While we may not be anywhere near the dog days of summer, we have most certainly reached the cat days, judging from the recent furor over animal shelters and Councilman Jim Motznik’s cat licensing scheme. I do have some sympathy for the Councilman — it sucks to have animals wandering into your backyard because someone else didn’t spay/neuter and allowed his/her pet to generate a litter of feral (or, in the words of the article, “loosely owned or unowned”) kittens. That said, his plan stinks worse than a week-old litterbox. The problem isn’t cats owned by the sort of responsible person who goes and buys a license. The problem is cats that aren’t owned by anyone in particular and who at best have conned a few of us humans into feeding them.

The article itself gives a much better suggestion. If you want to get a handle on the roaming cat population, pay a bounty to anyone who brings one in to be spayed/neutered and tagged. It’s summer. There’s plenty of idle hands around to help with the Great Pittsburgh Cat Roundup. And, while that’s going on, Mr. Motznik can solve his fish pond problem in about a week. Find a neighborhood kid, hand him a full Super Soaker (if the Councilman would like, I’ve got one I can lend him), and pay him a nominal fee to sit on the back porch and blast the heck out of any cat that crosses into Motznik territory. They won’t be back.

Related posts:

1. The war on cats
2. Local Cats Release Hostage; Motznik’s Family Relieved to Have Dog Back
3. Nobody wants to think about it
4. While We Were Chasing Cats
5. Odd imagery