This is a reply to the attack on me posted yesterday by L. Crews. It is not
a counter-attack.

"CatNipped" <lcrews@houston.rr.com> wrote

I don't know where this count comes from, but it is wrong.

First off, I have only ever mentioned in this group that *one* of my cats
was killed by a car. That was Safford, and it happened on February 15, 2000,
shortly after he had slipped out of the house without my knowledge - the
first and only time he was ever outside of that house.

But the truth is I've lost six kitties to cars. Aside from Safford, the
first two cats in my life were killed in the street right in front of my
home. I saw it happen, both times. The first time, I was five years old.
Sitting in the picture window, watching the cat chasing a squirrel, neither
of them checked the street for traffic prior to running across it. The
second time, I was a few years older, but still a young child, and it
happened exactly the same way. I nearly didn't recover from the grief. Both
times, my parents told me "It was just a cat!" It never occurred to any of
us that a cat should be kept strictly inside the house.

The other two happened when I lived in big cities in the east. One in 1980,
the other in 1988. Both were let outside by other occupants of the
respective houses, without my knowledge and against my wishes.

Each of these deaths nearly killed me, too. I had made a vow to never
knowingly allow a cat to roam at will outside if I lived within earshot of
any public road, and I never have.

When you live far out in the country and an animal is dying miserably, and
you can't get it to a vet or get a vet to come to you, a shot to the brain
is a sure and quick way to end the suffering.

The tick-borne illness contracted by those other cats did not come from
their roaming outside. They never had access to areas that could have been
infested with ticks dropped from infected bobcats. The neighbor's dogs
roaming deep in the forest brought those ticks into the house. Yes, I let
the dogs come in, but I had no idea that such an illness existed. In fact,
only one of the half-dozen or so local vets had any knowledge of it. She
told me that the only known treatment had only saved one cat, out of
thousands of cases recorded, and that it would cost over $1k and be
extremely painful and traumatic to the cat.

My only comment on this part: See http://tinyurl.com/h66gh

Nobody roamed outside without tick protection when I lived at the farm.

I hope this clears up any confusion.