What to do with people that murder pets?

[Hungry81]

You'd trap a cat in the street in front of somebody elses house?

No, I would set a non lethal trap in my backyard and not harm whatever it caught, but I am not sure that's even legal here. (Might catch a possum or other native animal instead of a cat)

But on that ill back off now and continue the conversation later if you wish.

For the record I hope the bastard gets caught before he harms another pet.

 

[Akri]

I think that what you may find with dogs as opposed to cats is that there may be multiple reasons for giving dogs less liberty. Dog attacks on adults and children are fairly common; cat attacks on humans less so. Cats don't usually wear muzzles for the same reason. All in all it is really not that surprising and no need to think of it as a "double standard". Cats and dogs are different.

True; I hadn't really been thinking about that aspect. I've been scratched by cats more than I've been bit by dogs, so I tend to forget that dogs are technically more dangerous.

 

[Rolfe]

Cats almost never run up to you while you're minding your own business and scratch you for the hell of it, though.

Rolfe.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

I'm thinking people that bring violence the other direction for kicks ought to be removed from society too.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Travis]

Out of interest, do you include people who hunt in that? Trophy hunters in particular.

Sure.

No. Of course, I also don't tell husbands to microchip their wives in case they get lost, or tell parents to have their daughters sterilized in order to prevent unwanted litters.

So now that we've gotten that silliness out of the way, do you actually have a rational response to my post?

I'm curious why you find this silly?

It's almost as if people don't consider cats and humans to be equivalent for some reason. I wonder why that is?

Beats me.

Imagine that you sunning yourself on the front lawn of the place you live in and someone comes along and puts a bullet in you. And nobody cares because you were just a cat!

Yeah, we do treat them differently and I've never understood why. If I ran the zoo people that murder animals for fun would be treated exactly the same as a person that kills people for fun.

Exactly the same.

Other than "because it makes me angry" (which I completely sympathize with) what reason do you have for this? Is there any reason beyond your own personal feelings? And if not, do you really think that's a good basis for law?

Because they are living things with their own personalities and feelings. Often they are superior in their personalities to people. I've known way more pets that I like than actual humans.

Humans, in general, are pretty terrible. Cats, on the other hand, are usually pretty awesome.

And what about dogs? Should dogs be able to live like that as well?

I would really like to know why we have this double standard.

When you are walking down the street and see a stray cat do you reconsider continuing to walk that way the same way you would if there was a dog there?

Stray dogs have attacked me several times in my life. Stray cat attacks still stand at zero.

I'm sorry you lost your cat, Travis. I have a cat I dearly love, and I completely understand how you feel. It's disgusting that someone would do this.

Thank you. It is nice to know some people think putting bullets into cats in front of someone's house is a horrible thing.

Sounds good to me.

Glad we agree.

 

[Crossbow]

As some of you know over the weekend my beloved cat, Simon, was shot and killed by savages unknown. It is currently a matter of investigation by law enforcement.

While I was in the process of burying the single most affectionate cat I ever had the pleasure of knowing someone brought up the idea that we should put humans down that do bad things to animals (yes this cat made many friends and so there was a bit of crowd when I put him into the earth). It was meant to be a statement of emotion in the moment but the more I though about it the more I realized we should take these things more seriously.

I mean imagine the kind of human being that shoots a defenseless house cat that only ever wanted to get more cuddles out of people? Is that a person you really want in our society?

We put down dogs that bite people. I'm thinking people that bring violence the other direction for kicks ought to be removed from society too.

I fail to understand how someone who supports a stupid and unnecessary war which has killed at least tens of thousands of human beings is at the same time wants the person who killed his pet to be imprisioned.

 

[Akri]

I'm curious why you find this silly?

Because cats are not humans. Saying we shouldn't do something to a cat because we wouldn't do it with a woman is ridiculous. We do all kinds of things with cats that we don't do with women. Like made medical decisions for them without their consent, or decide who they should be allowed to breed with (if we decide to allow them to breed), or, y'know, owning them.

Beats me.

Really? You don't see a difference between a cat and a person? Do you consider cat ownership to be slavery, then? Do you think cats should be allowed to vote?

Or are you selectively choosing when to equivocate between cats and humans based solely on when it works for your argument?

Imagine that you sunning yourself on the front lawn of the place you live in and someone comes along and puts a bullet in you. And nobody cares because you were just a cat!

Except that isn't what welshdean said at all. Saying that ten years is an excessive punishment is not the same thing as saying the crime doesn't matter because the victim was just a cat.

Yeah, we do treat them differently and I've never understood why.

Because they're not humans. Things which are different get treated differently. We also don't expect them to obey laws about jaywalking, or to pay taxes. Equivocating between cats and humans is ridiculous. If there's a reason why we shouldn't do a certain thing to cats, then that argument needs to be based on something other than "because we wouldn't do it to a human."

If I ran the zoo people that murder animals for fun would be treated exactly the same as a person that kills people for fun.

Exactly the same.

If you ran a zoo, wouldn't you be the equivalent of a slave owner? Or, again, does the equivalency between humans and other animals only apply when it supports your argument?

Because they are living things with their own personalities and feelings. Often they are superior in their personalities to people. I've known way more pets that I like than actual humans.

But why ten years? Why that figure? Is that the minimum of time necessary to rehabilitate an animal killer? Is there any objective reasoning behind that number?

And why isn't "get evaluated by a psychiatrist" part of your proposed punishment for animal killers? Isn't harming animals usually a sign of some kind of mental illness?

Humans, in general, are pretty terrible. Cats, on the other hand, are usually pretty awesome.

That depends on who you ask, and thus isn't a good basis for laws.

Thank you. It is nice to know some people think putting bullets into cats in front of someone's house is a horrible thing.

Be honest: did you start this thread to have a discussion about animal cruelty and what should be done about it, or because you wanted people to validate your rage?

 

[DreadNiK]

I haven't been able to read this whole thread but I have often worried myself what would happen if I witnessed some sort of horrible animal cruelty, especially to one of my own pets. I'm pretty sure if someone maliciously killed my cat in front of me, I would lose my **** and there is a good chance that, respective fighting abilities and weapons available at the time depending, I would kill them in response. I would not want to then go to prison for this - but I presume I couldn't make a 'temporary loss of control' defence that would do anything other than mitigate the sentence or the charge?

Less sure what my response would be if I didn't witness it myself and didn't know who was responsible, but a large part of me would be wanting to find out who was responsible, and probably due to time passing be able to restrain myself to giving them a severe beating or some sort of permanent injury.

Lots of grey areas and lots of different scenarios to consider here but in principle I'm with Travis

 

[DreadNiK]

Oh and if I would be given immunity from prosecution, I would happily murder AA Gill. (google AA Gill Baboon if you aren't familiar with this barely human scumbag)

 

[ponderingturtle]

Well I'm not advocating the death penalty.

I'm just saying that people that kill animals for fun should maybe be locked up for a very long time. Or put on a list of people to keep an eye on.

So all hunters?

 

[Akri]

I haven't been able to read this whole thread but I have often worried myself what would happen if I witnessed some sort of horrible animal cruelty, especially to one of my own pets. I'm pretty sure if someone maliciously killed my cat in front of me, I would lose my **** and there is a good chance that, respective fighting abilities and weapons available at the time depending, I would kill them in response.

I probably would as well. However I acknowledge that this is a purely emotional response, and isn't necessarily a reflection of how such a situation should be handled.

 

[NoahFence]

As some of you know over the weekend my beloved cat, Simon, was shot and killed by savages unknown. It is currently a matter of investigation by law enforcement.

While I was in the process of burying the single most affectionate cat I ever had the pleasure of knowing someone brought up the idea that we should put humans down that do bad things to animals (yes this cat made many friends and so there was a bit of crowd when I put him into the earth). It was meant to be a statement of emotion in the moment but the more I though about it the more I realized we should take these things more seriously.

I mean imagine the kind of human being that shoots a defenseless house cat that only ever wanted to get more cuddles out of people? Is that a person you really want in our society?

We put down dogs that bite people. I'm thinking people that bring violence the other direction for kicks ought to be removed from society too.

Couldn't agree more. Find them, kill them. They're not the type of people society needs anyway.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Very good life long friend of mine, musician, cat lover, caught a guy on a work site killing feral kittens.

Lucky for my friend that the guy lived, because Tony didn't restrain himself.

Cops sympathized with his reaction, and the 1970's were very much different from today.

Yea I see people killing rats it is the same. People keep rats as pets. But hey can't expect cat owners to be rational.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Do you tell women to avoid rape by never leaving the house?

Think of it as cat prison for killing things for fun.

For someone who reacts to strongly to killing for fun you have an odd view of cats. But what ever double standard floats your boat.

Ten years would be a minimum. I've always held the position that people that kill animals for fun should be locked away forever. Lock 'em up. Throw away the key.

Hunting licience=life in prison got it.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I'm surprised to hear that letting cats out is so frowned on in the US. I agree with Rolfe that in the UK, cats going in and out of the house is completely normal, in fact, I never knew that anyone objected until .

Yea we have too many native species or bird left in Hawaii, but I am sure nobel cat owns will solve that.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Couldn't agree more. Find them, kill them. They're not the type of people society needs anyway.

They have an almost feline love of killing. Wait a minute...

 

[NoahFence]

They have an almost feline love of killing. Wait a minute...

People are supposed to be more evolved.

 

[bigred]

As some of you know over the weekend my beloved cat, Simon, was shot and killed by savages unknown. It is currently a matter of investigation by law enforcement.

While I was in the process of burying the single most affectionate cat I ever had the pleasure of knowing someone brought up the idea that we should put humans down that do bad things to animals (yes this cat made many friends and so there was a bit of crowd when I put him into the earth). It was meant to be a statement of emotion in the moment but the more I though about it the more I realized we should take these things more seriously.

I mean imagine the kind of human being that shoots a defenseless house cat that only ever wanted to get more cuddles out of people? Is that a person you really want in our society?

We put down dogs that bite people. I'm thinking people that bring violence the other direction for kicks ought to be removed from society too.

Unless, of course, they're black.
[/vickheads]

 

[Ampulla of Vater]

Couldn't agree more. Find them, kill them. They're not the type of people society needs anyway.

I'm with you and Travis on this. Animals are relatively defenseless so any violence toward them (without justification) is completely unacceptable. The penalties are not nearly strict enough.

 

[Navigator]

If that is the state of things I say humanity has lost its way.

I am not sure it has been evidenced that humanity has even found its way yet Travis.

I have empathy for your lose of your friend.

I once had a cat I found as a very young feral kitten.

I called him Whenua.

Unfortunately we live rural and he grew up to like hunting rabbits and one snowy morning he didn't come home and I went looking for him and found some cat prints and followed these and eventually found his body.

I wailed.

His front paws were broken and we worked out that he had been caught in a gin trap that the farmer of the land had set.

We went around and gathered up all the traps and put them in a sack. The farmer came along while we were doing so and demanded his traps back.

We refused and went home.

Later on the farmer came to our house and again demanded his traps back or he would ring the police.

I told him how he had taken my best friend from me and how it made me feel. I told him he could have his traps back after he came in and paid his respects towards Whenua, who I had laid out on an alter of sorts. The farmer took his boots and hat off and came in and we stood silent before my dead friend.

I wrote this song...it was about the farmer really, but it was for Whenua.


I don't own pets now...we not ones that I can easily get emotionally attached to.