The Common “Horse Person” Mindset

[bantamamba]

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Cat people definitely. I once got banned from a cat forum because I admitted my cat was allowed to go outside to do his business. They pretty much told me that I either need to make him a house cat or leave. Needless to sayyy...

Wow, really? lol

Our older cat would go INSANE if we kept her in all the time. She used to be a stray, has always insisted on going out. So...for the past 17 years we've heeded her every demand to be let outside to go potty or kill the songbirds next door or lurk on the porch stoop or vertical crab-walk up the barn wall in an attempt to hunt bats in the loft...

My own younger cat is way too retarded for me to ever trust him outside without supervision though, hehe. So he gets Harness Time.

 

[verthandi]

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Lol, this makes my point seeing as I am 100% against Natural Horsemanship, it has it finer points but overall I believe it to be a over advertised way to scam people. Though I did give it a shot at a clinic and at home, but found that I disliked it strongly and the program I used encouraged some behaviors that I simply do not tollerate in my horses for any reason. However, I gave NH a run for its money and did not simply refute it. I just dont think it is for me at all.

Good point, but I never said I was a natural horse-person either. There are pieces of NH that have changed my outlook on training and I am glad I have experience them. The biggest piece was that the world or horse does not need to bend to my way of thinking today,tomorrow or the next day, but at some point we will find a place to work together in harmony. I have found watching, listening and trying to understand human behavior is much the same as understand horse behavior. I used the correlation to suggest that letting others find their own level of understanding might be helpful. As a horse person I believe whatever training method I decide to use, becomes a part of who I also become. Kind of Zen like...but oh well. Best wishes on your journey through the horse world, a hundred odd ball personalities out there and you will meet them all.

 

[equine623]

Our older cat would go INSANE if we kept her in all the time. She used to be a stray, has always insisted on going out. So...for the past 17 years we've heeded her every demand to be let outside to go potty or kill the songbirds next door or lurk on the porch stoop or vertical crab-walk up the barn wall in an attempt to hunt bats in the loft...


Not to be rude, but why on earth do you think that's ok to let her do? Between loss of habitat, disease and cats songbirds and bats are basically screwed.

 

[bantamamba]

attempt to hunt bats in the loft...please read.

She couldn't have reached them if she tried.

Trust me, as a bat advocate I would have locked her indoors if I knew she was successfully catching 'em back then.

As for the birds...well, not my fault they hung the feeders so low. I don't think the handful of sparrows and robins she managed to catch over a decade ago have contributed to their "decline" any. The most exotic bird she injured to my knowledge was someone's pet woodpecker...how she got to it I will never know...for which my ten year-old self apologised profusely.

Nowadays, as an old woman she's more interested in napping and rolling in the dirt than hunting.

Honestly I think there are better ways to combat the unfortunate disappearance of this country's songbird and bat population than calling out some random stranger on the internet based on a few vague sentences.
Such as focusing on strays, street lights, pesticide use, habitat loss as you mentioned, starlings, pollution, and extermination by humans, all of which pose much greater threats to these species than family pets (not saying that one should ever let their cats raid roosts...I certainly didn't).

Yes, people need to need to spay/neuter their cats, and keeping them indoors would undoubtedly spare many bird lives (as well as many cat lives).. I am personally uncomfortable having "outdoors" cats and when Shadow passes, we'll likely not allow it again. But domestic cats are hardly responsible for the destruction of the migratory songbird population.


Although I admit...perhaps I should have made things more clear, instead of letting it sound like my 17 year-old partially toothless cat slays hundreds of endangered songbirds each week and then tops each extravagant meal off with newborn Idionycteris phylloti.

 

[Rin]

/\\ Classic Cat people controversy

 

[Jamie_Dog_Trainer]

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[redhen]

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