So... I get the impression that Seattle is, in general, not bad when it comes to animal welfare. We have a lot of no-kill shelters, and the regular shelters try very hard and have generally good conditions (I got my cat from the regular shelter, and they microchipped, neutered, vaccinated and all that), but Seattle proper... is a moderate-sized city, with a lot of the problems that's heir to. You don't see many strays and ferals, but they're definitely there (I used to feed one on my university campus, 'cause he was always in the same spot on my walk home from work in the evenings), and the economy isn't as bad here (thank goodness) as it is elsewhere, but it's still not great, so there's a lot of surrenders right now. And it's kitten season, of course, so that puts an extra load on the shelters.
Like I said, I don't know that population density is the issue with the suburban shelters, that's just my best guess. But I can see how they wouldn't want to be overrun with animals from out of their area.
The address thing... yeah, I'd thought of that. Technically, we could lie. Or I could borrow a friend's address, or something like that. The reason I'd originally discounted that idea was that we thought he might have a person looking for him, and giving a false address where we found him would confound their efforts to find him again. Now that we're probably going to take him to the vet and try to find a home for him ourselves, that's not really an issue... but it also temporarily negates the shelter issue at all, so... *shrugs* We'll see. If we can't find a home for him in a reasonable period, I'll do some more research and talk to friends who volunteer with some of those places to investigate the options.
I've lived with up to nine cats before (they belonged to my aunt), and one thing I noticed then was that one cat inevitably becomes the scapegoat. I think that becomes more likely the more you have. And given that both our existing cats are large, mature, and given to heavy rough-housing... I'd hate to subject this underfed little guy to that. Plus, our apartment complex has a penchant for occasional inspections with only the minimum legal notification, so keeping him much longer than a few weeks is right out, unfortunately.
I'm not sure why the pet limit in our place is 2, but that does seem not terribly unusual in the city here. One of the downsides of living downtown seems to be that there are more stringent rules than we'd find in the suburbs, is my impression.
As for our other cats, one is about 8 or so years old, and the other... probably about 6 or 7. Theoden, the 8 year-old (in the icon) is mine, and was adopted from the local shelter, and Random (The Boy's cat) jumped in his window at the apartment he lived in when he first moved to the city, and more or less made it his home. He'd been abandoned by his previous owners when they moved, from what neighbors said. I wish I could say that was unusual around here, but my family briefly got a dog that way when I was a teenager (we ended up having to give him away to another family, unfortunately, because we just weren't home enough to deal with a part-border-collie's needs), so... yeah. It makes me want to ring peoples' necks when they treat animals like that.
And another good idea on the house-cat type thing! I'll keep my ears open on that, and do some research. :)
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Date: 2010-05-23 07:23 am (UTC)So... I get the impression that Seattle is, in general, not bad when it comes to animal welfare. We have a lot of no-kill shelters, and the regular shelters try very hard and have generally good conditions (I got my cat from the regular shelter, and they microchipped, neutered, vaccinated and all that), but Seattle proper... is a moderate-sized city, with a lot of the problems that's heir to. You don't see many strays and ferals, but they're definitely there (I used to feed one on my university campus, 'cause he was always in the same spot on my walk home from work in the evenings), and the economy isn't as bad here (thank goodness) as it is elsewhere, but it's still not great, so there's a lot of surrenders right now. And it's kitten season, of course, so that puts an extra load on the shelters.
Like I said, I don't know that population density is the issue with the suburban shelters, that's just my best guess. But I can see how they wouldn't want to be overrun with animals from out of their area.
The address thing... yeah, I'd thought of that. Technically, we could lie. Or I could borrow a friend's address, or something like that. The reason I'd originally discounted that idea was that we thought he might have a person looking for him, and giving a false address where we found him would confound their efforts to find him again. Now that we're probably going to take him to the vet and try to find a home for him ourselves, that's not really an issue... but it also temporarily negates the shelter issue at all, so... *shrugs* We'll see. If we can't find a home for him in a reasonable period, I'll do some more research and talk to friends who volunteer with some of those places to investigate the options.
I've lived with up to nine cats before (they belonged to my aunt), and one thing I noticed then was that one cat inevitably becomes the scapegoat. I think that becomes more likely the more you have. And given that both our existing cats are large, mature, and given to heavy rough-housing... I'd hate to subject this underfed little guy to that. Plus, our apartment complex has a penchant for occasional inspections with only the minimum legal notification, so keeping him much longer than a few weeks is right out, unfortunately.
I'm not sure why the pet limit in our place is 2, but that does seem not terribly unusual in the city here. One of the downsides of living downtown seems to be that there are more stringent rules than we'd find in the suburbs, is my impression.
As for our other cats, one is about 8 or so years old, and the other... probably about 6 or 7. Theoden, the 8 year-old (in the icon) is mine, and was adopted from the local shelter, and Random (The Boy's cat) jumped in his window at the apartment he lived in when he first moved to the city, and more or less made it his home. He'd been abandoned by his previous owners when they moved, from what neighbors said. I wish I could say that was unusual around here, but my family briefly got a dog that way when I was a teenager (we ended up having to give him away to another family, unfortunately, because we just weren't home enough to deal with a part-border-collie's needs), so... yeah. It makes me want to ring peoples' necks when they treat animals like that.
And another good idea on the house-cat type thing! I'll keep my ears open on that, and do some research. :)