HeyBub wrote:
aemeijers wrote:
(snip)

Allergies are a poor excuse: you can get shots.

Like I need an excuse? Eff up my body chemistry with expen$ive shots,
just for the opportunity to spend even more money providing a home for
an ungrateful animal I may see a few hours a week? I think not. And I
say that is somebody who LIKES cats, and grew up in house with them. The
allergies didn't come along until late teenage years, when I somehow got
sensitized to cats. Scratch tests, which they often insist on before the
shots, sometimes make you allergic to stuff you were not allergic to
before. Not an urban legend- I've know people that it happened to. One
of the things that made me decide avoiding the source was the simplest cure.


How much ever you sleep, I guarantee the cat will sleep more. Having a cat
as a house partner a symbiotic relationship; in return for food, water, and
a litter box, the cat will (usually) keep your house free of pests like mice
and roaches.

Litter boxes are disgusting, and one of the best arguments against
'inside only' cats. Yes, people, they DO stink to high heaven. Your nose
is just numb from overexposure. Basic sanitation keeps the vermin under
control with no problem, thank you. I sublet an apartment once from
someone who had cats. A month later, I realized the place was infested
with fleas. Had to do some nasty chemical warfare to clear that up, not
to mention a lot of tedious cleaning of my stuff before I could move
elsewhere.
Further, countless studies show that people who have an indoor cat or dog
have fewer health problems, live longer, and have a rosier outlook on life.
Moreover, the chicks really dig a guy who has a cat.

Companionship and 'needing to be needed' does have therapeutic value,
agreed. But a cat or dog as a surrogate child or spouse is just sad. I
assume you have read the studies that claim house animals suffer from
arrested social development, and are stuck at the dog or cat equivalent
of about a fifth-grader?

Cats can save you money, too. A couple of kittens and a big box of packing
peanuts (a kitty swimming pool) is good for hours and hours of entertainment
(for both of you).

Dream on. There is little more expensive than a 'free' kitten or puppy.
Although, as a kid, we sometimes built multi-level kitten mazes out of
the scrap wood pile, and tried to guess what hole they would come out of.
And don't worry that you're interfering with the balance of nature. A feral
cat has a life-expectancy of three to four years. An indoor cat can easily
live into a third decade.

I've seen some of those old, crippled-by-age indoor cats. They sure
don't look like they are having much fun. My sister has one that tries
to crawl into the fireplace every time they build a fire. They think he
just wants to get warm. I think he wants to end it all. Like I said
before, yes, inside-only cats live longer. As to feral cats, infant
mortality skews the numbers low- if they survive to adulthood, they can
easily last a lot longer. I think there is a happy medium, where you let
a cat have some outside time, and make it crap outside, but make it want
to come back inside by treating it nice and feeding it. Basically,
unless you have a large-enough yard, and don't live near heavy traffic,
you really aren't set up to have a cat. People in apartments or on tiny
urban lots really can't provide a proper range for a cat, much less a dog.

One more insistent observation: de-clawing. The downside of declawing a cat
is that you rob the cat of its primary weapon of offense and its primary
method of defense (it can't climb). The reason people de-claw their cats is
to protect their furniture. But the furniture is only furniture whereas the
cat is a member of the family.

As far as I am concerned, declawing should be considered animal cruelty,
and it should be a breach of professional ethics for vets to offer that
as a service. Would you like having your fingers and toes lopped off at
the first joint?

Like I said, I LIKE cats and dogs. I like them too much to impose my
world on them.

--
aem sends...