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Play with the pet
(lemmy.nz)
cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/44432977
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this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2026
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I'd much rather have people save cats and at least provide them with food and shelter than let them die alone on the street. There are far too many strays that desperately need a home.
I totally agree (especially with the impact of cats on the environment), and isn't incompatible with what I said. I'm saying that you shouldn't have pets if you make them wait for you all day. If you have, for example, more than one cat, they're not just waiting for you all day because they have company and are not just starved of social interactions.
But most people just get one pet and basically leave them with no life around for 8-10 hours per day, which is just torture. And that's for the pets that are common enough (cats, dogs) to be treated less horribly than less popular animals, like hamsters, birds, fishes, etc.
So sure, avoiding stray cats is good, but removing them from a hard life to put them in a brain-killing situation instead is not the solution.
No man, that is not torture. Torture is leaving that stray kitty outside at the scorching summer heat and let it die from dehydration.
A healthy adult cat sleeps 16 hours per day on average. Having a full-time office job is going to require you being outside 8-10 hours every day, but it is not as horrible as you describe.
And yes, getting a second cat is ideal, especially if you are not home all day. But not everyone can afford that and there are still things you can do to keep your cat entertained when you are not around.
Please, just stop with the gate keeping. This is exactly what puts people off from adopting. You don't have to be perfect before you are allowed to extend your hand and try to help an innocent little creature.
Nah man, you're wrong. Just because worse lifestyles exist that doesn't mean a lone cat by itself all day isn't unhappy. If you can't afford two cats (or any mammal species, really) maybe you shouldn't have pets
Yeah man, I am sure a stray cat who is at the bring of death due to dehydration is much happier outside, compared to one who is inside and has all their basic needs met.
To be fair, there are no stray cats or dogs where I live, and if there were they defo wouldn't be dying of dehydration (it rains a lot here)I can't really relate. If you have feral cat colonies near your home and can only afford one cat then maybe just let the cats be feral
Yeah, no, if I do see a cat that is suffering and I also have the means to give it a better chance in life then I am doing it. Both my cats I took them off the street after noticing them they were sick and that have been abandoned by their mother. I am only capable of caring for two, I simply don't have the space for more. And I am certainly not going to judge anyone who decides to do the same and only are capable of doing it for one. Each cat is a unique innocent soul. You can't save every one, but even if you can just one then do it.
That's not what puts off people from adopting. What puts them off is that they want the perfect, convenient, good-looking, cheapest option.
It's like saying that people don't adopt kids because they don't feel perfect enough; no, they don't do it because there's an easier, cheaper alternative, where they don't have to prove that they are good enough to take care of a kid beforehand. And that's why they just keep on popping kids in an overpopulated world.
You don't have to be perfect, but not making a social animal spend most of the day alone is a basic requirement.
On top of that, if you have the money to adopt and take care of a cat, but not the possibility of taking care of them properly, nothing prevents you from using this money to support a shelter or equivalent, which will in the end also take in stray cats.
But people don't want that because they care about themselves first, and want to get something from it first. They want a pet, and then they'll think about their wellbeing later, if it's not too inconvenient. And that's the mentality that leads to stray cats, dogs, and whatnot.
People don't have pets to help innocent creatures. They have pets to have a nice company that depends on them and will make them feel good after a long day of work, and they don't really care about anything else. As long as you don't change that, that's how you get people that get annoyed with their dogs and drop them on the side of the road, because they just don't get as much benefit from it as before.
Tldr: as long as you treat animals carelessly, people will be careless about them.
So, you would rather keep the shelters full, so they can't take in new animals to rescue, so those animals are then killed instead? Just because the animal you rescue may have to learn to deal with having alone time? Talk about being careless.
If the shelters have more money, they'll have more capacity as well.
On top of that, nothing prevents people from adopting multiple pets or of taking care of them properly.
People manage to pop kids endlessly and find ways to take care of them all day even if they have to go to work, they definitely can manage with pets too. They just don't give a shit.