Cat management courses for Town Council officers

Letter from Dr Tan Chek Wee, Today Online 2 Feb 09;

I refer to “No easy solution for strays”(Jan 30).

The AVA’s stand is “It is a fact that stray cats, including sterilised ones, create numerous disamenities to the public, ranging from nuisance to hygiene concerns, even physical threat”.

The experience of caregivers like myself and Ms Dawn Kua when she was with the Cat Welfare Society (CWS), (whose experiences are still available on her blog atwww.catwelfare.blogspot.com/) indicate that many complaints arise from irresponsible cat owners who let their pets roam and irresponsible feeders, such as those who lure cats upstairs to feed them.

I have spoken to complainants who said they did not want cats culled.

Problems have been and can be solved without culling, if Town Council (TC) officers are guided on how to approach cat-related feedback.

At the moment, I believe TC officers do not attend formal training on this aspect of their jobs, and hence some resort to culling as a default solution.

I suggest that the AVA, with the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and CWS, organise courses on “cat management” so that these officers can carry out their jobs more effectively.

As for physical threat, it is a fact that cats rarely attack unprovoked.

A father in my estate complained tothe TC that his daughter was attacked but fortunately, a senior property officerinterviewed residents who bore witnessthat the cat had not been known to beaggressive.

We cannot take complaints of “physical threat” at face value.

It is often the complainants who provoke cats to attack.

Perhaps the AVA can include “how to approach community cats correctly” in its public education.

As for the call for AVA and TC to work with the caregivers, we are, and the TC as well, waiting for clear guidelines on how caregivers can apply for sterilisation disbursement.

So far, the TC officers I have emailed are in the dark about this disbursement scheme.

Give sterilisation a chance
It’s better for cats’ health, reduces aggressivenessand eradicates need to cull
Letter from Joanna Hughes, Today Online 2 Feb 09;

I refer to “No easy solution for strays” (Jan 30).

I was at first enheartened that the AVA had finally come to recognise the importance of sterilisation. But the let-down came immediately after. Stray cats a physical threat? Or a cause of “disamenities”, whatever they are?

I live in an urban area, where I have to put up with drunks who pass out on my porch, fights, dirty diapers left next to the rubbish bins and directly in my path, spitters, smokers, loud people of every description, loud motorbikes in need of tune-ups and mufflers, blocked drains that have to be pumped out — ah, the sounds and smells of urban life ...

But there are also community cats who, unless they are having a small dust-up over food or territory, are quiet, generallysmell-free and friendly — and if not human-oriented, shy and retiring.

We live through this and adjust to the minor inconveniences they cause.

Yes, cats do fight. The ones who fight are the ones who are not sterilised; the ones who spray urine, ditto.

It’s very simple: Sterilise. Sterilisation reduces much of the aggro that hormones cause (take for example,teenagers who join gangs and beat up others for “staring” at them).

Sterilised cats live longer and healthier lives, create relationships with those who live around them and keep down the vermin population (there was a media report about rats on Orchard Road).

There is more that can be done. One is to give community carers a break — time to work with owners of unsterilised cats, time to get them caught, neutered and help with transport and costs of sterilisation.

Another is to allow HDB dwellers to keep cats, provided they are licensed and neutered. (By the way, let’s make sterilisation part of the licensing requirement for pet dogs, too.)

Finally, to help educate the public about cats: That there are simple ways to deal with “disamenities” (such as putting out mothballs to discourage cats from pooping in pot plants or corners); that cats are not “dirty”, that cats are not aggressive unless threatened; that civilised and gracious people do not kick, punch or torture other living beings, nor do they lobby for their destruction.

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