Does this seem cruel to anyone else

[raven_illusion]

wow... I feel guilty when I have two of mine share a carrier for a 10 minute ride to the vet's office. This guy should not be allow to own animals. I would hate to see what would happen if he had children.

[Jester]

Please, tell the guy from the original post to not move too much, as I have something for him....



I love cats, and shit like this just pisses me off. I have gotten into arguments with other cat people about declawing, whether to let the cats out, etc., and while the phrase "cruel" has been thrown around by both sides, it wasn't meant in its truest sense. But THIS...this is cruel.

The one bit of satisfaction that I get from this story is that I am pretty certain after the first day or two of being confined to such ridiculous quarters the cats in question are going to put up quite a fight when Sir Sucks-A-Lot tries putting them back in said cage. Hope the scar him but good!


EDITED TO ADD:

This weekend my nieces' mother was out of town and I was in charge of them. The younger one (14) was supposed to feed and walk her dog. She did a pisspoor job of this, and when I found out about it, I was furious. Since her older sister (16) cleaned up the mess the dog made after the younger one fed but didn't walk the dog one day (she was too busy with her friends), I made the little one do a little cleaning of her own. Basically cleaning up a lot of stuff that the older one was supposed to. Also made her come home earlier from her friends' house than originally planned. When she started to argue about the earlier time, I pointed out that I could make it even earlier, i.e., could make her come home immediately and not let her go out at all. She pretty much shut up after that.

And yes, I gave her the lecture about how a dog is not a toy, but a living thing, and that as such, she needed to take care of it appropriately, or her mom would see to it that she would no longer have said dog. It's weekends like this that remind me why I am still not a parent. Personally I can't stand the dog in question, it being a very annoying, very yippy Yorkie, but even those little furballs should be taken care of properly.

I was furious over a teenager being a little irresponsible about a dog I don't even like. So you can imagine how incensed I am by the original story about the cat cager.

[ShadedWings]

People like him are the reason I didn't work in a pet store for longer than nine months. I couldn't stand it when people didn't get the point of buying all the necessary items for their new pet... most of the time when people told me "I have a cage/bowls/etc at home already, I don't need all that!" I really seriously doubted they did. I couldn't stand it when people would be shocked and dismayed and argumentative about all the things I tell them they need, because obviously I didn't know as much as they did about animals! Regardless of the fact that I grew up in a house where my mom has owned pretty much almost every species of pet possible, and bred several of them as a hobby... cats, dogs, snakes, bearded dragons, birds (several species of them), guinea pigs, mice (for the snakes), fish... over the past 25 years, and showed me every possible reason and need for each species to have what they do. No, I don't know anything. *sigh*

(Even the store owner would not believe me and basically call me a liar when I told him something... but then again he was a liar, a thief and an overall jackhole.)

[protege]

When I first brought the kitty home, he stayed in his carrier (aka his "house") the first few days. I guess he felt safe in there. Even so, I hate to put him in there, even if it's just a few blocks to the vet's office. He doesn't like it, and is usually pretty pissed off when we arrive.

There are only a few people who I'll let kitty-sit--my neighbor and her daughter, and my parents. I had a bad experience when my cousin watched him--she kept him caged up the entire weekend, and didn't bother cleaning out the cage. Let's just say when I picked him up, I was pissed--he was covered in crap, and it took a good hour to give him a bath. Kitty hates water, and nearly cut me to ribbons!

[Becks]

It's cruel to the poor cats.

No animal deserves that.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Maybe he means a throw rug in the bathroom? Or the edge of the carpet outside the bathroom door...if the cats are trying to get out, they may be reaching their paws under the door and clawing the carpet in the process (one of my cats loves to do this...he sticks his feet under my bedroom door in the morning and we play 'whack-a-mole' wherein I catch his foot with my toes - then again, my cats don't have claws).

And yes, we have the ASPCA in the US. I would report the guy if I could. My cats used to be confined to one room when they were small, pretty much all the time for the first month or so, then just at night and when we went out, but they had a whole bedroom with a bed they could sleep on or hide under, and a desk under the window where they could look out, and their litter box and food/water/lots of toys. When they were babies they shared a carrier for vet visits, but now they each have their own. If he can't afford proper accomodations for the cats, he's really gonna have problems when the vet bills come after one of them claws the other's eyes out.

[Mark Healey]

Why does he have carpet in his bathroom?!

I mean, hell. Maybe that's normal somewhere, but here tile and other things that don't absorb water are usually the flooring in bathrooms.

I've seen it before and I don't understand it either. It's usually done by people with more money than brains.

[Sonoma]

I totally agree. The only people allowed to 'babysit' my cat are my parents (who got me hooked on animals in the first place), and the friend of mine who bred him, and still owns his parents. Whenever Casey goes back to their place, he gets to visit his family, since his parents, one grandma, and his sister still live there. If they're not available, I'll go for 2 days max., or I don't go.

[aniwahya]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what the OP said it sounds like these are not his cats, but rather the cats of someone he lives with.
Which brings to mind my deep, seething hatred of people who leave their animals with people who are not responsible with them. Although, to be fair, it is entirely possible that this guy only treats the cats this way when the real (if there is one) owner is not home.

Those poor kitties.

[blas]

Give me that asshole's address right now. It's about time we do a citizens' arrest and give him what's coming to him.

God damn uncivilized sons of bitches who hurt animals..........

Who's with me?

[ShinyGreenApple]

Why do people insist on having animals if they're just going to keep them locked up all day?

Reminds me of a neighbor and former (note use of that word) friend of ours. Earlier last year, she and her husband had filed for bankruptcy, yet she could still waltz out and buy two purebred Pomeranian puppies for $300 each. Fast forward a few months and guess what, they're in financial trouble again, so she calls my Mom up to ask her if she would still like to buy the male puppy, since Mom had told her if ever she decided she didn't want him, that we would be more than willing to take him off their hands. Mom absolutely loved this puppy, so we drove over there to give them a check and pick him up. Lo and behold, we discover that the two puppies have been being kept in crates, one stacked on the other, for pretty much 23 hours a day. Yes, the crates were large, and kept clean, and the dogs were kept brushed, but WHY?!

"Oh, I can't stand to let them out. They're always so full of energy and they run round like crazy things."

No shit, I might be a little crazy if I was kept locked in a cage all day too. The only time they got out was when the kids came home from school, and even then she would always make them put the dogs back after an hour or so because apparently they were being too noisy playing with them.

We're only sorry we couldn't have bought Meeko's sister from them as well, but at least we saved one

Neighbor was shocked when she came to visit to discover that Mom just lets him run all over the house and sleep in her room at night. No, that's right, he does not piddle and poo all over the place or chew things up. Yes, we housebroke him in less than a week. He's a very happy, people-loving little dog and not at all troublesome. We keep him in the bathroom when we leave the house, but we always give him his food and water, and his bed, and it's never for very long. We tried letting him have reign of the place one day and came back to find he had left three love offerings on the floor. One for each of us, I suppose.

Anywho . . . yeah. Assholes should not be allowed to have pets.

[Receptionist]

This is cruel. Thinking that I spend a whole saturday just to build a house for my cat, out of an old computer box, where she can play, I am disgusted that such people even think about keeping living creatures in a box for 9 hours.

He really should give them away...

[crazylegs]

I am aware there is legislation in the UK with regards to living space for certain animals, is that so in the USA? Do you have an equivilent of the RSPCA that you can report this to as this is simply horrific, no wondoer those cats tore up his carpet, THEY WERE BORED lets lock him in a small room for a few hours and see what he ends up doing.

Stay Safe

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

I'm not an animal person, the vast majority of animals i bring into my house are mice for my Ball Python to eat, but damn, dude, get rid of the cats, if you can't go to wal mart and get 2 cages for $40 each(they actually have some decent ones, we had one for my dog before we got rid of him) you don't have enough money for a cat anyway. but the even bigger item of stupidity than carpet in the bathroom is why would he ask a pet store employee to help him pick out a cage that is way too small for his needs? these are the last people to ask for assistance in abusing an animal. anybody got Michael Vick's number? he's got alot of free time now that he's unemployed

[Nox]

trying to get out of the bathroom he has locked them in and has tore up some of the carpet in doing so.

I think we've established that this guy is a classic example of an asshole.

Doing that to cats is going to end up with one of them dead, in all likely hood. Cats really fighting are a huge risk to one another. So yeah, those cats need a better home. However, no one has mentioned one peculiar thing:

Why does he have carpet in his bathroom?!

I mean, hell. Maybe that's normal somewhere, but here tile and other things that don't absorb water are usually the flooring in bathrooms.

But yes, he is Reigning King of Dickwads.