Bell and Tooth

“I had a cat who we let outside, because we are irresponsible owners who don’t care about what we cannot see. We ignored his care by leaving him to roam, we mistreated him by abandoning him to the elements, he was experiencing stress threats everyday but we think he was healthy because it was all out of sight and out of mind.

He was killed by a perfectly normal dog a few blocks over from us, and we found out, later, through the grapevine, because he was not microchipped or had a collar, had traveled BLOCKS from home and the poor owner who made this discovery had no idea what to do about the dead cat in their yard. You can have your own opinions about indoor or outdoor cats, but I am going to feel morally superior that it was everybody’s fault but my own because I don’t want to consider the dog owner’s feelings or side or that this could have been incredibly easily avoided by confining the cat to my property.

Don’t pretend that it wasn’t my fault as the asshole to dump a cat to roam blocks into the yard of a person with a perfectly normal dog who now has to deal with the trauma and social pressure of owning a dog that caught a cat in its yard.  A cat I put at risk be letting him outside. Staffordshire bull terriers can be the nicest sweetest dogs, but they are strong and predators (an action as normal as cats killing mice) which is why they have such secure yards and no matter how responsible the other owner can be, irresponsible owners put their ownership at risk by letting cats roam into their yard.

Gowing up, we used to let our cat free roam cuz it was 15 years ago and we didn't know any better and that's just what people did. One night my dad is in our driveway and looks up just in time to see the neighborhood great horned owl, talons out as it dove at our cat. It was sheer luck my dad moved in time to spook the owl before it could grab him. We knew better after that. Note that the owl was not vicious, it was a wild animal looking for dinner and my beloved family cat was fair game.

My dog is incredibly sweet. She's ridiculously chill and sweet and gentle. I fostered kittens and she absolutely adored them. Would let them climb and nap on her and everything. 11/10 very cute. She is the best dog ever and I love her. Vicious is not a word anyone would ever associate with her. But she's also a siberian husky, a breed known for their prey drive. Once we were on a walk and her tail is wagging and we're both enjoying the sun and watching the birds and it's normal. Suddenly her attention snaps to the bush we're walking past and she pounces. That in itself isn't abnormal, but usually she steps back empty-jawed. Occasionally she might have a mouse. This time was not normal. This time she steps back and there is something large and black in her mouth and she's shaking it rapidly back and forth like she would a chew toy. Not because she's some vicious animal, but because she's a dog and that's something that dogs do. It takes me about 2 seconds to process that she has one of the feral neighborhood cats in her mouth. It takes about 10 more seconds before I'm able to get her to drop the poor thing and I was shocked and relieved when the cat bolted away. I can't be sure of its injuries, but I did spot it a few more times after that so I think it was generally okay, just down to 8 lives instead of 9. It was very lucky that day, it could have very easily died.

My dog did not attack this cat because she's a vicious dog. And it didn't happen because I'm "some asshole with a violent dog, that [I] made vicious." It happened because I have a dog that saw something that triggered her prey drive and was within the radius allotted by her 6-foot, non-retractable leash.