A Message From Your Friendly Host
Blossom (the fluffy person) and the erstwhile Pepper
| Peptalk : A Message From Your Friendly Host |
Blossom (the fluffy person) and the erstwhile Pepper |
| And here we are at last, all set to launch the known universe's first publication ever devoted to the improvement of rural community living standards everywhere by focusing on some of the nagging little items that no one ever bothers to address in great detail -- such issues, for example, as cats whose don't-give-a-damn food providers allow to reproduce to population levels far beyond the comfortable carrying capacity of any neighborhood you or I would care to live in. (Disclaimer: If you're the kind of person who does enjoy having dozens of cats on your property, and you don't even reside out in the country, then this publication is not targeted to you). |
To be honest, our premier issue's particular focus on the problem of too many at-large cats reflects a longstanding pet peeve of mine. As my own family and the frustrated members of other households in our small town have intermittently struggled, with little success, to stem the deposition of fleas, feces and worse foisted upon us by some self-proclaimed "animal lovers" in our neighborhoods -- cat feeders who think it's only natural to play host to multiple litters of kittens per year -- it seems to me that I've developed a keener-than-average awareness of the problem's complexity. |
 What's so vexing about regulating cats isn't the difficulty critics of regulation argue it poses in terms of adequately identifying |
| About these Pages: The Catfield Pages, hosted by Pepper Larkham, is devoted to exploring a variety of issues in contemporary American small-town life, but visitors can also expect to encounter other topics that are near and dear to the host's heart. (More on this in red below). |
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| But therein lies the rub, for what's really keeping some communities hung up from applying the cat population tools at their disposal isn't the "how-to" questions involved. It's the more soul-searching question of "should we." No less a heavyweight in the conservative sphere than George Will has written on the philosophical confusion that immediately crops up whenever we consider serious efforts at cat control. Because it's in the nature of cats (as it is in dogs) to wander, and because cats are so adept at jumping, climbing, and squeezing under or through any boundaries we may erect in hopes of deterring their free movement from lot to lot, mandating cat owners' responsibility for their animals' unseemly acts on neighboring properties was long written off in government circles as a futile exercise. That thinking has gradually changed, however, both as the conservative-led property rights movement has blossomed and as a more leftward-leaning "enlightenment" to the cause of animal health has taken hold in the societal consciousness. (Explosions in feral cat populations increase health risks to any cats which are bona fide pets and which are periodically allowed to roam outdoors where they encounter the diseased ferals). | |
| About these Pages
(cont.): The host, a self-proclaimed baseball historian and critic, is especially opinionated on matters pertaining to baseball, so visitors can look forward to Peptalks and features in this area. (More in red below). |
Will didn't carry his own analysis of the situation quite to the point I'm about to make, but I'll go ahead and flatter myself in believing he'd probably agree with it. The point is this: Cat control is especially vexing to conservatives because it pits one conservative value against another -- the need to maintain the inviolability of private property versus the libertarian/conservative bent toward resisting any additional government regulation which isn't absolutely necessary. In communities where cats are out of control, then, are some forms of control absolutely necessary to homeowners' quiet enjoyment of their property? This can be a tough one, philosophically, for conservatives to hash out, especially if the libertarian faction argues (disingenuously, in my opinion) that owners of violated property are already free to take care of the problem themselves (i.e., by trapping and "disposing of" the stray but unregulated animals). |
Although the problem is toughest for conservatives, the left doesn't quite get through it without running into a quandary within its own ranks. In truth, the animal "rights" movement takes in a broad spectrum of beliefs, and the outlook from one end of that continuum is not entirely compatible with the animal world view at the other. On the more moderate end, domestic animal species are viewed through more or less the same lens through which the vast majority of Western Civilization's inhabitants view them. Cats, dogs, and other domesticable species are considered creatures we are capable of "owning," if we so choose, with an added provision from the animal rights moderates that we provide these possessed beings more optimal levels of veterinary care, personal attention, and protection against possible harm than the Western World's pets have traditionally received. This stance logically embraces spaying, neutering and certain other means of pet population management because the quantity of our "human-animal relationships," if too great, can outstrip our capacity to achieve the quality the movement urges that we strive for in those relationships. The animal rights movement also includes a fringe element -- a group of wackos who admonish us not to contaminate with our humanness the "natural" life course of any animal, even a domesticable one. Indeed, we are to do away with domestication altogether because the practice is tantamount to enslavement, corrupting what the fringe group considers the natural order of things. The high premium that this credo places on our non-interference with animals precludes any human management of their "natural" populations, of course. Certainly if this view were to prevail we would see an immediate end to the "pet" overpopulation problem, but exactly how our communities might learn to safely and happily coexist with the newly categorized dog and cat "wildlife" within their borders is not altogether clear. Perhaps, since we wouldn't be allowed to actively manage these natural populations, we could leave the job to the natural world's own checks and balances and everything would turn out right in the end. The challenge the fringe left poses to the moderate left is at best negligible, however, because the fringe view is, well, too darned fringe, thank God. |
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Probably more pressing in terms of forecasting where our society's human-cat interactions may ultimately be headed is the outcome of an emerging debate on what practices should be deemed acceptable in people's ownership of cats. Fueled both by concerns for property on the political right and concerns for pet health on the political left, a de facto coalition of thinkers has concluded that a "pet cat," for society's purposes, is most suitably and accurately defined as a feline confined to a household's indoors. There and only there, the argument goes, is the potential for harm adequately minimized both to the animal and to any neighboring properties. According to these tenets, you should just as soon allow your pet gerbil to run loose outdoors as you would your cat. And yes, some towns have already closed ranks with this mindset, adding the word "cat" to that ordinance in local code which already required all dogs off of owner premises to be kept on leash. |  Cats on leashes? Hmm. Methinks this marvelously simple extreme can be avoided, |
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but only if local governments and residents go
well beyond the lip service stage in developing some workable alternatives. --Pepper Larkham |
