (and your joined-at-the-hip buddy) are birdlovers and not cat lovers. Go back to the LW's letter to Cary. The LW did not ask "How can I keep my cat from killing birds?" That is not the subject of this thread. The subject is the LW's cat.
You have your own particular agenda and you do not have the LW's interests at heart at all. Instead, you want to make the world do your social engineering via killing.
Others at least are sensitive enough to the issue to want "euthanasia" only as a last resort.
You know, I live in a death penalty state. They do social engineering via lethal injection. You would probably approve.