if you happened upon a friendly stray cat at 9 p.m. on the night of memorial day, what do you do? all the places that would take it are closed, all pet supply places are closed ... do you take it or leave it to fend for itself in the wild?

fuck it's...na, can't do it

drop it off at the local chinese food place
they'll know what to do with it

well, i left the cat. the thought of bringing it to a place to be thrown in a cage somewhat bothered me, and i couldn't bring it home for good.

Leave it to fend for itself.

this is the obvious answer in terms of evolutionary biology.

cats suck. it would have ended up clawing the fuck outta everything you owned. might as well let it claw random things in the wild

even if we've domesticated the animal?

I would have taken it home for the night, then dropped it off at a shelter the following morning. Then again, you might have been kidnapping someone's cat who knows perfectly well how to get home and likes to sneak out when it gets the chance.

I would have brought it home or to our local shelter that has an after hours place to put strays. But, how did you know it was a stray? Did it look healthy? That would be a determining factor. If it looked healthy and well fed, I'd probably just leave it and check back later. I love all animals and can't stand to see them suffer. They are usually way better off in a shelter where they get good attention than foraging for themselves.

blah.

I wouldn't worry about it thus allowing the cat to live the way its ancestors did.

Are you fucking serious?

Fucking right!

my first impulse would be to take it home and take care of it until i could get someone else to adopt it. i have done this several times, but usually only when the animal is injured or if i find it somewhere really dangerous.

feral cats do really well out in the 'wild'. sure, every now and then you see a cat run over on the side of the road, but think... there are hundreds of them that you DONT see that are running about and eating rats and mice and such. so dont feel too bad about leaving it to fend for itself. chances are, itll be fine.

I'm not much of a cat person. Wouldn't be much of a dilemma for me. Honestly, when I see a cat just roaming around somewhere, it strikes me the same way as seeing a squirrel or something doing the same thing.

I've saved several cats (and two baby pigeons) in a very simple way: just calling the animal ambulance. They work 24/7 here all year round. I took a couple in for a while when there was no room in the shelter yet, but once that got my own cats flees so I'm more careful with that now.
Did you at least feed it?

groetjes,
Mirella

it looked like it was getting food, but it definitely looked like a stray. there was a small cut on its leg and it was a bit dirty.

i pet it for about 15 minutes ... then someone came by with a dog and the thing shot off. i couldn't find it, and i didn't think it was coming back out, so i left.

animal ambulance, huh? i'll have to look that up.

maybe it's something typically Dutch: http://www.dierenambulance.nl

groetjes,
Mirella

ruger 22 caliber.

Purrrrfect for cats.