gemfyre | Letter to cat owner - considering sending this to a local paper.

This is a letter to the owner of a large orange and white cat in the B****** Rd/D***** Crt area in Greenmount.

Please be a responsible cat owner and keep your cat inside at night. This is for many reasons.

1. Your cat wanders. It often ends up in our yard, distressing our own cat and having us wake up to terrible screeching and growling in the middle of the night. Last night your cat was on our BALCONY! That's almost as bad as being inside the house and it got our cat extremely agitated. She is kept inside at night so she was unable to fight your cat, but the sound was terrible enough.
2. It will also be better for your cat if it doesn't fight. Abcesses and other fighting injuries add up to costly vet bills.
3. Due to the size of your cat and the fact that it roams I'd take a guess that it was an unsterilised tom. I may be completely wrong and if I am forgive me. But if I'm right. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sterilise your cat. Or if you refuse to do that keep it inside ALL the time. All we need is more unwanted kittens around the place.
4. Keeping your cat indoors protects our wildlife. From my own experience I have found that more animals get killed at night. My cat has a preference for honeyeaters unfortunately, this is why we now keep her inside at night-time, because she catches more during the night. Please don't try to deny that your cat hunts. ALL cats hunt.
5. It's not that awkward to keep your cat in at night. Just provide it with a litter tray (actually, I've found if you are just keeping it in at night even a litter tray is unncesseccary. Just when it comes in for it's evening feed or after dark, keep it inside (this involves us locking a cat door).
6. Keeping your cat inside at night will show the community that you are a responsible, loving cat owner. Owning a cat is a joy, but it also entails responsibilties, if you are not willing to take on these responsibilities, then perhaps you shouldn't have a cat.

Thanks
Belinda