With great pets comes a greater responsibility
A cute kitten at SCRAPS peers out of its cage looking for a new family. Photo by Nick Thomas.
December 4, 2013
By Nick Thomas
staff writer
In the past few years, pet adoption rates have increased in the Spokane region, particularly dog adoptions.
Janet Dixon is Development Coordinator at SCRAPS, Spokane County’s animal shelter which also serves Cheney. She said while dog and cat adoptions have gone up, there has been “an explosion” in the cat population.
“People understand that dogs need to be spayed and neutered. They get that. But people view cats like ‘Oh but it’s a wild creature, it’s feral, it should be allowed to roam around and reproduce.’ The problem is that a single cat can have around 16 to 20 kittens a year, every single year, ” Dixon said. “They reproduce much faster than a dog. What ends up happening is that people don’t spay and neuter, and they don’t microchip.”
Contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of cats are not able to survive on their own without the care of people. They are domesticated animals, just like dogs are. If left to fend for themselves, they will become malnourished, starve to death or be killed by natural predators like owls and hawks.
To avoid euthanizing cats, SCRAPS ships cats to the Seattle area where there is a higher demand for cats because so many people live in apartments where cats are more manageable. Euthanizing is only used as a last resort option with animals that are either too old or who have incurable behavior problems.
Julia Tribbett, a senior dental hygiene student, adopted a kitten named Louie from SCRAPS at Petsmart in May of 2012.
“He is the first pet that my fiancé and I had as a couple. The best part about having a pet as a student is having someone fuzzy to confide in. He helps me relax when I am really stressed out and overwhelmed after a long day at school,” Tribbett said. “It is always nice to spend some time with him.”
According to Spokane veterinarian Dr. Cheryl Fite, adopting a pet is a serious responsibility, like having a kid. Once you have one, it is for life. Taking them back should not be an option.
Dr. Fite said that first-time pet owners should know what they are getting into by taking classes and reading books, similar to being a first-time parent. Like new parents, first-time pet owners tend to over do it, so the more education the better.
Dixon encourages everyone, including students, to consider adopting a pet, although she has noted an increase in cats left behind in Cheney at the end of each school year.
“You can’t let a cat out into the wild or onto the streets. It won’t survive. It won’t live a fun life out in the prairie. An owl, raccoon or coyote will eat it. That’s what happens to domesticated cats.”
Since the holidays are upon us, people will be giving pets away as presents. Unless this has been seriously discussed and planned out, surprising a child, a boyfriend or girlfriend with a puppy or kitten is not a good idea.
“It is a very chaotic time of year. There are people everywhere, poisonous plants like poinsettias and garlands. The return rates are extremely high,” Dixon said.
That said, December is their annual “Empty the Shelter” adoption drive. Fees are reduced to $25 for dogs and $15 for cats. Dixon said SCRAPS hopes to find permanent homes for 214 animals during the drive.
Starting in January, SCRAPS will be the sole place for looking for lost pets, licensing pets, bringing strays and receiving training classes. This is part of an effort to streamline what is currently a confusing system of shelters in Spokane. Instead of one shelter for in-city animals (Spokanimal C.A.R.E.), another for county (SCRAPS), plus other independent but well-known shelters like Spokane Humane Society, there will just be one. This will alleviate confusion of where to go to find, adopt and license pets. It will also double the square footage of their facility which opens this April at 6815 E. Trent.
SCRAPS always needs volunteers to play with the animals and help with other tasks. For more information visit their website at http://www.spokanecounty.org/scraps.
woodsman001 • Dec 5, 2013 at 8:54 am
Then there’s cats’ most insidious disease of all, their Toxoplasma gondii parasite they spread through their excrement into all other animals. This is how humans get it in their dinner-meats, cats roaming around stockyards and farms (herbivores can contract this parasite in no other way). This is why cats are routinely destroyed around gestating livestock or important wildlife by shooting or drowning them. So those animals won’t suffer from the same things that can happen to the unborn fetus of any pregnant woman. (Miscarriages, still-births, hydrocephaly, and microcephaly.) It can make you blind or even kill you at any time during your life once you’ve been infected. It becomes a permanent lifetime parasite in your mind, killing you when your immune system becomes compromised by disease or chemo and immunosuppressive therapies. It can last over a year in any soils or waters and not even washing your hands or garden vegetables in bleach will destroy the oocysts. Contrary to cat-lickers’ self-deceptive myths, a cat can become reinfected many times during its life and spread millions of oocysts each time. It’s now linked to the cause of autism, schizophrenia, and brain cancers; as well as increasing the suicide rate in women almost 2-fold even though they’ve never suffered from any mental or emotional health issues previously. This parasite is also killing off rare and endangered marine-mammals along all coastlines from cats’ T. gondii oocysts in run-off from the land, the oocysts surviving even in saltwater.
Its strange life cycle is meant to infect rodents. Any rodents infected with it lose their fear of cats and are attracted to cat urine.
scitizen D0T com SLASH neuroscience/parasite-hijacks-the-mind-of-its-host_a-23-509 D0T html
Cats attract rodents to your home with their whole slew of diseases (like The Plague from rats and fleas, many people have died from cat-transmitted Plague in the USA already, it is alive and well and being spread by cats today). If you want rodents in your home keep cats outside of it to attract diseased rodents to your area. I experienced this phenomenon (as have many others), and all rodent problems disappeared after I shot and buried every last one of hundreds of cats on my lands.
Another interesting experiment. They wanted to find out if dogs could possibly transmit cat-shat Toxoplasma gondii oocysts. A dog infected with T. gondii from a source-cat cannot. That stage of the parasite’s life-cycle is 100% dependent on cat-physiology as its primary reproductive host. But if dogs ingest oocyst-laden cat-feces then dogs can pass the oocysts produced by cats & their common brain-hijacking parasite.
ncbi.nlm.nih D0T gov SLASH pubmed/9477489?dopt=Abstract&holding=f1000,f1000m,isrctn
It is interesting to note: That these Toxoplasma gondii oocysts shed by cats can even survive the hydrochloric stomach acids for the duration that they remain in a mammal’s digestive tract. And then they doubt my words when I tell them of the studies where they found that this parasite’s oocysts (seeds) can even survive washing your hands in bleach. You could wash your hands and garden vegetables in hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes for the same duration that food remains in an animal’s digestive tract and even that won’t destroy it. Your hands would be dissolved into a digestible pulp long before you could kill the Toxoplasma gondii oocysts.
Yeah, “basic hygiene” is going to keep your kids safe from going blind sometime during their life, becoming autistic, or die if they ever require any immunosuppressive therapies during their lifetime if they had ever played in a sandbox that a neighbor’s cat has defecated in.
Go ahead, drink the cat-lickers’ Kool-Aid.
woodsman001 • Dec 5, 2013 at 8:51 am
Be sure you test those cats for ALL of the following diseases, or I hope the recipient of one of them that you adopt-out or someone coming in contact with your disease-infested cats sues you so bad that you never recover from it. (For just one example of THOUSANDS, not long ago businesses in Miami were ruined by caretakers of feral-cats spreading hookworm in all the beaches. Lawsuits aplenty!)
These are just the diseases these invasive species vermin cats have been spreading to humans, not counting the ones they spread to all wildlife. THERE ARE NO VACCINES against many of these, and are in-fact listed as bio-terrorism agents. They include: Afipia felis, Anthrax, Bartonella (Rochalimaea) henselae, Bergeyella (Weeksella) zoohelcum, Campylobacter Infection, Cat Scratch Disease, Chlamydia psittaci (feline strain), Cowpox, Coxiella burnetti Infection (Q fever), Cryptosporidium Infection, Cutaneous larva migrans, Dermatophytosis, Dipylidium Infection (tapeworm), Hookworm Infection, Leptospira Infection, Giardia, Neisseria canis, Pasteurella multocida, Plague, Poxvirus, Rabies, Rickettsia felis, Ringworm, Salmonella Infection, Scabies, Sporothrix schenckii, Toxocara Infection, Toxoplasmosis, Trichinosis, Visceral larva migrans, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis. [Centers for Disease Control, July 2010] Bovine Tuberculosis, Sarcosporidiosis, Flea-borne Typhus, Tularemia, and Rat-Bite Fever can now also be added to that list.
Yes, “The Black Death” (the plague) is alive and well today and being spread by people’s CATS. People have already died from cat-transmitted plague in the USA. For a fun read, one of hundreds of cases, Google for: Cat-Transmitted Fatal Pneumonic Plague
You did know, didn’t you, that giving a rabies shot to a cat that already has rabies does not cure it of rabies? Google for: RABID KITTEN ADOPTED WAKE COUNTY (for just one example of hundreds of rabid cats adopted from outdoors). The incubation period for rabies is, on average, from 21 to 240 days, sometimes up to 11 months, one rare case being 6 years. A vetted cat can STILL transmit rabies many months later if it was harvested from unknown living conditions with an unknown vaccination history. May one of those cats you adopt-out have rabies too. Is your liability insurance in excess of $10M? Either quarantine them for 6 or more months at your OWN expense (as required by national and international law), or euthanize them. Those are your only 2 options to be relatively certain you are not handing rabies to someone. Isn’t reality fun?
Google for: RABIES PROMPTS CARLSBAD TNR CAT PROGRAM SUSPENSION
Rabies Outbreak Caused by TNR! 50+ Pets Euthanized. ALL Stray Cats Destroyed. All livestock destroyed. More than a dozen homeowners pay for their own $3000+ rabies shots for EACH family member.
Google for: Rabies Outbreak in Westchester County
Google for: Rabid Kitten Jamestown Exposure
There’s hundreds more like those on the net showing everyone how these phenomenally ignorant and foolish cat-lickers “help” their communities by allowing TNR CAT-HOARDERS to continue their criminally negligent behavior. And contrary to these cat-lickers’ perpetual LIES, feeding stray cats TRAINS them to approach humans for food. What do you think happens to the child or foolish adult that reaches down to try to pet or pick up that now seemingly friendly “cute kitty” that just approached them? The wild animal lashes out and bites or scratches the hand that has no food for them. Resulting in $3000+ rabies shots for each victim of a cat-feeder’s criminally negligent behavior, paid for out of the victim’s OWN pockets. Two reports even document rabid cats entering a pet-door and one even came through the family’s ceiling in search of human supplied foods, the attack so bad that the whole family required hospitalization.
woodsman001 • Dec 5, 2013 at 8:41 am
Due to TNR practices (trap, neuter, re-abandon), cats are now the #1 domesticated animal to transmit rabies to humans (the cats testing positive after a bite, scratch, or attack). GIVING A RABIES SHOT TO A CAT THAT ALREADY HAS RABIES DOES NOT CURE IT OF RABIES — NOR DOES IT STOP THE CAT FROM TRANSMITTING RABIES UP TO 11 MONTHS LATER (during the last 2 weeks of its life when it might not even show any recognizable symptoms). Google for: RABID KITTEN ADOPTED WAKE COUNTY (for just one example of hundreds of vetted but rabid cats adopted from outdoors). The incubation period for rabies is, on average, from 21 to 240 days, sometimes up to 11 months, one rare case being 6 years. A vetted cat can STILL transmit rabies many months later if it was harvested from unknown living conditions with an unknown vaccination history. Either quarantine them for 6 or more months at your OWN expense (as required by national and international law), or euthanize them. Those are your only 2 options to be relatively certain you are not handing rabies to someone. Isn’t reality fun?
This is why the CDC has now given the following conclusion and warnings on all TNR practices that are becoming so popular (with people who are uneducated to how vaccinations actually work and are causing rabies outbreaks in so many communities). Do you have your liability insurance ready to go and top-notch lawyers lined-up for when people who get bit or scratched by your cats discover you are in direct violation of findings by the CDC itself? They’ll all be ready to sue you, all associated with you, your local lawmakers, township, and county for perhaps $millions in damages.
Conclusions on all TNR practices now direct from the CDC
onlinelibrary.wiley D0T com SLASH doi/10.1111/zph.12070/abstract
SUMMARY
Domestic cats are an important part of many Americans’ lives, but effective control of the 60-100 million feral cats living throughout the country remains problematic. Although trap-neuter-vaccinate-return (TNVR) programmes are growing in popularity as alternatives to euthanizing feral cats, their ability to adequately address disease threats and population growth within managed cat colonies is dubious. Rabies transmission via feral cats is a particular concern as demonstrated by the significant proportion of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis associated with exposures involving cats. Moreover, TNVR has not been shown to reliably reduce feral cat colony populations because of low implementation rates, inconsistent maintenance, and immigration of unsterilized cats into colonies. For these reasons, TNVR programmes are not effective methods for reducing public health concerns or for controlling feral cat populations. Instead, responsible pet ownership, universal rabies vaccination of pets and removal of strays remain integral components to control rabies and other diseases.
(end summary)
To be perfectly truthful: Even vaccinating your cat against rabies won’t prevent it from finding the nearest rabid bat dying on the ground in your backyard, to rip it to shreds for its daily cat’s play-toy. Then bringing back a mouthful or claws full of fresh rabies virus to you, your family, neighbors, other pets, or other animals. ANY cat, due to their need to sink their teeth into anything that moves, if allowed outdoors can transmit rabies to others, vaccinated or not.