How smart is your dog/cat?

[toppop52]

Cat lovers will not admit their cute fluffy loving animals are killers of everything small enough for them to hunt. They will even ignore studies and video evidence.Emotion wins over logic once again.

No, personal experience wins over illogical nonsense, every time. Feral cats are the issue, not pets, as a rule. Of course there are rogues in any species, dogs being far more dangerous than cats. When I was a kid in northeastern NC, there were several wild dog packs, they killed farm animals, rabbits, deer and threatened people, especially farmers and hunters. That was the only time I broke my rule of only kill what gets eaten. I've never seen a pack of wild domestic cats gang up on a hunter in the woods, but I have seen both dogs and hogs do just that. And I've owned many dogs in my life.

 

[toppop52]

I do have issues with irresponsible pet owners in general.

You got it!

 

[Looking4new]

I am well aware that my furry little creature with a leg in each corner is a killer. That is one of the many reasons I keep cats. When I first moved here, the house and outbuildings were overrun with mice, chipmunks, and squirrels. Now 20 years later there are no mice in the house and the chipmunks and squirrels are down at the outbuildings where they belong.
I also keep chickens, for their eggs. Chicken feed attracts mice, chipmunks and squirrels as well as the chickens themselves attracting other animals. The cats keep them at bay.

And while we are on the subject, two of the neighbours dogs have come into my property (not at the same time as in pack mentality) and killed a total of 26 of my chickens. The first one, the neighbour paid me for the chickens (2). The other one killed 24 chickens before I caught it. This was the second and last time that dog killed any chickens. The first time this dog did the deed I couldn't catch it, but the second time it was having so much fun that it forgot the way into the pen and I caught it....End of dog. The owner of this dog wouldn't pay for the chickens the dog killed and wouldn't help clean up the mess, either.

Now, my dog protects the chickens by barking its head off when anything comes on the property that she feels is not welcome here. She got tangled up with a Porcupine last summer. I'll bet she will keep her distance if she meets one again.

As for studies and video evidence and statistics, I don't give a rats behind about them. Statistics/studies can be bent in whatever direction the one ordering the study wants.

As for emotion, my cats are way more loyal to me than any human has ever been and they NEVER stab me in the back, steal my stuff or beg money off me with no intentions of paying it back.

I will continue to keep cats as long as I am able to look after them. After that, there are plans in my will for the cats to be looked after.

 

[DieselnHooters]

Outdoor cats seem to be the last craze of environmental loons.

Humans are a much more harmful to wildlife no doubt, the question is by what multiple....a million times?...a billion times or more ?

Why not focus on that?

Too bad this thread has soured to this point but I could see it coming

 

[rsallen]

Outdoor cats seem to be the last craze of environmental loons. unquote

Huh? What are you to talking about?
That some people would like it that cats are controlled by their owners and caretakers or are you suggesting that somehow you think that because someone else would prefer to have and attract birds or other wildlife that your right to have a free roaming pet somehow supersedes someone else's right for where their interests may lay?
Maybe they just don't like finding scat in the flower bed, and so now they become an environmental loon?

In this part of the woods a cat had better be smart, live at home or it doesn't live long.
If the road doesn't get it, if the hawks or owls don't swoop down on it, or if a coyote doesn't have it for a snack then it' it 'may have' a long and happy life; that is if one of my dogs don't make short order of them for no other reason then they live on the same planet.

I'm happy not to have cats hanging about for reasons of my own.
Why would that make me a some environmental loon?

 

[buickanddeere]

Emotional denial that cats are the main threat to endangered small animals and birds. Just check YouTube for the Nature of Things and their video evidence of cats killing.

 

[rsallen]

Has everyone got their dislike or likes of either dogs or cats existence out of the way yet?
If so............

Can we get back to dogs or cats 'thinking outside' of the box, ie. Smart?

 

[2LaneCruzer]

My neighbor told me his dog was so smart, that he could tell time. I said "I know". He said "How did you know?" I said "My dog told me!".

 

[toppop52]

Emotional denial that cats are the main threat to endangered small animals and birds. Just check YouTube for the Nature of Things and their video evidence of cats killing.

The fact that you think your belief based on your chosen "proof", somehow makes you smarter or right in some manner, is delusional.

 

[Bird]

Come on guys, enough quarreling. It's not going to change anyone's mind.