Should there be a cat leash law?

Cats are different than dogs in their outdoor activities. Instead of trying to punish all of the cats in the city, I suggest the home owner who reports cats kill birds in her yard that the women does not place her bird house against her fence. I doubt the cats could clime on the bird house if it is at least five feet beyond the fence. This might solve the problem because the cats won't be able to reach the bird house.

BBB

I do/did have a leash for my cat - but only because my cat(s) are house cats. Actually my cat that passed away used to love going outside and just rolling in the grass - because she was declawed and even with claws wouldn't have a chance even against a bird, we would let her on a harness and long leash while we were in the yard.

My other cat is such a wimp - he is too terrified to even go outside.

Personally I think it is insane to require leashing a cat.

Funny thing is - if you read the article, the town does not even have a dog leash law.

Agree with you on that totally and completely.

Me too but it’s because I’m a cat lover

So am I.
Although I have no brief against dogs either.

This is something that if it were my town I could get my claws into. As you could ascertain from my first post. Meow!!

Adds, I can see leashing a cat in many circumstances. Picturing taking a cat for an outing in the cacaphony of New York City. Also, in my experience which is admittedly not extensive, some cats go after birds and some eschew them. We had indoor-outdoor cats, and over something like ten years only found one bird carcass in the yard, which they tended to stay right around.
We had a liquidambar tree full of finches in spring and many other birds land in the garden.

I am more of a dog person than a cat person.
But putting a leash law on cats I would call animal cruelty.
Cats ate not leash types. The birds a cat usually catch are often sick or hurt.
We have plenty of birds in our garden and we have several cats sneeking around here - not ours.
Cats don´t like to make their own terretory dirty - so I can smell that they have been here in case I don´t see them.
The birds wake me up every morning with their singing. despite the cats.

I get where this woman is coming from. For a few years our neighbor's two cats picked off birds at our feeder and each spring got a few of the ever dwindling whippoorwill population. I would often see one of them proudly walking across our back field with a bird dangling from its mouth. They also loved to poop in my herb garden that has a gravel mulch. We tried to be nice about it and asked her to contain them, but she felt it was "just nature". I was not the only neighbor having this problem and when the two cats disappeared I strongly suspected my farmer neighbor who threatened to shoot them for killing off a bunch of his baby chicks and scratching the eye of one of his sheepdogs. Of course, it could have been a fisher weasel or speeding car that bumped them off for all I know, but I was glad when they went missing.

Cats should be indoor pets, or at least kept in an enclosed backyard where there are no bird attractions. It's better for them, the birds and the neighbors. Both feral and domestic cats kill an incredible amounts of wild birds and Audubon has done a good job of documenting the problem, if anyone wants to research it. Leashes seem silly, but I would support a law that rounded up feral cats and had cat owners keep their domestic cats safely contained.

I wonder if they suggested putting a little bell on the cat - you can buy them for their collars. I think that is the best compromise - the cat wouldn't have a chance to sneak up on the birds then.

Cats are the only domesticated animals that we let roam around at will. For all those who say "it's cruel to keep a cat indoors or on a leash," why don't you feel the same way about dogs, or horses, or pigs? There are good reasons why we don't let other domesticated animals wander around our neighborhoods, and I don't see why there should be an exception made for cats.

Cats should be indoor pets?
They're animals.
We have all these people putting out feeders as attractants for birds and cats raised as pets. All of it is applied petdom.

In a way, bird feeders are like garbage areas in state parks for bears.

I'm not as hostile as I sound, but the pet stuff is strong here.

Bells don't seem to work. I don't know why.

Osso, Birds should only be fed in winter when their food supplies are low. I don't see how you can compare bears to garbage (a definite problem) and bird feeders.

Dogs are the only domesticated animals (generally speaking) that we put on a leash. Horses are corralled. Pigs are kept in sties and, on many farms, have fairly free range of their domain. Dogs are the only animals that accept a leash quite willingly and are willing to be totallly subservient to humans. (Horses, too, but not to quite the same extent. A horse needs to be 'tamed' and domesticated; a dog takes to its slavish subservience from birth, quite automatically.) Cats are very independent. In the city they should not be let out of the house at all. In the open, a cat needs the freedom to roam.

I have, from time to time, had several cats and several dogs. Comparing one species of animal to the other is like comparing automobiles to jet aircraft. Both have elemets in common, of course -- internal combustion engines, the capacity for human transport etc. But they sure ain't the same thing. The same is true in trying to compare cats to dogs as pets.

I have my bird feeders up 12 months a year. At first, my cat would kill one or two and bring me the corpses, proudly displaying to me his remarkable skill as a hunter. It got to be boring for him after a very short while. He now lies on the front porch, watching the birds along with me. I joke that he's just doing 'recon'; but he never takes action against a bird any more. The novelty has worn off. He roams the neighborhood and probably kills a field mouse now and again instead.

I think bells are cruel to the cat. They have acute hearing, and now have to listen to ting-a-ling-a-ling everytime they move a muscle.

My cats have always been indoor, but I won't say that I think it's insane or inhumane to put a leash on the cat. It depends on the animal.

I bought one of those harness type leashes once when we were moving, so Princess Jezzery Doo-Doo Head could stretch her legs at rest stops. We'd get it on her inside the car, then carry her to the grass and put her down. She was fine with that arrangement. She sniffed around, crouched, slunk and laid down. She didn't go to the bathroom, as that is what the litterbox on the back seat of the car was for, in her opinion.

Later, I thought Dr. Lulu Abromowitz could do with some exercise, so thought maybe we could walk up and down the drive way. This was a whole 'nother story.

She was distraught is the whole putting the harness on thing, and when I put her down on the driveway, in a panic she did the only thing she could think of. She fell over stiff legged on her side (whump) and laid there. I tugged lightly and she stared straight again. I tugged harder, ditto. By this time I was laughing pretty hard. Wally came out and we tried to entice her with food to at least move. No dice.

Finally (and I only did this because it was a harness, and not around her neck), I dragged her about 2 feet, during which she never moved a muscle on her own.
As soon as I took her back inside, she walked off like nothing happened.

People I've observed don't just do winter.

I've not met the man that can put a harness or collar on Stinky.

him having no front claws just evens the odds a little.

my former brother-in-law is scared of him after helping me put two pills down him. the second one was hell...