I’m an asshole because this was literally the standard response by the majority of people on the equivalent subreddit, to the point where it looked like that people indeed took healthy looking outdoor cats with them, without checking if they had an owner. We had this happen to our cat when I was a kid, it got taken away by someone while it was just wandering around in her turf. Luckily we found her weeks later, the person threw her out again in some small backyard that she couldn’t escape out of. Luckily another neighbor in that house saw her and our flyers that we put out and called us. But this shit happens every day to someone and stupid idiots like him & @DigitalPaperTrail encourage this type of behavior. If it weren’t for that observant and caring neighbor, we would’ve lost our cat, she would’ve likely just starved to death there, all alone and confused.
Sorry that happened to you and your cat, and glad you got it back. I’ll assure you I’d never take in a cat without being sure there’s mistreatment involved (and that’d involve a visit to a vet to verify - it’s hard to tell just from sight; so far thankfully all the cats around here have seemed healthy), and I’m extremely careful about not letting any cats that come to visit get used to seeing my place as home, because I’d have been equally distraught if it happened to any of the cats we had when I was younger.
I’m an asshole because this was literally the standard response by the majority of people on the equivalent subreddit, to the point where it looked like that people indeed took healthy looking outdoor cats with them, without checking if they had an owner. We had this happen to our cat when I was a kid, it got taken away by someone while it was just wandering around in her turf. Luckily we found her weeks later, the person threw her out again in some small backyard that she couldn’t escape out of. Luckily another neighbor in that house saw her and our flyers that we put out and called us. But this shit happens every day to someone and stupid idiots like him & @DigitalPaperTrail encourage this type of behavior. If it weren’t for that observant and caring neighbor, we would’ve lost our cat, she would’ve likely just starved to death there, all alone and confused.
Sorry that happened to you and your cat, and glad you got it back. I’ll assure you I’d never take in a cat without being sure there’s mistreatment involved (and that’d involve a visit to a vet to verify - it’s hard to tell just from sight; so far thankfully all the cats around here have seemed healthy), and I’m extremely careful about not letting any cats that come to visit get used to seeing my place as home, because I’d have been equally distraught if it happened to any of the cats we had when I was younger.