Keeping your home warm just for your cat might waste hundreds of dollars or pounds annually

It has been calculated in the UK that if you keep your home warm just for your pet cat you could be wasting £240 per year. The same applies to a dog. The point is this: if you keep the heating on in your home while you are at work to keep your cat warm it is going to cost you a lot of money over a year which is something to be factored in at this time of a cost of living crisis and rising inflation in many countries.

Don't heat your house while you are out to keep your cat warm. Image: Pixabay.

Dr. David Glew, an expert in energy efficiency and policy at Leeds Beckett University said that "It is not a great idea to heat your whole house for a dog [or cat] while you are out as it could cost you hundreds of pounds a year. To put it into perspective, putting in loft insulation will only save you around £40 a year, a new boiler will save you £50 a year, and cavity wall insulation will save £80 a year for an average house."

I think you can safely translate those numbers to dollars in the USA although I suspect it would be considerably less as the cost of living is quite low in America compared to the UK. Nonetheless, every penny helps.

Interestingly, in the UK, a survey published in 2015 conducted by Energy Saving Trust found that 53% of dog owners and 47% of cat owners worried that their pet would feel cold while they were out. However, Justin Shotton, president of the British Veterinary Association said heating "shouldn't generally be necessary". The reason is that when animals are young and healthy and have the usual fur coat they are well able to cope with any slight chill that exists inside a home during cold days.

In addition, the survey found that 31% of people left the light on for the cat or dog while they were out. And 28% said they left the radio one and 23% kept the TV on.

My initial thoughts about this is that if you want to keep an area of your home a little bit warmer in winter while you are away, you can buy a trickle feed electric bar which plugs into the mains. These are very safe and designed to keep the temperature from dropping in a fixed are.

Trickle heater on Amazon.

It just takes the edge the chill. You can also buy one of those igloo cat beds which are completely covered and insulated. This will allow the body heat of your cat to warm up their own environment. Another possibility is to buy an electric blanket for cats and dogs which will allow them to warm up when resting. I believe that these are all available at modest prices in Amazon.

I certainly would agree with this expert that it is unnecessary and a waste of precious funds to keep a home warm just for a cat or dog. There are other ways of achieving the goal, three of which I have mentioned.

Do some cat owners introduce a new pet to force the existing one out?

Bad relationship between cat and owner. Picture in public domain.

Here are some facts about domestic cats and their ownership which encourage me to believe, very speculatively, that some cat owners might introduce a new pet, either a dog or a cat, into the household in order to force the resident cat out to find a new home. This post is provocative but I believe it is fair and reasonable.

• It is hard to ensure that the resident cat gets on with a new, incoming cat. It can cause stress in both cats, particular the resident cat. It can be difficult to ameliorate this tension. The relationship might never be right.
• It's a known fact that some domestic cats migrate to a new home for whatever reason. Something is not right where they are living. So they up sticks and find somewhere else, often a neighbour's home.
• We also know that some cat owners relinquish their cats to shelters under unjustified circumstances. It is done entirely voluntarily. Indeed, some cat owners take their cats to a veterinarian to put them down despite the cat being thoroughly healthy. That sounds ridiculous but it does happen. The point I am making is that the relationship between domestic cat and owner is not always good. There are instances when the relationship is broken or breaking down.
• We also know that some people do not like to openly relinquish their cats to a shelter. There are numerous instances of people abandoning cats in shelters surreptitiously by leaving them in boxes outside the front door or whatever. They do this at any time of the year including the deepest part of the winter when it is freezing outside. They even do it at night when it's even colder. So, there is a reluctance to advertise the fact that they are giving up on their cat or cats. Perhaps there is a stigma involved.

In order to avoid this stigma some canny cat owners might adopt a new cat or dog in the knowledge that it may force the existing cat out. Perhaps their relationship with the resident cat has broken down. They might be ambivalent about whether they want to continue living with their cat. They set up a situation where the resident cat might decide to leave. They encourage the scenario. It is a speculative action because it might not work. But it might work and this might suit them. 

RELATED: Not sure whether you want a cat? Try fostering first.

You would have to be a poor domestic cat caregiver to dream up that sort of scheme. But, then again, there must be a substantial percentage of homes in which caregivers are rather poor at the job. We don't have data on this. But it wouldn't surprise me that at least 10% of cat owners are average-to-poor in the caregiving that they provide. If that is correct, we are looking at millions of people. Some of them might concoct the kind of scheme that I have suggested.

Man looks after severely neglected cat but is accused of stealing the cat by the owner

This is a cat ownership story that ends well but it's a bit of a saga to get to that point. It appears to come from America where a kind-hearted man was concerned about a cat that had been locked outside for around two years by his owner, a woman. The man took pity on the cat and fed him and let him in when he could. As a consequence, the woman came around to his home and accused him of stealing her cat. He felt obliged to stop helping the cat at that point as he didn't want to cause any trouble.

Read the story in the light of this update, please: I have learned that the woman's then boyfriend insisted the cat was put outside. She complied. She's now dumped her boyfriend. I feel sorry for her but she's lost her cat. Moral: stand your ground if your boyfriend tells you to get rid of the cat.

He is now called Jarvis. This is the star of the story. He's now loved by a good man. Photo: Reddit.

About two weeks later he actually saw this cat hit by a car while crossing the road at a time when his neighbour was not at home. The cat was badly injured. The man took the cat to the vet where a leg was amputated at a cost of $3000.

The man decided to take steps to keep the cat. He reported the cat as a stray to the vet. The vet checked the cat for a microchip but he didn't have one so he helped him contact a shelter to file a "lost pet" report. There is a five day holding period at that shelter during which the owner can claim ownership. After the five days is up the cat is available for rehoming. Nobody claimed the cat. The man claimed ownership.

The previous owner, the negligent woman who had previously accused him of stealing the cat, saw the now three-legged cat in the man's window and demanded that he hand over her pet. She threatened him by saying that she would contact the police. She accused him again of stealing her cat. He said that she must have the wrong cat because he has three legs. He slammed the door in her face.

She screamed through the door for a while and then left. The man is waiting to find out if she did indeed contact the police. He posted the story on Reddit.com and ask for advice. Everyone said that he did a good job. They praised him. They said he was safe from any prosecution for theft because he had reported the matter to the local shelter and the true owner had had a five day period to claim her pet.

He posted on Reddit:

"The cat’s name is Jarvis and he is very happy back as an indoor cat. He is chipped even though I didn’t plan on letting him out again. He’s been recovering remarkably well, even if he’d rather meow at me to carry him rather than walk on his own -.- we’re gonna have a good life together."

My opinion: Great ending. Nice man. The Reddit users are correct. The man did the right thing. He is safe from prosecution. The woman is all mouth and no trousers. She has lost her cat companion and rightly so. The story ended up well as this cat is now loved and in a warm and friendly home. Sadly he has lost one of his legs in the journey to a good home. This should not have happened. This man is also very generous in spending $3000 on someone else's (at the time).

It's National Cat Day in the US. What Can I Do?

National Cat Day was started to heighten the awareness of people to rescue cats in shelters and to encourage cat lovers to celebrate the life of their cat companions. So what can we do on this day? It must be about improving the lives of our cats. That must be the underlying purpose of National Cat Day. I would like to suggest one overarching goal which affects every aspect of cat caregiving: respecting the cat. So what does respecting the cat mean? First it means reminding ourselves that we are living with another species of animal. It means not treating our domestic cat companions as little people although that is very nice to do and what one is almost compelled to do but it can lead to relating and interacting with our cats in the wrong way.

Picture: Figo Pet Insurance

Respecting the cat really means understanding the cat which is going require some book work if you like. If not book work then some thought and consideration. Perhaps watching some videos or reading articles like this one. You have to understand domestic cat behaviour to respect the cat. You have to understand a little bit about their anatomy, their diet and their physiology. You need to get into the head of your cat is best you can to understand their desires and motivations. Then you need to allow them as best as possible to express those desires and motivations. The more they can do this the happier they will be. A domestic cat is happiest when he is able to behave as naturally as possible. That means creating an environment where you can do this. And the concept of ownership should be rejigged to to one of 'relationship'. The concept of ownership does not sit well with good cat caretaking.

  

Another aspect of respecting the cat is to remind ourselves that we are a human-animal and much larger than a domestic cat. How do they see us? Do they respect the human? Well we don't know for sure how they view us but they probably relate to us as if we are cats. This is because they do not change their behaviour around us. They behave as if they were behaving towards another cat, perhaps a mother cat. This indicates that they think of us as cats. Dogs, conversely, relate to people differently than they do towards other dogs. This indicates that they view us as a species other than a dog.

  

So we need to remind ourselves that we are much larger than them and that they live in our world. We have complete control over that world. We can make it good and we can make it bad. We have to also realise that domestic cats are not "independent" to the point where they can be left alone all day. They are social animals. They have learned to be sociable with their human companions and other cats and dogs. Therefore we need to be around them, interacting with them.

  

As one last point worth making and that is the obesity epidemic. This is almost like loving a cat too much. It almost inevitably boils down to providing a cat with too much food and not enough activity. The simple fix for feline obesity is to feed in a more controlled way and interact with your cat to play a lot more. The first is easier to do than the second and it means providing high quality cat food, no dry cat food ideally, and rationing the portions. Your cat will complain initially until he gets used to it. Obesity causes health problems and loving a cat by providing too many treats causing health problems is not truly loving your cat or respecting him or her either.

A Quarter of UK Pet Owners Would Give up Their Pet If They Had a New Baby

It may surprise people that today, December 25, 2015, a quarter of UK pet owners would surrender their cat or dog if they had a new baby on the way. This clearly means that a very large percentage of pet owners in the UK believe that a cat or dog is dangerous to a baby. It may be true for a dog because there are, rarely, cases of babies being attacked by dogs. Although I'm sure these attacks are ultimately down to careless dog ownership.

However, I don't have an example of domestic cats hurting babies. It is a fallacy that the domestic cat presents a danger to a baby. The opposite is nearer the truth. Some people believe that a cat's faeces are a hazard to the unborn baby. I have written an article about that sometime ago which can be read if you click on this link. The hazard is extremely slight and can be protected against quite easily. The danger is certainly exaggerated.

If a person wishes to adopt a cat while at the same time carrying an intention to have a baby in the not too distant future then they should not adopt a cat. Surrendering a cat to a rescue centre should be the very last option and only taken under very severe conditions. Cats are not throwaway creatures to adopt and discard at a person's whim. We know that.

A study also reported that 30% of UK dogs are abandoned in the months just after Christmas. This once again is another aspect of the rather careless, throwaway mentality of some cat and dog caretakers.

The same study reported that 8% of the 2000 pet owners participating had admitted that they had surrendered a cat or dog in the past when they had a newborn.

About 40% of people in a relationship stated that they had not made any plans as to what would happen to their cat or dog if they split up and went their own way while only 34% said that they would try to keep their cat or dog if they separated from their partner. That does not indicate a fantastic attachment between person and pet.

According to the UK's main dog adoption website, 67% of rescue centres said that the surrender of dogs was on the increase.

The famous London animal shelter, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, said that there been increase in people wishing to surrender their pets to their rescue centre in order to go on a summer holiday because they were unable to afford a boarding kennels or find someone to look after their cat or dog. Clearly this is shocking once again and indicates a lack of proper connection between pet and person. These people should not look after a cat or dog. That is obvious. Today there are too many people in the UK and I suspect anymore else in the world who are not suited, if we are honest, to be a responsible caretaker of a cat or dog.

The research comes from Co-op insurance and a poll conducted by One Poll.