General > General Technical Chat
Is a "Fly swatter" circuit appropriate for a cat?
Electroplated:
My cat has a habit of plucking the carpets, the solution I found to work was make a scratching post and pad from similar carpet off cuts and entice the bugger near it with tasty treats, it may take some time and effort though.
My cat also has other ' interesting ' habits that I could not deal with so I got a big dog, he costs more than a cat but does less damage around the house.
Other peoples cats that encroach on my property are dealt with by the dog and a water pistol, these are the only things that seem to work, legally.
However, many years ago I had one tom that used to come in if the door was open and stink the house out, first trial anti cat device used cut up pipes strung along the fences on steel wires, all that did was stop the dam thing escaping so I removed the pipes and just made a small 'stinger' circuit, the fed a pair of steel wires, that worked, a few encounters with it and the cat never came back, neither did the window cleaner who used to use his ladder to enter my garden by climbing over the fence, he sent his old man around to tell me I was a nut case and had to find another window cleaner.
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CatalinaWOW:
--- Quote from: paulca on November 14, 2022, 10:12:14 am ---
--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on November 14, 2022, 09:44:08 am ---I know that cats will be cats. I am speaking to the owners of cats. They are the ones creating the situation by allowing/forcing the animal to live in an situation not balanced by the rules of tooth and claw. In a natural environment an animal that over hints it's range starved. The problem is self correcting. But a pet cat goes home and eats and continues hunting. This general concept extends to many other cat behaviors.
--- End quote ---
That's all very well, but we don't really get the blame for cats. Dogs yes, we bred them into domestication (although first we bred them for work). Cats came along for the ride themselves. Self-domesticating.
The explanations are varied. Most believe it was when humans began to cultivate, farm and therefore store food. You store food you attract vermin. Birds and mice and other small critters. Cats seen an opportunity. Hang around the humans it's a win, win, cats get food, humans get pest control. The relationship has been functioning that way for 1000s of years. I don't think you can really call them domestic though. Maybe purely "house" cats, but I'm fairly sure the instinct to survive out there in the wild still exists in most of them. Dogs... not so much. They have been bred far and away from their natural form. They have been heavily domesticed and stand very little chance out in the wild.
A lot of the small innocent little critters would not be there if humans had not moved in and brought their food stores, scraps, bins. So the "natural" balance is skewed anyway.
--- End quote ---
Typical cat owner response. I have no responsibility.
If you live on a farm and the cats moved in without your aid I mostly support this answer. I have farm living relatives that have this happen all the time. Also happens with dogs. Seems that urban and suburban people find a need to let their critters run free and act naturally (and not eat so much food, do so much damage and require so much cleaning up afterwards.) These relatives do find benefit from these animals in pest control, protection from predators (wild and human) and so regularly take these critters in and help them with food and shelter. They do cull the crowd from time to time when the numbers become overwhelming. They try to do it by finding adoption agencies and the lot, but when the problem overwhelms those options other solutions happen.
But if you are suburban or urban and adopted or bought a cat and then turn it out of the house at night you are to blame. You have assumed responsibility for the animal, and that includes knowing the innate behaviors of that animal. Your actions are why those innate behaviors are occurring in a given location and time.
Do you think that if I owned an elephant and then turned it loose into the neighborhood to do what elephants do naturally that I would have no responsibility for the damage caused by that animal. Of course not. Same thing with a tiger. If you own a tiger and turn it out at night I can guarantee that you better have a good lawyer and deep pockets. The fact that a housecat does much smaller scale damage does not mean it is inconsequential. Even housecats can have truly severe impact on people with extreme allergies or susceptibility to cat born illnesses.
paulca:
So naturally cats avoid suburban and urban areas. Right. I have never seen a feral cat anywhere.
Everyone draws a line with nature. Everyone. We all kill millions and millions of life forms a day. Some people stop at flies and bugs. Some people stop at rodents. The fact of the mater is most of those things we kill are a threat to us. We don't see any harm in that.
Rats and mice spread FAR more pathogens than cats. And without cats they are far harder and far more dangerous to get rid of. Usually involving poison and chemicals.
PlainName:
--- Quote ---Rats and mice spread FAR more pathogens than cats. And without cats they are far harder and far more dangerous to get rid of.
--- End quote ---
In theory. We had a rat infestation (air brick got holed and they got under the floorboards and eventually chewed through some wiring, plunging the place into darkness). Really very difficult to get rid of them, but we did it with rat poison. Similarly, another lot (perhaps the same ones) turned up in the chicken palace due to the free food, and the only way to get rid of those was poison.
OTOH, the cats bring in kills and leave entrails around, typically just where you're going to walk before being fully awake. Sometimes they can't be bothered to eat the thing and leave half or more of it spread around. I'm fairly sure not having to clean that up would be less risk disease-wise!
Cats no doubt keep the rodent population down, but they're not a sure-fire solution. We have lots of cats around here (no problem with someone's cat shitting on someone elses lawn because their cats just do it back) but I still see huge rats in the ditches and drainage outlets sometimes.
Fred27:
I would never advocate cruelty to animals. However, cats are evil little douchebags and deserve everything they get.
In fact, I find it odd that anyone who like animals can like domestic cats too. You just have to see them torturing rodents for fun or aimlessly killing birds to realise that they're a huge net negative in the natural world.
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