Actually, I stand corrected. Two years ago when I first got married my wife and I were living in a residential "development". A black cat always came over, and yes, did dig around the yard and basically made a mess. Owner lived right across the street. Our next door neighbor who we were friends with (not the cat owner) had told us that she had talked to the cat owners in the past about their wondering cat and they still did nothing about him (the cat).
Since I knew the cat owners wouldn't do anything about their cat, there was no reason for me to ask them to do something about the cat, because if I did and all of a sudden if that cat "vanished", people could suspect myself in having something to do with it.
That black cat can no longer be found.
I don't find any animal attacks funny, I also don't find cat urine a pleasant smell.
Jstpssng, it seems that you consider myself a irresponsible (sp? I am a bad speller) pet owner, honestly, to that comment I take offense.
All of my animals are spayed, the only times our dogs are outside is when either my wife of myself is, OR they are in a fenced in area that I had build just for the dogs when we moved to our current house (also about $1200 in training collars so if they do run off for whatever reason, I can get them back at an instant). All of our dogs have taken obiediant (sp?) classes, and not once have I owned any dog that has attacked a person or another dog (I do have a beagle mix that likes to go after rabbits and moles however).
Seems that ANYONE who comes to our house finds our dogs very easy to get along with, including our foster dogs (about 20 have found homes in the short time working for the local Humane society, all of these dogs have lived under our roof and follow the same "rules" as our dogs).
The above paragraph can make life very interesting and frustrating at times, but honestly, do it because I can't stand to see an abandoned (sp?) dog.
Also found homes for about 50 kittens that have "stayed" with us as well. Sometimes it can be fun going almost everyweekend to PetSmart on a Saturday for 6 hours or so to try and find homes for unwanted animals. Kittens are much easier than dogs to find homes however (at least what I've found).
I'm not a saint, and not looking for pats on the back, just giving you my reasons why I took offense to your comment.
I also mentioned in previous post that if you have a "problem" and it cannot be adressed with the local owner, as long as the problem is on your property (or if an attack, at that moment), do what you must, just make it quick and easy.
To me though, there is a huge difference between an "outside house cat" and a feral cat.
On that note, if a neighbor were to mention to me that he was having problems with my cat, I would find her a new home. I also have 38 acres for this cat to "roam", and so far, no one has said anything to me about our cat.