aguacates, y'know?

It is for this specific reason that I CANNOT post on our local Facebook group. Every few days there's a post from someone new that that is basically "has anyone seen our outdoor cat? 1.5 years old, usually comes home every day for dinner but we haven't seen him this week. Has someone thought him a stray and brought him inside? Just let him out, he knows where he lives!" and I have to shut the app down to prevent myself from responding .

We live in the country! We have coyotes you stupid asshole! Every night I can hear them in the trees across the street eviscerating rabbits, why do you think your cat can outsmart and outrun a whole pack of them? We also have cars! Parasites! Hawks! People who let their dogs free-roam on their property! People setting out poison! Crop spraying! Active cargo train tracks! If you don't want to be in this cycle of getting a new cat after the old one goes missing several times a year, THEN MAYBE KEEP YOUR CAT INDOORS! And if you don't want to or can't afford keeping your cat up to date on shots, getting it fixed or cleaning a litter box, you don't actually need to have a cat! You can just not have a cat! Nobody is forcing you to repeatedly get new free barn kittens to neglect, you can just get a pet that is more suitable to your circumstances or not have one at all!

Also, to add, because I saw this in the tags:

Farm cats are just as susceptible to being predated upon by coyotes and hawks, getting parasites and also rabies since they are direclty interacting with vermin. Their rates of actually catching and consuming mice are also up for debate.

If you desperately need to control vermin population in a farm scenario, you are better off getting and training a rat terrier who will hunt and kill vermin and bring them to you to be rewarded rather than eat them, are infinitely more trainable and have actual recall, and can be trained to leave smaller livestock like chickens alone the same way you train guardian breeds to not fuck with your chickens. You can also keep them indoors at night during coyote hours and let your guardian dog be in charge.

I know some rescues will adopt out working cats, usually ferals that will not do well indoors, but giving them a fancy title will not keep them safe. If they are outdoors, they're exactly as safe as any other outdoor cat in the area who doesn't have a job, which is to say not at all. Are they safer in the country than in the city where they are more likely to be pancake by a car, just by virtue of there being less traffic? Sure. But it's still not good for them, or your local songbird or turtle hatchling populations.

The really tricky part is that, no matter your viewpoint, there is no outcome where your outdoor cat isn’t negatively impacting the ecosystem. Even if you take good care of them otherwise, even if your area is ‘safe’, even if they’re a working cat.

Also i wanna add, my family (including me) was the type to go "well they've been going out all their lives we can't just stop letting them out, they'll get depressed" and like, you can.

My cat got really hurt one day, we have no idea what happened and i immediately said "no more" and forbade anyone from letting her out ever again. Yeah, she asked to be let out for the next two weeks, but guess what? She stopped. I got her more toys, I took the time to play with her more often, i got bigger litter boxes and had grass on pots on my room.

She's fine, she's absolutely fine and she only asks to be let out if she sees birds on the porch. So no, your cat won't be depressed to be inside, you just have to put in the effort to properly care for them in this new condition, and if you think that's too much work then you simply don't care about your cat, because if you love your cat as much as you claim, you will make the effort

Anyways look at the princess in question:

They didn't have to do this. They covered the fentanyl epidemic, anti maskers, measles, mass shootings, human trafficking, addiction, homelessness, bureaucratic barriers, COVID mourning, and so much else. But they took a minute to give credit where it belonged and thank the people who set the standard for so many lives saved and shine light on the repeated trend of Black communities pioneering things like this and then being fucked over

I love this show so much

everyone like "Willie, are you a doctor?" and when he said Freedom House I gasped and was like OMG THAT'S RIGHT IT WAS PITTSBURGH (I learned about Freedom House from an episode of the podcast Criminal)

May have been your experience but i only make the right choice and will never die

that’s exactly what it’s like to be 20-22

dasfsffadfjdag I meant girl but gork works better

I didn't even question it I was nodding along like I'm literally right there with you gork

Reblog to materialize $250,000 in prev's bank account

then why say it

I speak as I breathe: passively and without active thought.

clearly

Activating manual-thought mode. Hey go fuck yourself.