Speaking as someone whose parents and family members still refuse to be persuaded to keep their cats inside, if your cat dies as a result of being allowed to roam freely, whether hit by a car or killed by another animal or disease or whatever, that’s 100% on you. The owner of the cat is responsible for the death of that animal as surely as if they killed it themselves because it was completely preventable. This makes people upset to hear, but you can’t claim to love something in one breath and then completely abandon them to the many dangers of the world in the next. If you love your pet you do everything in your power to keep it safe.
We need to keep saying “what happens to an outdoor cat is 110% the owners fault” until owners realize this. That person who hit the cat probably already felt horrible and if they couldn’t stop, they couldn’t stop. They didn’t mean “I was too busy, I couldn’t care to stop” they were literally saying “they could not physically stop the car in time to not hit the cat”. It was never their fault, and it wasn’t the cat’s either because they don’t know any better. It’s 110% the owners fault and I’m going to keep saying it until every horrible cat owner puts there cat back inside where it belongs.
Also think about your kids if you don’t care for the cat. How do you think that 9 year old, who didn’t know outdoor cats were bad, felt? They had no idea this would happen because of their ignorant parents. Their parents ended a life and damaged their child’s. This is a traumatizing event for a young child. And it’s so unfair for everyone involved… Except the parent obviously.
Just keep your damn cat inside or do an actual humane thing and just don’t fucking get one.
For god’s sake, just keep your cats indoors or give it supervised outdoor time – however much your kitty may love the outside, the outside?
It doesn’t. Love. Them. Back.
I know that when a pet wants out, it’s extremely hard to keep them in because they do make a fuss. I’ve seen people saying it’s unfair to not let their cat roam free all the time. Well. You know what’s even more unfair? Letting your child grieve an animal at the age of nine because you didn’t want to put up with the cat complaining to go out, because you didn’t want to train it to go out. That is on you.
Somebody who’s just killed an animal by accident is already going to feel like a monster. Although you possibly don’t care, they could’ve risked their safety and the safety of their passengers (including children! Newsflash!!) if they had swerved to avoid it. They did what they could. And they had the decency to come and tell you, instead of driving away to remain guiltless and leaving you or your child to find what had happened.
So how dare you blame everybody else for what happens to your goddamn animal when it’s your responsibility to keep it safe.
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