Conflicting cat and dog ownership policies between Singapore and Hong Kong

The vast majority of Singaporeans live in publicly owned accommodation in high-rise flats (HBD) where cats have been banned for 34 years but not dogs. Now, at last, Singapore has decided to lift the ban on cat ownership in these flats. The ban on cats "was first introduced in 1989 because they are “generally difficult to contain within the flat”, according to the Housing Development Board's (HDB) website".

The cats and dogs of Singapore and Hong Kong are owned under different rules. Image: MikeB

That is probably very fair but there are downsides because it means lots more cats living in small flats which places an added and quite demanding responsibility upon the caregiver to ensure that the environment is as enriched as possible because a cat living in a one-bedroom flat while the owner is away at work is going to be catastrophically bored and it might result in stress leading to cystitis among other stress-related diseases.

But that is another issue. It just shows that Singapore now has consistency between dogs and cats in respect of ownership in these flats. The same cannot be said about Hong Kong at the moment as in 2003 due to the severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in Hong Kong, dogs were banned from public housing complexes except for rare exceptions. They can currently keep small pets such as cats and birds but not dogs I'm told.

Notwithstanding the ban, people apparently flout the regulations by secretly keeping dogs and it also seems that they get away with it a lot of the time.

This policy seems to be in conflict somewhat with another policy about educating young people about companion animal caregiving as delivered by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department of Hong Kong. They are learning about how the take dogs for walks and to groom them et cetera.

Hong Kong has seen an increasing number of pet owners and the government open 54 parks for pets in Hong Kong where there are now 170. And there is a pet friendly shopping centre. It seems that the Covid-19 pandemic created a heightened interest in pet ownership because during those long lockdowns, pets helped people deal with loneliness and stress.

All this is inconsistent with the restrictions on dog ownership in public housing. It's interesting that in Hong Kong dogs aren't allowed in public estates while in Singapore, in the past, cats weren't allowed in public estates but dogs were. A very confused situation.

As you might expect, there have been calls for the ban on dogs to be lifted in Hong Kong. Rather disturbingly, it is reported that Hong Kong Housing Department staff provoked dogs into barking by playing barking recordings and making a noise outside homes to provoke the dogs into barking to allow them to catch those who were in breach of the regulations. 

It's caused some distress among the tenants with one reportedly slitting her wrists because the Housing Authority kept pressing her to get rid of her dog.

In Hong Kong, also, there are many private housing estates were there are strict regulations on keeping companion animals. It is believed that if the authorities allowed pets in public housing estates it may change the attitudes of landlords who own the private housing estates.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

An example of why people don't stop their car when they hit a cat on the road

Recently I wrote an article about the reasons why people don't stop their car when they hit a cat on the road. And nearly everybody doesn't stop in my opinion. There's no statistics on this so I can't make that statement with absolute confidence but common sense and my gut feel tell me that I am correct.

The reason is that people just don't value cats enough to warrant stopping and disrupting their day. And it will be a disruption because you've got to check the cat which is going to be very upsetting indeed to a lot of people if there are severe injuries. 

You don't know what you're going to see and what you are going to need to do which will probably mean finding out where a veterinarian is and taking the cat to the vet for a check up and possibly to identify the owner through a microchip.

All this takes time and in the story from the Isle of Man, a woman was going to work in her car when she hit a cat at 8:30 in the morning. She didn't stop because she was going to work she said although she added that she was very upset.

Fortunately a good Samaritan saw the accident or saw the cat in the middle-of-the-road and checked the cat which was brave of him or her and found that the cat was concussed but otherwise healthy (damn lucky). They took the cat to a vet the following day.

The cat was placed at an SPCA and then on adoption page on Facebook where the owner spotted their cat and, greatly relieved, was able to be reunited. The cat was semi-feral and therefore this was a very loose relationship between owner and cat. But the ending was happy and this little article is about the reason why we don't normally stop.

There's been a lot of discussion in the UK about making it a legal obligation to stop when you hit a cat on the road which is the case for dogs (click for the UK reasons for the difference). Yes, there's a difference between dogs and cats in the UK when you hit them with a car. And this law is out of date and is based upon the fact that the dog is a working animal much like a goat or horse. This is not entirely true these days because dogs are companions just like cats.

The government doesn't want to introduce a law which would require primary legislation and therefore debates because it would take too long and it would clog up the legislature. They've got more important things to do (the cat devalued again). 

And they argue that there are enough protections currently in place for people to find out who owns the cat that they hit. I'm afraid it doesn't work.

The declared reason online why the government won't introduce laws to make it obligatory is because the proposed law would be to difficult to enforce. I get that but then if it would be difficult to enforce the same applies to dogs so that argument doesn't wash for me.

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P.S. please forgive the occasional typo. These articles are written at breakneck speed using Dragon Dictate. I have to prepare them in around 20 mins.

Can I keep a stray kitten that came into my house?

Image: MikeB

There are two major aspects to the question. There may be more. But this is what comes to my mind: there is the legal aspect namely does somebody own the kitten that came into your home. You don't want to be accused of theft, do you? That goes to answering the question in the title but there is a second aspect; one of animal welfare. You will have a compulsion if you are a sensitive individual concerned about animal welfare to adopt the kitten if in a place to do so. To at least look after the kitten and then rehome them. There will always be pressing welfare issues under these circumstances.

This is a complex question actually. You're going to have to find out whether the kitten is owned which would be unlikely under the circumstances and I'll tell you why. And then you're going to have to look after the kitten and protect them before adopting them if that's feasible and legal or before rehoming them all reuniting them with their owner. You can guess the complexities.

Unowned almost certainly

Perhaps I am making it more complex than it really is because I am sure that in 99% of cases when a kitten comes into a home, they don't have an owner because their mother is a stray or feral cat nearby and their kitten has come in for warmth and feeding. Their mother might also come into the warm and/or other kittens. 

Health often poor

The typical scenario is that kittens under these circumstances are in a bad way with upper respiratory infections, often, and they are commonly flea infested. There is work to do on health issues.

Wait and see

You could just look after the kitten if you want to adopt them and carry on as normal. You can wait and see what happens. Sometimes these things resolve themselves in a natural way over time. For example, if the kitten does have an owner, the owner will come around perhaps and chastise you for stealing their cat at which point you will return the cat to them. All you might argue that you should keep the kitten because you've looked after them and they are in a better place. You will play that card as it arrives.

Rules?

There may be legislation by which I mean local rules in your neighbourhood as decided by city administrators or county administrators or perhaps even state laws if you live in the United States of America. You might wish to check the local laws on this but I don't know of any federal laws which dictate how you should handle this situation.

Circumstances

The natural and normal thing to do is to take the kitten in and look after them. Of course, you might not be in a position to look after a kitten for various reasons. You might have too many cats already. You might have a dog that doesn't like cats. You might have a husband who doesn't like cats or if you are a man, you might have a wife who doesn't like cats. You have to take these things into consideration.

Microchip scanning

As to ownership, you might scan the kitten for a microchip. This would depend on how old the kitten is. If they are very young then they won't be micro-chipped probably. If they are a sub adult by which I mean a kitten that is somewhat grown-up, they might be micro-chipped. You can buy microchip scanners on Amazon quite cheaply. Or you could take the kitten to a veterinarian for a checkup and they scan at the same time.

In fact, this is what normally happens. If the first thing to do is to check for ownership and in parallel the next thing to do is to check the health problems then the natural consequence of those obligations is to take the kitten to a veterinarian for a quick check and scan for a microchip.

Due diligence

If there is no microchip and if on the face of it there is no owner, you can go home and look after your kitten. Or, if you might do due diligence on ownership and knock on a few doors and ask whether they have a mother cat who has given birth to kittens and if so, you can tell them that you have a kitten and can you keep her. That may be the way it pans out. There is an obligation here to try to find the owner but I don't think it extends to trying massively hard. It's just a natural step to take.

Rehoming

If you can't keep the kitten then you might take them to a shelter for rehoming. Or you might rehome the kitten yourself by talking to people you know. I would tend to prefer the latter because you can't always trust shelters as sometimes, they are euthanised even when healthy. But kittens are very adoptable normally and therefore there shouldn't be a problem in this regard.

Personal

The bottom line is that it comes down to whether there is an owner and if not whether you want to keep the kitten and look after them as an adult for the rest of their lives. This is a big obligation and if you've not cared for cats or pets until that moment then you would have to think about this seriously as a cat will change your life. It restricts you and you take on a responsibility in terms of expenditure (it can be quite expensive) and in terms of time and commitment. It's a big step like I say. I wouldn't take it casually.

There are no animal welfare laws in Egypt!

I have just completed a bit of research on whether there are animal welfare laws in Egypt. This is a major country where you would expect there to be animal welfare laws. But all the signs are - based upon my Internet research - that there isn't a single animal welfare law which generally protects the animals of Egypt. This brings to mind China which also shuns the idea of animal welfare laws.

Cat carrier smashed to bits by the Egyptian airline Egyptair. There was a rescue cat inside destined for America to be rehomed after rescue from the Egyptian streets. What a failure by Egypt. Image: Twitter.

It is a shock to me, to be honest, to understand that Egypt has no intention whatsoever of protecting their animals under the law.

The Wikipedia authors more or less confirm that there are "no strict laws against animal cruelty". That's rather vaguely worded but I think it means that there are no animal welfare laws.

And an article on an Egyptian website dated November 2017, is about Egyptian veterinarians trying to force the government of Egypt to create animal welfare laws. But the author of that article was extremely doubtful whether the government would entertain the veterinarians.

I can't find a follow-up article but it is highly likely that the Egyptian government dismissed the idea out of hand. It's about mentality and attitude and clearly the Egyptian government simply do not have the wherewithal and the attitude to think of animals are sentient beings to be protected from abuse by humans.

That is a very backward mentality it has to be said. And for me, interestingly, there was a case of gross animal cruelty in Egypt when in 2015 a dog was restrained and stabbed to death by butchers. It was a notorious incident and the perpetrators of that act of gross animal cruelty were brought to the criminal courts in Egypt, prosecuted and imprisoned for three years.

But we don't know under what law they were prosecuted. Nobody tells me that. If there are no animal welfare laws then why did these men do wrong? Perhaps they were prosecuted under laws appertaining to human property because perhaps the dog belonged to somebody. Perhaps there were prosecuted under what I would call "criminal damage" laws.

But when these criminals were prosecuted there was outrage outside the court room. They had to have armed militia outside the court room to protect the court from the masses. Clearly, the citizens of Egypt think that animal welfare laws are idiotic and they have no place in Egyptian society.

This points to a terrible lacuna to use a legal term. That means a hole in the fabric of the legal system in Egypt. And it is the reason why on Friday 29 September, 12 rescue cats from Egypt destined to be transported to America on Egyptair flight 985 were utterly failed through mishandling of their carriers to the point where the crates were damaged or broken open and five cats escaped. One was recovered and three of the five are still missing. One was fatally injured.

That is the handling of rescue cats by an Egyptian airline. Catastrophic. Everything about what they did was catastrophic and I can only presume that this complete failure by Egypt air staff to handle the crates properly comes down to a lack of animal welfare laws. That lack of a core piece of legislation which is present in most countries on the planet can only foster a desensitised attitude towards the sentience of animals in general. This is why the crates were thrown around and broken. Nobody cared a damn about the cats inside the crates.

Without wishing to sound racist in any way, it is probable that Egypt is similar to other countries on the African continent. They do seem to have an attitude towards animals which is similar to the attitude towards animals present in northern Europe in the Middle Ages. Yes, it's incredibly backward and uncivilised.

Texans convicted of animal cruelty will be banned from owning animals for five years

NEWS AND COMMENT: A pleasing new animal welfare law has been enacted in the American state of Texas. Those miscreants who have been successfully convicted of animal cruelty will be barred from owning animals for five years. Animal cruelty includes dogfighting. And the law applies to those who been convicted of animal cruelty for the first time. This is a much-needed step I would argue but I am an animal advocate and not everybody will be with me on this topic.

Shelter dog. Image in public domain.

But clearly, Texas' politicians i.e. the lawmakers of that state have decided to make it harder for people who want to be cruel to animals to own and possess them. And this surely must be correct.

The legislation, House Bill 598, successfully passed through the legislature. It was sponsored by state Rep Matt Shaheen, R-Plamo. It also covers people who have unjustifiably injured an assistant animal or who have been cruel to non-livestock animals. The law came into effect Friday.

Although, surprisingly, I'm told by the Texas Tribune that convicted offenders will still be able to live in the same household as animals. Isn't that peculiar? The idea of banning ownership of animals by convicted criminals is to prevent them being around animals. To prevent them being cruel again to animals. If they can live in the same home as animals that are possessed and owned by somebody else, they have the opportunity to be cruel again, don't they?

The law apparently also applies to people who've lived with assistance animals. If that person is then cruel to an animal and is convicted of animal cruelty they will lose their assistance animal under this legislation, as I understand it.

And if an order banning a person from owning an animal for five years under this legislation is then found to have an animal during that period, they could be charged with a Class C misdemeanour and be fined $500. And if they repeatedly breach the order, they could be charged with a Class B misdemeanour with an increased fine of $2000 and a possible jail term of 180 days.

The new legislation is one of 774 bills passed by the Texas Legislature during this season. This addition to the animal protection laws of Texas will be more effective in protecting animals. Simply punishing people by fining them or imprisoning them is arguably less effective at protecting animals than banning them from owning animals.

Animal cruelty is often a precursor to violence against people. This is a known phenomenon and therefore animal cruelty should be dealt with severely. An example would be the Uvalde school shooter. That person had committed animal cruelty and posted it on social media.

There is one last point to make and that is people who are inclined to be cruel to animals probably need psychological treatment of some sort. They need help as well as punishment. My personal theory is that they are often very angry people. They want to hurt somebody or something because they have been hurt themselves. It is the vulnerable domestic animals of this world who become the victims.

Japanese islands issue ID cards to all the cats

The Amami Islands to the south of mainland Japan, are considered to be a living fossil because it is cut off from the rest of the world and has great wildlife and for that reason. The local government has decided to issue ID cards to all the cats on the islands. ID cards are already issued to their owners. This, therefore, is an extension of the scheme.

ID cards for cats on Amami Islands. Image: Kazuaki Kanda.

But unlike for humans, the cats won't be getting the cards for social security and tax purposes but, instead, to ensure that they are registered and thereby improve cat ownership with the subsequent benefit of less predation on wildlife. The government wants the cat owners of these islands to keep their cats inside full-time.

A government spokesperson said that, "By issuing the card, we want to increase the number of owners who keep their cats indoors and accelerate momentum to eliminate unwanted cats". Comment: they feel that they have a cat problem and a predation on native wildlife problem it seems to me. This move seems to be a reflection of the general trend worldwide to keep domestic cats indoors full-time more often to protect wildlife. There is a greater sensitivity to the protection of wildlife in many jurisdictions in 2023.

In every country or every jurisdiction there comes a moment when the government takes steps, quite severe steps, to protect wildlife from domestic cat predation. That moment has arrived on the Amami Islands.

Feral cats have been a persistent problem on the island because they prey on the Amami rabbit which is designated a "special natural treasure" by the government. And there are other species that the government was to protect from predation.

The card issued to people is called "My Number Card". For cats it will be "Maya Nyamber Card"

This is a play on words because "nyan" means cats in the local dialect while "nyamber" is a wordplay on "nyan" which sounds a bit like the meowing of a cat.

The inspiration for this seems to have come from a very popular video published in 2011. Nyan Cat is a YouTube video uploaded in April 2011, which became an internet meme. The video merged a Japanese pop song with an animated cartoon cat with a Pop-Tart for a torso flying through space and leaving a rainbow trail behind. The video ranked at number five on the list of most viewed YouTube videos in 2011.

The card will bear the name of the cat, their address and details about their appearance such as the colour of their coat. The card will carry a photograph of the cat and an emergency contact number other than the number of the owner.

Currently around 2500 cats are registered on the island. There are approximately 1600 strays. More than 90% of domestic cats have been spayed and neutered and 73% have been micro-chipped.

Oregon has done three things which improves animal welfare in the state

Pet shop sales

The American state of Oregon has become the latest to ban the sale of commercially-bred dogs and cats in pet stores. This development follows California, New York state, Maryland, Maine and Illinois together with hundreds of cities and counties nationwide.

This sort of law is critical because it does three things to improve animal welfare namely:

1. Encourage people to adopt/rescue;
2. Educate the community about dog and cat (and rabbit) abuse in getting them puppy mills and
3. Stop the abuse.

Nathan Winograd tells us that because of these sorts of laws preventing pet stores generally getting their animals from commercial breeding enterprises, the number of commercial breeders in the US has declined by 30%.

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture records show that half of the state's commercial dog and cat breeders have left the business according to Nathan Winograd's report to me in an email.

Commercial Breeding Enterprises (CBEs) engage, according to Nathan Winograd, in "systematic neglect and abuse of animals, leaving severe emotional and physical scars on the victims. One in four former breeding dogs have significant health problems, more likely to suffer from aggression, and are psychologically and emotionally shut down, compulsively staring at nothing."

Ban on animal testing for cosmetics

The second good thing that Oregon has done very recently is that the governor of that state has signed into law legislation which "bans the sale of cosmetics that have been subjected to new animal testing". This puts Oregon in line with more than 30 countries and 10 states in America namely California, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

Domestic abuse shelters

And finally, Oregon are going will provide $1 million to "support pet-friendly homeless and domestic violence shelters, removing obstacles to safe refuge and supplying vital resources for people in need who have pets."

It's a well-known problem that domestic violence shelters do not often provide accommodation for women with pets which prevents them taking refuge in the shelters which put them back into the family home where they may continue to be abused by a bullying partner. So, this is an advancement both to women and to their pets. Often, as I understand it, women do not leave the family home despite abuse because they won't leave their companion dog or cat.

On that topic, by the way, it is not uncommon for the abusive partner to abuse the family's companion animal as well and use the animal to threaten the partner which may lead to animals death.

America's pet store owners need to be both ethical and businesslike

Entirely understandably, American's pet store owners, take a commercial stance when running their business. They have to in order to make a profit. The world is highly competitive. But my argument is that they need to temper that objective with the objective to ensure that they run their businesses along ethical lines.

Inherently unhealthy bulldog for sale at Perfect Pets. Image in public domain.

And I'm referring to the acquisition of cats and dogs from puppy mills to supply their pet stores. No doubt these animals are quite cheap because they are bred in a cheap fashion. They are bred in facilities where there is poor regard to healthcare and socialisation normally. I don't want to brand all puppy mills with the same criticism but they are called "puppy mills" for a reason. They churn out puppies which means the pet stores can buy them cheaply.

It also means that the puppies are going to be popular breeds such as dachshunds and French bulldogs. But both of these dog breeds have health problems particularly the French bulldog which I think is the unhealthiest dog breed of them all with a reduced lifespan as a consequence.

RELATED: 21 genetic diseases inherited by the French bulldog. Are they always in pain?

The moral aspect of acquiring cats and dogs from puppy mills is this. They should be selling rescue dogs and cats from local animal shelters because in that way they will save the lives of some animals scheduled for euthanasia because the shelters are oversubscribed. Sometimes there is not enough space for incoming unwanted animals.

And when an animal shelter does not run a no-kill policy with commitment, you get a situation where you have to euthanise healthy animals. Nathan Winograd would argue that if you run a proper no-kill policy there is hardly ever if ever a need to euthanise healthy animals. But it does require a huge amount of commitment and a smart approach to running a shelter.

RELATED: Pet stores in America are unfeasible unless they buy from puppy mills.

Back to the moral point. In Aurora city the council has passed an ordinance to ban the sale of cats and dogs that have been commercially-bred at puppy mills. Pet stores are going to have to sell rescue animals acquired from animal shelters.

And, as expected, the pet store owners are up in arms. They think the decision by the city's administrators is entirely wrong. They state that many pet store owners are good people running good stores and are not evil and overly commercial in disregarding animal welfare.

I get that. But the moral dimension is still there for all to see. It doesn't matter if the pet store is run really well if they are stocking the outlet with puppy mill cats and dogs. That's because in doing so, as mentioned, they are indirectly encouraging the killing of healthy animals are animal shelters, which is unsupportable.

And it is interesting to note that one pet store owner, Jens Larsen of Denver Perfect Pets in Centennial says that the decision to ban the sale of puppy mill dogs and cats as "wrongheaded". He's outspoken but he should keep his head below the parapet - see below.

He said that not all people are evil or wrong that run pet stores. Correct. And he adds that he has never had any violations or citations against him. He says that puppy mills are often licensed and regulated and therefore to ban supply from these facilities to pet stores as "just wrong".

In some ways he is correct but I have to stress once again the moral dimension. The ethics of the current situation in which puppy mills supply pet stores is unsustainable.

Jen Larsen's Perfect Pets

And interestingly, if you go onto the yelp.com website you see that his outlet has two stars out of five from 69 reviews. That definitely points to a problem and if you dig around further you will find a news media story on the Denver 7 ABC website with the headline, "Centennial pet shop accused of selling sick dogs to customers". That is a reference to Jen Larsen's pet store.

Some customers are accusing him of selling sick animals. One of them was a dachshund who was bought by a couple and they said that they "went to bed thinking I might wake up to a dead dog. So how could that get any worse?" Just days after bringing her dog home she said that he flopped and rolled and couldn't stand up on his own.

The dog had giardia, a protozoan parasite that most dogs contract from drinking faeces-contaminated water. The condition was not covered by Perfect Pets' insurance. They took the dog to a veterinarian, one that was not suggested by Larsen. As it happens, Larsen partly paid for the veterinary treatment. The dog needed oxygen but survived.

Denver 7 went to check out Perfect Pets with an undercover camera and noticed lethargic dogs and one that had mucus running out of their nose. An employee said that the place was too dusty. But the point here is that Larsen has been accused of selling sick pets and he is the one who is vociferously against the Aurora city ordinance banning the purchase of puppy mill cats and dogs.

And that's the point of this article. Business people owning pet store outlets need to balance the objectives of being ethical and of making a profit. The former puts a check on the latter and the former should underpin all their activities. In doing so, they will run a better business and it will be more profitable in the long run.

How to provide a suitable environment for your cat to live in (9 pointers)

How to provide a suitable environment for your cat to live in (9 pointers) as per DEFRA. Image: DEFRA.

As per the advice (reproduced verbatim here) of the UK government in following the Animal Welfare Act 2006 which is based on basic principles of cat caregiving, here is how to provide a suitable environment for your cat to live in. The Animal Welfare Act 2006 is an excellent piece of legislation as it also provides guidelines on cat caregiving. It more or less says that doing the opposite to good cat caregiving can amount cat abuse/cruelty and be a crime. This list was prepared by the UK governments Canine and feline sector group.

Link to the Animal Welfare Act 2006 - with added notes

1. Provide your cat with a safe, comfortable, dry, draught-free, clean and quiet place where it can rest undisturbed. Ideally, there should be a range of such places available – the cat will choose where it is most comfortable.
2. Take all reasonable steps to protect your cat from hazards indoors and outdoors.
3. Make sure your cat has constant access to a variety of safe hiding places including elevated resting places, where it can feel safe.
4. If your cat does not go outside, make sure it has plenty of activities to do and enough space to exercise, climb and play indoors.
5. Your cat should be provided with a suitable toilet area, that is quiet, easily accessible and kept clean. 
6. Before you move your cat, you should gradually get it used to a secure cat carrier. Putting items which smell like the cat, for instance its blanket, in the carrier and any place you move your cat to can help it feel at ease.
7. Any place where your cat is left must be large enough and comfortable with effective ventilation and temperature control so that your cat is able to move around to ensure its comfort, avoiding becoming too hot or too cold. Never leave your cat in an area where this is not possible such as a car on a warm day.
8. Your cat should not be routinely kept in a cage.
9. If you have any concerns about moving to a new home, or transporting your cat, you should consult a vet or other suitably qualified cat care specialist.

As you can see these are fundamental pointers. Safety comes first. For me there is a pressing need for cat caregivers to do much more if they keep their cats inside all the time. Point number 4 refers to this aspect of care caregiving.

It is called 'environmental enrichment'. A term that I am sure you have heard before. It is not enough to shut the doors and windows on your cat and sit back and believe that you have done all you can to keep you cat safe.

There are many hazards in the home and if the home is stressful because it is not enriched health problems can follow. A barren home may be no safer for an indoor cat than an indoor/outdoor life depending on the location and hazards/predators outside.

Texas protects and supports TNR volunteers (2023)

NEWS AND VIEWS - TEXAS, USA: Until now Texans had a rather peculiar way of interpreting TNR programs (trap-neuter-release). They interpreted the release part of TNR as cat abandonment, a minor crime. Can you believe it? A bit weird because the release part of TNR follows trapping. A TNR'ed cat is never abandoned as he/she was never owned or possessed in any meaningful sense.

Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas. Photo: his office.

Anyway, Texas's legislature has passed a bill, HR 3660, which has cleared up this grey area. The legislation has been signed off by the Governor Greg Abbott. As of the present, the 'R' bit of TNR is no longer considered to be cat abandonment.

Of course, there are opponents to TNR such as the bird lovers. They see TNR programs as promoting the killing of birds. They'd rather the feral and stray cats were trapped and euthanised; removed from the environment. That does not work. Although it works emotionally for the ornithologists who believe that cats kill billions of birds despite there being no hard evidence.

Small studies tell us that cats do kill birds but you can't extrapolate small local studies into nationwide statistics which is what the news media and bird lovers do. The latter has an axe to grind. The former like to exaggerate to sell more copies or attract more viewers.

The Senate passed the bill almost unanimously. The bird lobby were caught out. A prominent bird lover, Sizemore, tried to convince the Governor to veto the bill but he signed it off.

The law was authored by Rep. Cody, a Republican from Angleton. He wanted to clarify the above-mentioned grey area and complication. He correctly (in my view) said:

I don’t think Texans should go to prison because they do a TNR program. And I don’t think that that’s animal abandonment under the statute

It looks to me as if HR 3660 was an amendment to existing law. It is a good adjustment. You can't criminalise the good people who are sensitive to animal sentience who want to improve the lives of cats who've been put into the urban wild by careless humans. It is clearly wrong. TNR volunteers do good work, freely. They do it to improve animal welfare in Texas and America generally. They contribute to American society.

This is a positive. It is the opposite to criminal behavior and to have interpreted the previous law that way was absurd. The matter has been cleared up.

Source: various Texas newspapers including the My San Antonio.

147 words which explain why cat declawing is barbaric and unnecessary

This is a 147-word letter to the editor on the Detroit Free Press website that was pointed out to me by a mate of mine, Doug, and which needs to be aired and recycled for as many people as possible to see. It sums up what is so immoral and cruel about this operation which has been and continues to be encouraged by many thousands of veterinarians in the United States. It is a shocking state of affairs when you consider that each vet who amputates the distal joint of each fore-toe of a kitten does so in gross breach of their solemn oath not to harm patients. In 99.99% of cases declawing is carried out for non-therapeutic reasons and therefore is a breach of oath. As such the operation is arguably a assault by a professional on a kitten and a crime under America's animal welfare laws.

RELATED: Epidemic of Botched Cat Declaw Operations.

Here is the letter - thanks Melissa Sanger in Brighton:

As a licensed veterinary technician, I have tried to comfort cats as they writhe in pain, desperately trying to pull the blood-soaked bandages from their mutilated paws after being declawed. This barbaric disfigurement — which involves severing the first digit of every toe, bones and all — should be banned everywhere.

Cats claw to exercise, stretch and mark territory. Cutting off their body parts cuts off their ability to engage in these natural and important behaviors, and can cause them lifelong back and joint pain.

Without claws, many cats resort to eliminating outside the litterbox to mark their territory. Once-friendly cats often become withdrawn and aggressive. Studies show that declawed cats are more likely to have behavioral problems, often resulting in abandonment by the very people who had them declawed.

Providing plenty of scratching posts and regular nail trims will protect furniture, and cats’ physical and psychological well-being.

Photo of street cat in China should leave us feeling concerned

This is a straight forward photograph of a street cat in China, somewhere. It should not worry us but it concerns me because I've just been reading and writing about a monstrous individual who likes to torture and kill street cats in China. You can read about this man if you want to buy on this link but it's unpleasant although there are no photographs which might harm you psychologically.

Street cat in China. Image: What's on Weibo.

The picture that you see on this page accompanies an article written about 3 years ago which tells the story of a Chinese security guard pouring scalding water over a pregnant cat. another psychopathic individual who gets kicks from extreme violence against cats. 

The story went viral on social media and there was a call for animal welfare legislation in China which trended on Weibo.com.

It takes extreme animal cruelty to provoke Chinese citizens to demand animal welfare laws which should be entirely acceptable and which should have been in place donkey's years ago.

China is out on a limb in respect of animal welfare. All abandoned or homeless animals - almost always cats and dogs - are highly vulnerable to becoming the victim of extreme torture or turned into a meal in China.

There is no value in street cats or sensitivity towards their sentience in China. They are garbage. Rubbish. Trash. You can do what you like with them.

Although there must be many Chinese who love cats and care for them well. It's just that there are far too many who are the opposite. And no protection for them under the law.

Chinese citizens bravely protest to improve animal welfare in China

This page shows two separate incidents of Chinese citizens protesting about the lack of animal welfare in China. The first photos shows leaflets which were thrown from a high building (a tower block in an urban area). The report says that the person who did it lived in the block and as they walked down the stairs, they threw the pamphlets out of the window. 

Here is a better image:

We don't know exactly what the pamphlets say but they are to do with a desire to improve animal welfare in China. They may be concerned with the cat meat business in China which occurs in the south. I'm not sure but we do know that there are almost no animal welfare laws in China so it is fair to presume that the leaflets are demanding an improvement to the law.

In the second protest you can see a rather poor-quality video which was taken direct from my computer screen because I could not embed the video from Twitter (subsequently I was able to carry out the embed - see tweet below). It shows very brave women protesting about the lack of animal welfare laws in China as I understand it.

I say that they are brave because China is a democratic dictatorship of some sort. I'm not sure quite what it is but in effect it is a dictatorship. A one-party state. And I sense that it is difficult to protest about anything in China which concerns criticising the government. I suspect that they are always vulnerable to being arrested on a false pretext or some drummed up pretext in order to silence them. Any dissent by citizens is normally squashed pretty quickly in China as I understand it.

For me and I hope many others this is welcome news. These are well motivated people taking a risk on their health and welfare to help animals whose health and welfare is always at risk in China. The Yulin dog meat festival comes to mind as one example. There are many others. 

How can the 10-day dog meat market in Yulin be called a FESTIVAL!?

It is an international scandal that China refuses to introduce proper animal welfare laws as have been in existence for decades in the West.

#Beijing, China 🇨🇳 May 14th 2023

These Chinese activists are amazing 👏 👏👏

Thank you for speaking up for the #animals. So happy about this. Thank you very much. Animal protection law now!!#stopanimalcruelty #stopanimalabuse #cowcat #blendercat #animalprotectionlaw #China pic.twitter.com/K6bpOP98Jl

— We Are Not Food (@WeAreNotFood) May 15, 2023

The Communist Party don't want animal welfare laws as they go against the general attitude in China that animals are to be used. The government doesn't want to upset the citizens I guess and in any case the government agrees that animals are to be used and don't want interfering animal welfare laws and they don't care about how it looks to Westerners.

There is a horrendous couple of photos of a crucified cat being burned from I believe China. I am surprised Twitter allows them. I can't publish them here. I am appalled. 

Adelaide has become a city of a 200,000 private zoos

Adelaide, South Australia, have placed the ultimate restrictions of cat ownership. They lead the world in this regard.

Aussies see cats both domestic and feral as a pest when it comes to their relationship with native flora and fauna. Some local authorities are ahead of others in restricting cat ownership freedoms in order to protect native species and the administrators of Adelaide, Australia have probably gone as far as any jurisdiction can to restriction cat ownership. 

The long-suffering cats and their owners have to desex, microchip, register with the authorities and confine to their home all domestic cats.

We all understand the rules but are they genuinely enforceable? They probably don't have to be as 99% of Adelaide's residents will probably willingly comply because they've been indoctrinated with the notion that domestic cats are a massive threat to native species while ignoring the greater threat from humans (increased human population leading to more settlements and activity destroying habitat).

Adelaide's cats have to be registered once they are 3 months old. I think Adelaide is one of only a handful of councils anywhere in the world where they have compulsory registration. It may be the only council with this requirement. It is that rare.

The fees for registration are as follows:

CATEGORY	FEE
Non-standard cat	$100.00
Standard cat (desexed and microchipped)	$30.00
Concession non-standard cat	$50.00
Concession standard cat (desexed and microchipped)	$15.00

A cat owner can take their cat out on a lead but few will as it is a tricky process. Violation of the local law leads to a fine of $187.50.

The big prob

The council have overlooked one enormous problem with their ordinance. None of these confined cats will enjoy a substitute that matches the fun of their freedoms when allowed outside. They'll become bored and fed up. They'll moan to their owners and meow to be let out. They'll torment their owners.

The big flaw that is never admitted in keeping cats indoors full-time.

They'll eventually give up and settle in to a life or boredom and pleasure eating, leading to obesity. I understand the local laws and am sympathetic but they should be extended to mandate that cat owners provide an enriched confined environment such as an obligatory garden enclosure.

That would be asking far too much of course. So, they just bang-up (imprison) the cats. Adelaide has become a city of a 200,000 private zoos based on the rough estimate that there are that number of households with a pet cat.

Are cat hoarders criminals?

You might be forgiven for believing that all cat hoarders are criminals because cat hoarding is almost invariably cruel to cats - a violation of animal welfare laws. That is the impression one gets. But it is not necessarily the right one. Although it is fair to say that perhaps 90% of genuine cat hoarders will be neglectful of their cats and through this neglect be cruel to them causing great harm and often including death.

Many cats in truck looking at camera. There were 43 cats inside this U-Haul truck. Image in the public domain.

The Cat House on the Kings

But some cat hoarders do such a good job in looking after their cats that they can only be praised. Perhaps the most famous person on the planet looking after the largest number of cats is Lynea Lattanzio who is the founder and I guess manager of America's largest cat rescue based in California called The Cat House on the Kings. 

The last time I checked, they had about a thousand cats in their care. I dread to think what their veterinary and food bill is monthly. She is not a cat hoarder in the conventional sense but clearly, she can't say no to a rescue cat. And that is a quality that cat hoarders have.

But all the cats are very carefully cared for and she is the most admirable woman and a champion of cat rescue.

Over the years they have saved over 30,000 cats and even more than 7000 dogs.

Individual circumstances - case by case basis

Whether a cat hoarder is a criminal or not depends upon the individual circumstances and whether they cause harm to their cats due to a failure to provide a proper environment for them and to provide proper care. Are they breaking the relevant animal welfare laws under which they operate? 

UK - RSPCA - Animal Welfare Act 2006

Interestingly, I recently did a bit of work on this. I asked the question, "how bad does it have to get for the RSPCA in the UK to come out and investigate?"

The question was in relation to multi-cat homes. How bad does the home have to be in terms of gross smells and the place becoming uninhabitable before the RSPCA take action? And I mentioned a neighbour of mine who has 10 cats and there are horrible smells coming out of her home. Her home is just about habitable (but not to some) but it is pretty cruel on the cats in my view. They are all full-time indoor cats breathing ammonia daily.

I described the situation to the RSPCA and they told me that it was not breaking the law under the Animal Welfare Act 2006 in the UK. That gives you a guideline as to the point at which a cat hoarder becomes a criminal or simply becomes the owner of a multi-cat environment.

Mental health

If they do break the animal welfare laws of the state (in America) in which they operate then the question that has to be asked next is, "what is their mental state?"

Often, it is arguably inappropriate to criminalise a person with mental health problems. And genuine cat hoarders often have mental health problems. 

They often genuinely believe that they are doing some good by rescuing cats and they simply are unable to truly observe what they're doing objectively. 

So rather than punish them the argument is that they should be treated but at the same time they should be banned from looking after animals until assessed as being competent to do so.

Cat ownership in Finland. What is it like?

I wanted to discover some definitive laws about cat ownership in Finland, specifically with regard to whether domestic cats can go outside and wander around freely. I wanted to ask this question because Finland to an outsider is a cold place. It would seem to be inhospitable to domestic cats to be outside. Of course, I am stereotyping but what is the general rule about letting cats go outside?

Domestic cat in Finnish weather. Image in public domain.

I couldn't find any really good specific details but people who have lived in Finland say this.

They say that outside of the cities free roaming cats are quite common. The same applies to semi-feral barn cats and what the Finish called "summer cats". These are cats which have been adopted during summer months and then abandoned when winter arrives. That sounds rather unpleasant I must say. I would have expected better from the Finish.

I don't know of any specific law which states that domestic cats living in Finnish cities have to be kept indoors. I don't think they exist. I think the general rule is that domestic cats can't wander into certain places. To achieve this, they should be under supervision when outside the home.

Apparently, the law is "pretty clear" as per a person who has lived in Finland. They state that "any animal free roaming is supposed to be supervised by its owner. Any animal without its owner close by can be considered abandoned and, for example, a free roaming cat without its owner found on the property of someone else, might be killed."

They further state that there are hunters in the countryside shooting at stray and feral cats. They have the right to do this provided the cat in question is unsupervised and therefore the owner is not nearby and, further, they don't have a collar with an identification tag.

The general consensus in Finland appears to be that domestic cats in cities should be kept indoors and those that live in the countryside can roam freely or it is tolerated despite what I've said in the last paragraph!

I think, judging from my reading of this topic, the situation is rather vague and untidy. I could not find specific laws about indoor/outdoor cats. And I'm good at researching on the Internet.

People who have lived in Finland provide rather vague answers to the question whether domestic cats are allowed outside unsupervised.

This appears to be leading to the shooting of cats without sanction from the authorities. On that topic, if there is a law regarding keeping cats indoors, it is apparently unenforced or enforced poorly.

As in other countries, the Finish apparently are drifting towards the idea of full-time indoor cats. Although, you still see indoor/outdoor cats outside in the bigger cities. But it is apparently "technically illegal".

My research also indicates that sterilising domestic cats is not mandatory, which leaves many indoor/outdoor cats living in the countryside unsterilised, free to breed and procreate thereby encouraging shooters to take pot shots.

Petition making it a legal requirement for drivers to stop and report collisions with cats will fail

A petition on the UK government website has 102,436 signatures. It was open for 6 months. Its demand is to "Make it a legal requirement for drivers to stop & report collisions with cats". This is a campaign that has been going on for a long time (since at least 2014). It is a good campaign. Drivers have to stop and report accidents with other animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. 

Image: MikeB

Because it reached over 100k signatures it has to be debated in the House of Commons. It will be next week. But it is a waste of time because the government will not enact new legislation to comply with the petition. Their reason?

Here is the Department of Transport response on the petition website:

"The Government has no plans to make it an offence to drive off after hitting a cat. A focus for this Government is to make roads safer for all users, which will in turn reduce the risk to all animals. 

Under section 170 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, a driver is required to stop and report an accident involving specified animals including horses, cattle, asses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats or dogs, but not cats or wild animals. This requirement arises from their status as working animals rather than as domestic pets. To introduce such a measure within the provision of section 170 would require primary legislation. 

Having a law making it a requirement to report road accidents involving cats would be very difficult to enforce and we have reservations about the difference it would make to the behaviour of drivers, who are aware that they have run over a cat and do not report it. 

Although there is no obligation to report all animal deaths on roads, Rule 286 of The Highway Code advises drivers to report any accident involving an animal to the police, and if possible, they should make enquiries to ascertain the owner of domestic animals and advise them of the situation. 

The Government recognises how distressing it can be for someone to lose a pet, especially without knowing what has happened. We committed in our Manifesto, and reaffirmed in our Action Plan for Animal Welfare, to introducing compulsory cat microchipping and plan to introduce the necessary legislation this year. We understand that the vast majority of local authorities now have arrangements in place to scan dead cats and dogs found by them and we will continue working with them and other stakeholders to develop and promote best practice in this area. " - Department for Transport.

That was a massive campaign by some great women to plug a loophole in UK legislation which is unfair on domestic cats. 

The underlying reason why the government won't make new law on this is because they are too busy trying to fix so many profound problems in what many people believe is a broken Britain.

Carole Baskin sums up the advantages of the Big Cat Public Safety Act, now US law

 I am one of those people who admire Carole Baskin tremendously. She has spent 30 years of her life ensuring that this new law, the Big Cat Public Safety Act, comes into force. In the video she tells us that it passed Congress but since then it's been signed off by President Joe Biden and therefore it is now law in the USA.

Note: Come on guys and ladies 😒😢. Judging by the very small number of views of this page almost no one is interested in this and yet it is of major importance in animal welfare in the US. It is huge and a great achievement by Carole Baskin and the others who pushed this law through the legislature.

It tackles two major aspects of big cat ownership. Firstly, it prevents big cat ownership falling into the hands of private individuals where the cats are often mistreated and abused. Carole Baskin in another video says that countries like the UK banned this form of big cat ownership in 1970. She is upset that America has taken until now, 50 years later, to do the same thing.

And secondly, it stops the abuse of big cat cubs in photo sessions and other uses. There are two aspects to be cub abuse. They are torn from their mothers and we don't know the back story to this and how many cubs die in the process et cetera. And secondly when they grow up and become adults they are shipped off to private individuals where they become pets and where they can be mistreated.

"This became the last chance. If it hadn't passed this year I don't think it would have passed with the kind of Congress we have set up for next year. I really think this is the first step to saving the tiger in the wild. And when I say the tiger, I mean the lions, the leopards and everybody because they're all critically endangered." - Baskin

She says that in 20 years' time there will be no big cats in private ownership in the US. It will take that long because the law does not force existing big cat owners to give up their cats. The cats will have to die out. And there will be a while during which the country will have to adjust to enforcing the Big Cat Public Safety Act.

That's going to be a big issue as to how it is enforced and Carole Baskin states that there will need to be a registration process. I presume this applies to existing owners so that they can be tracked and monitored to prevent them adopting and buying further big cats against the law.

There are so many big cats in private ownership in the US that it is going to be difficult to enforce the law. These are backyard private zoos where the animals are often effectively mistreated and treated as "pets".

On so many occasions the police, the first responders, have had to deal with escaped big cats where they've terrorised the public and on occasions they've been shot. This need not happen and going forward it won't happen in the US. The new law protects the public and the cats.

It's been a long time coming. Carole Baskin has many enemies and they are all in the business of abusing big cats for profit. Such is the hatred of her enemies of her that one of them, Joe Exotic, planned to kill her. For that crime he is now serving a life term prison sentence.

Single-handedly it seems she totally unpicked and demolished this objectionable and extensive big cat abuse business in the US. Big cats are vulnerable to abuse because they are very popular. Because they are popular abusers want to breed them to exploit them.

That, over time, will entirely come to an end thanks to the 30 year effort of Carole Baskin. She is the founder and owner of Big Cat Rescue. There are still people who hate her. She is not easily intimidated.

She speaks very eloquently about protecting the wild cats. This new law will also help protect the wild cats living in the wild. She makes the point that today, in the USA, if a person has a piece of jewellery containing a tiger tooth, they can't be stopped and arrested because that tooth may have come from a pet tiger in a private zoo.

But in the future a person carrying such an ornament will be arrested hopefully because it will have come from the wild and to trade in wild tiger body parts has been illegal for many years. That, by the way, is another story because the enforcement of laws preventing the trading of wild species body parts is appalling.

It's critical that the Big Cat Public Safety Act is enforced effectively. A good law without proper enforcement is a bad law.

Cats in backpacks banned from Mount Taranaki, New Zealand

NEWS AND COMMENT: Mount Taranaki also known as Mount Egmont is a dormant volcano on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is in the Egmont National Park. It is a place where Aucklanders like to take hike and there are those people with cats who like to hike with their cat companions in a large and appropriate backpack customized for convenient cat travel. It is a growing aspect of cat ownership and I like it because it gets the cats outside when often nowadays, they are confined to the inside.

Cat in backpack while owner is hiking. Image in public domain.

However, the staff of the Department of Conservation of New Zealand did not like what they saw: cats being carried in backpacks. 😎 A senior ranger, Dave Rogers, couldn't quite believe his eyes because cats and other domestic animals are forbidden from the park as they pose a threat to endangered birds like the Kiwi and other native species including geckos and insects.

Apparently, there was more than one cat owner with a cat backpack and they were spotted putting their cats into them in the car park. Mr Rogers said: "Bringing a pet into the park may seem a harmless thing to do but it has potentially deadly consequences for our native wildlife, particularly should the pets run loose or escape from their owners' control".

I think they are being unduly harsh. These cats are secure in a backpack and they are often wearing harnesses with a lead so that when they are removed from the backpack they are on a lead. That is not to say that they are going to be taken for a walk in this park. I am simply saying that the owner is taking a lot of precautions to keep their cats safe and to stop them roaming freely.

I'm sure that the rules applying to Egmont National Park concern free-roaming cats or other animals. But these are cats which are well and truly secured. I don't really see an issue unless the Rangers believe that the owners are going to be careless and set them free, which I can't envisage.

I have a feeling that the rules don't really accommodate cats in backpacks and therefore they been extended to include backpacks by these rangers in an ad hoc manner. They could amend the rules to allow cats in secured and commercially manufactured backpacks.

RELATED: Catastrophic loss of wildlife hits Australia. Cause? Humans.

After all cats have equal rights to kiwis or they should have. A compromise could be found. The trouble is that the New Zealand authorities don't like domestic cats that are allowed outside and it's the same in neighbouring Australia. The authorities have so screwed up wildlife conservation that they are responding by attacking the cat and not criticising themselves.

No pets are permitted in the park unless with written approval. Anyone found with pets in the park can be fined up to NZ$800. Repeat offenders can be fined up to NZ$100,000 or up to a year in prison. Pets can be seized and impounded.