Posted on 08/22/2009 8:51:54 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Residents in Old East Dallas say they are fed up with dogs roaming the streets at night killing their cats. They've heard the killings outside their bedroom windows and watched the dogs trot off.
But they don't know what to do. They can't capture the dogs themselves. They say Animal Control doesn't come out while the dogs are still there. And they say police won't respond if humans aren't in danger.
"I'd just like to get a gun and sit on my front porch and shoot them. I'm just so mad," said Will Olliverson, of Junius Heights. He found his 15-year-old cat dead in his front yard last week, and a veterinarian told him it had been shaken to death by a large animal.
He said a neighbor's cat was killed the same day. In Bryan Place, residents on one street say they know of at least a dozen cat killings this year. One resident, David Allen, saw three dogs killing a cat outside his window last week, and then saw one of the dogs Thursday morning in a neighbor's yard with a dead cat. It helps that people are spotting trends, said City Coucil member Angela Hunt.
She promised Friday to compile information about the problems and arrange for teams from Animal Control to respond. "It's just like a criminal case,"
Hunt said. "When you have a string of burglaries, you're going to try to gather as much information from witnesses that you can. We need to know what we're looking for and where they might be."
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
Having lived around farms with electrified fencing, I’d say you should carefully adjust your voltage to avoid injuring or even killing children, or get a policy with a much larger max payout for your homeowner’s insurance, one or the other. Warning and no trespassing signs are in order, too. A good lie-yer could paint it into looking like some sort of intentional boobytrap.
I could make the same exact statement as you (I share the same frustrations as your post points out), plus the band I am in is called the Deadly Wombats, so I got a twofer from reading your post.
I've caught several that would come up on my back deck in the middle of the night to pick a fight with my inhouse cat. 3:00 a.m. and I'm hearing hissing and howling........that doesn't cut it.
I used to transport them about 5 miles away and let them go but I started feeling bad about it so I devised a different means of behaviour modification.
The last cat I found in my trap I hosed down for about 2 straight minutes then released it......I never knew that cats could fly. Never saw or heard it again.......
We had a problem with that for a while. A friendly visit to the Police Chief took care of it. We've got a noise ordinance that's enforced pretty well now. The cops who sat on our street to catch the guys doing it managed to get felon (gangbanger) in possession of a firearm from the stop.
He's back in the slam doing another 5 years and for some reason the 'usual suspects' are either not around at all or their car stereos get turned down in the neighborhood.
Everyone's a winner.
Wow, must be nice - even a trip to the police chief in my area won’t do a lick of good on just about any offense - including a felony! What did you say to the chief that got action?
We have a strict ordinance on noise/public nuisance, but it never gets enforced even when shown to be being violated and quoted verbatim to police officers. If you can hear it 50 feet away, then it’s against the ordinance. I regularly hear vehicle stereos from about 8 blocks away on the freeway near my home, or in the surrounding area of the community I live in (some of these jerks love to cruise through the back roads in our area and bump their stereos at all hours of the night). I’ve given them license plate numbers and descriptions of people, even names and gotten nowhere.
I simply asked politely. Of course having worked on our Mayors election campaign probably didn't hurt, nor did the follow up call to the Mayor.
L
They will kill em dead at 30 yards and no one will hear a thing. Quieter than a champagne cork, they have no resonance at all. I probably shot 50 squirrels right outside my neighbor's window without him noticing before he happened to be out in the yard when one fell out of his tree and on to his patio.
Let’s see, how could this be prevented.
I don’t suppose getting the dawg catcher off his sorry butt to round up the dogs might help the problem.
Then again, keeping Mittens in the house might protect her from dogs or coyotes in the first place.
Do people around you consider their cats as pets or mousers? I wonder this because there are so many diseases cats can get from wildlife (birds, mice, raccoons, etc.)and each other that are horrible and life-threatening. Then of course there are dogs and people who like to hurt cats, as well as cars (not just getting hit, but they like to crawl up into the engine to stay warm and end up getting fried).
I understand the desire to rid the area of pests, but I wonder if there are other ways to handle it without risking their lives. I am not being sarcastic; where I live, we have a few mice but nothing alarming, and we just set humane traps that we check on throughout the day. The occasional mouse gets transported to a large park where it’s out of our hands, and my cats stay inside, happy and safe as ever.
Having lived around farms with electrified fencing, I’d say you ..You do realize, then that the 30 dollar price-class 'chargers' are not capable of clearing weeds or livestock since the current is limited - meaning it is unlikely to cause a human heart to cease being as well ... and seeings how the problem I'm looking to solve has at most the centroid of body-mass at 8" to 10" above ground, how high do you think I'm going to place the live wire?
(What - did you think I was 'fencing' the whole backyard at chest-level with electrified wire?)
We had a problem with that for a while. A friendly visit to the Police ChiefThe 'stationary' sources are well under control. It's the mobile sources that need work now (seems no one likes a visit from the poh-leece at any time for any reason) ...
If you cared to keep your cats in your own backyard, you would.
If you cared to keep your cats in your own backyard, you would.I don't understand; I have no cats. I depend on the neighbor's cat(s) * for mouse eradication ops (an assumption may have been made here, which has now found to be in error.)
(* The cat-lady at the corner is now gone, but the next door neighbor's big black-and-white cat is on the job.)
Depends upon policy but some animal control departments will loan a live trap. You may have to put down a refundable deposit.
Both!
I have dog's also and none would ever hurt a cat, I won't allow it. Breaking dog's from chasing cat's is easy, breaking people from encouraging they're dog's to attack cat's is impossible. In this county if your dog attacks another’s pet it is considered a dangerous dog at large.
>Where I live there is no ordinance about keeping cat’s inside or on a leash but there is for dog’s. There’s a reason we let cat’s roam and it has to do with rat’s and mice over running the area. <
Note my comment was to get the dog catcher to gather up stray dogs. I am well aware that most localities require dogs to be confined. However, the average life span for an outdoor cat is 3 1/2 years, while it’s not unusual for a housecat to live well into its teens, and some will live to be 20 years and older.
If people care about the welfare of their pet cats, they will keep them in the house, not let them loose to be coyote food. I suppose people need barn cats, but the animals don’t live long as a rule.
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