ID tag could reunite dead cat with owner
By Phyllis DeGioia
October 9, 2009
“I just saw something on the road that looked bad. We’d better turn around,” said my friend Jennifer. She was driving us home from our Italian class. I hadn’t noticed whatever it was because I wasn’t staring at the road, and it was dark.
She stopped the car in the center of the lane with her headlights on what we were afraid was an animal, and put on her hazard lights. I hopped out to discover it was an orange cat.
Last summer one of Jennifer’s beloved cats, Niblet, was found dead on a street.
There was a lot of blood on the pavement. I nudged him to see if there was a reaction; he was dead but still warm on a cold fall night. I panicked, wondering how I could possibly get this bloody cat out of the middle of the road where he would be run over repeatedly. I went back to the car, which now had a few cars behind it, to see if there was anything I could use to move the cat without actually touching him because that idea made me feel ill. While I was dithering, Jennifer was explaining to the cars behind us that there was a dead animal in the road. A minute later, with no other options and a growing line of traffic behind us, I gently took his back legs and pulled him to the side of the road.
He had no collar, no tags.
We didn’t know what to do. If we called the city to remove him, the owner would never know what happened to him. The shelter doesn’t pick up dead animals. I still don’t know if that was the right decision, but we left him there in the hopes his owner would find him. For me, a pet never showing up again is far worse than not knowing what happened.
I kept thinking about a day over a decade ago when I was driving in a lane adjacent to a grassy center island in which there was a completely still cat, and a woman was running towards him. I will never forget the look on her face. I kept thinking about that woman and the warm cat I pulled to the side of the road, and I trembled. Jennifer and I hugged each other and tried not to cry.
When Jennifer’s cat Niblet was found last summer, he was found by a neighbor who knew Niblet. I don’t remember if he had a collar and tags on. But this cat we found last night had no identification tag. He might have been microchipped, but that wouldn’t have helped in this situation.
Cats lose collars all too easily – most are meant to break away if pulled too tight to prevent choking. That means that sometimes a collar is lost and not replaced immediately. It’s one of those things we mean to do that can just get lost in the shuffle of a busy life. I’ll get the new collar and tag tomorrow. Oops, forgot it, I’ll get it this weekend. Boy, I meant to get that new tag.
From now on, I’m going to have extra collars around the house, and extra ID tags for all of my pets. You just never know when you’re going to benefit from them, or how.
Two comments, one funny, one serious:
1) I didn’t know you had to take classes to be Italian. Where do I sign up? ;-)
2) The collar thing: I have four breakaway cat collars with ID tags hanging on the “Emergency Pet Gear” rack in the garage. My cats are 95 percent indoors, but they work very hard at slipping out and so sometimes they manage it. When one of them isn’t wearing a collar, BAM! they get one from the garage rack ASAP.
Mine are chipped, too, of course, but that wouldn’t help in the situation you were in, since none of us drive around with a scanner.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 9, 2009 @ 9:26 am
WHY LET CATS WANDER IN THE STREETS?
It’s the equivalent of letting your baby go out.
Comment by Ace — October 9, 2009 @ 9:36 am
It’s the equivalent of letting your baby go out.
Comment by Ace — October 9, 2009
Such inane comparisons don’t advance your cause. I’ve known cats live well into their teens as free-roaming pets. It is the norm? No, but good decisions start with objective information, not emotional reactions.
No, I don’t recommend letting cats roam, and my own cats are mostly in, as noted above. But knee-jerk jingoism isn’t helpful to changing anyone’s mind.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 9, 2009 @ 10:04 am
Thank you for caring enough to at least remove the poor cat’s body from the road. There’s nothing worse than having an animal run over repeatedly, even when he/she is already dead.
Our animal control will removed the body of a dog or cat when I contact them. I then send a memorial donation in honor of that animal.
Gina, what do you suggest for changing a person’s mind about the “okayness” of having an outdoor roaming cat? The norm is a much shorter lifespan than teens . . .
Comment by catmom5 — October 9, 2009 @ 12:33 pm
I don’t know what Gina thinks, but in my opinion it’s all a matter of the individual cat’s preference, where you live, what you’re comfortable with, etc. My neighbor’s cat Kitty Boy is utterly miserable inside - gets plugged up in winter because he hates using the litter box and prefers his back yard.
Maybe that cat had a collar and tags on when he left the house. Maybe not.
At the vet this morning I ordered another ID tag for Dickens, because while I replaced the lost collar, I never got around to the tag.
Today at lunch I drove past where the cat was hit and he was still there - but in one piece, and next to the curb.
Comment by Phyllis DeGioia — October 9, 2009 @ 12:48 pm
I don’t tell people how to live, raise their kids or care for their pets.
As an “advice columnist” I do make suggestions — often quite strongly — and I do advocate for better ways to help pets live happier, healthier and longer lives.
But in the final analysis, I am really reminded of Matthew 7:3 …
Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?
As Dr. Becker observes frequently, in just a couple of generations our pets have moved from the barnyard to backyard to the backporch to the bed. We are making progress, and the culture is changing mostly for the better in the industrialized world where animals are concerned.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find that nagging and berating people to live life as YOU want them to to be a highly ineffective strategy.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 9, 2009 @ 1:06 pm
The impact of a vehicle can also tear a collar clean off.
So, if conditions are safe to do so, look all around an injured or dead HBC dog or cat — and well down the road and along the side — for a collar and possibly scattered tags.
When human pedestrians are hit by cars going fast, one of the things that often happens is that they are literally knocked out of their socks. Not just shoes, socks.
I always thought it was just an expression until I became an EMT.
Lack of socks on the HBC pedestrian is one of the telltale “Oh shit” signs when you are coming up to a scene.
Imagine how that amount of force translates to something as flimsy as a cat collar, or even a dog collar that is loose or has a plastic buckle.
Comment by H. Houlahan — October 9, 2009 @ 1:29 pm
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I find that nagging and berating people to live life as YOU want them to to be a highly ineffective strategy.”
That’s just the nature of human beings, really. :)
Logically, allowing your cat to roam in an urban/suburban setting is allowing your cat to be exposed to dogs, stupid people, predators, cars, disease, other cats (fighting/wounds), etc. Allowing your cat to roam in a rural setting generally reduces their risk of exposure to smooshing cars but obviously ups their exposure to predators or other wild animals.
This is just common sense. And while I agree it’s fair to take into consideration the welfare of the individual animal, it’s also fair to take into consideration the welfare of everyone else.
I mean, I’m certainly tired of dealing with loose cats (with collars, by the way) who taunt my dogs and who may end up receiving a death blow (from my dogs, not me) if I’m not extraordinarily careful on my own property. I’m tired of cat shit and dead birds. I’m tired of swerving to avoid hitting a cat or watching cats chance death every time they cross the street.
If these cats I see on a daily basis were kept indoors, leashed, or safely confined in an appropriate outdoor enclosure, the lives of my dogs, myself, and anyone else with dogs or cars is improved. Arguably, their overall chance of living longer is improved as well (a few free-roaming neighborhood cats living 12-15 years does not a fact make).
That’s my utilitarian approach to this issue.
Comment by Rinalia — October 9, 2009 @ 1:31 pm
I’ve seen “found dead” notifications on the lost and found of Craigslist for just that reason - to let people know that there’s a dead animal and where, just in case they’re out looking for their pet.
It usually reads something like “Found dead - small black dog on corner of such and such road. Sorry.”
Not knowing would be worse, I think.
Comment by mikken — October 9, 2009 @ 1:34 pm
Which is why my own cats are (mostly) indoors. I can’t stand to think of them smooshed, and I don’t like to think of them bothering the neighbors.
But I’m also reminded that when I was growing up in suburbia people’s dogs roamed, and the idea of keeping a cat indoors would have been considered pretty crazy. In fact, I know only one neighbor who did, and she had a Persian, so it was considered in the neighborhood that she kept the cat inside because he was “valuable.”
Now … keeping cats indoors is by no means universal, but it’s certainly not odd, and people who don’t often feel they have to defend their choice.
We’ve made a lot of progress, in other words. And that progress will continue.
Comment by Gina Spadafori — October 9, 2009 @ 1:37 pm
Craig’s list, what a great idea! Thank you.
Comment by Phyllis DeGioia — October 9, 2009 @ 2:31 pm
There can be a happy medium between indoors and outdoors for cats, at least for people with yards: http://www.purrfectfence.com/
(Not to sound like a shill for the company, but their cat fence idea is too brilliant not to plug whenever the ‘indoor/outdoor cat’ debate crops up, imo.)
Comment by Pai — October 9, 2009 @ 3:01 pm
Sometimes you have no choice. Mine are both former ferals,Punkin was 10 when we adopted him. They are both in/out ,luckily I live in a rural suberb,on a cul de sac backing onto the woods. We tried to make them in only,but Punkin won’t use the litter box unless desperate. He recently had a UTI from not going & I had to go out & dig a hole,then carry him out to go. If I get new cats I will try to keep them in only,but it doesn’t work well with 1 who has spent 1/2 his life outside. They are chipped,I can’t do collars because they will get their paws stuck trying to get them off or get it stuck in their mouths. I have thought about tattoos like show dogs have.The last time I found a dead pet,I put an ad in the local paper so the owners would know.
Comment by Leslie K — October 9, 2009 @ 3:40 pm
There is a cat in my old neighborhood who had been found as a stray and neutered by the people who found him. They said he went “nuts” when they tried to make him a house cat, destroyed things, cried, became aggressive.
He’d probably been on our (fairly busy) street for years. And last I know, he’s still out there, roaming a territory of about 10 city blocks. Another neighbor told me his husky once grabbed the cat, and he startled the dog into dropping him.
It’s complicated - this cat has been on the streets, happy and healthy for at the very least six years.
Comment by Barbara Saunders — October 9, 2009 @ 9:14 pm
The cat was gone yesterday afternoon - don’t know if his owners found him or what, but he’s gone.
Comment by Phyllis DeGioia — October 10, 2009 @ 7:33 am
I still remember, over 60 years ago, seeing my first cat get hit by a car as I stood at my bedroom window. As an adult, I’ve made the choice to have indoor only cats. I have had some that were amenable to a harness and leash, but when the 4.5 lb burmese decided she wanted to take on the Great Dane down the street, those outdoor adventures were restricted to the back yard. In my current neighborhood, there are cats that are allowed out, but not many; and most of the dogs are on leash when not in a fenced yard.
Is it unfair not to let cats out? Maybe, but I know I’d be crushed if I had to experience the trauma again.
Comment by Moira — October 10, 2009 @ 9:40 am