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The Problem With Pets In Farm Country

Kitty Companions



Paris the cat lives at Lazy Cat Gardens with her owner, Gloria Jacques. She lives alongside Pug, Ivory, and Sundance. "I always loved having cats," she says. "Cats are so soothing. All they ever give you is unconditional love. They'll get in my lap and love me and get in my shoulder and just purr and fall asleep. I mean, what more is there in life?"

Gloria didn't expect these cats. They just sort of showed up. She believes each of them were dumped somewhere by her property west of Bloomington, Indiana.

Abandoned animals are a common occurrence out in the country. Jacques sometimes hears cars stopping on the road, the door opening, and then the car driving off. She thinks this is the smoking gun. "That means that someone's gotten tired of it and just opens up their car door and out comes the cat and they drive off and then hoping someone else will take care of it," she says. "I don't know why people just want to drop off animals in the country. I just don't understand it."

Jacques sees at least two or three stray cats and dogs a month, but she and her neighbors already have taken some in and they can't support anymore. Usually she ends up taking the animals to the humane society. "A lot of them get taken out by coyotes and a lot of them get hit by cars," she adds.

The Fur Will Fly



A lot of people have an attitude of ‘I live in the country so I don't have to put my dog on a leash...' Well, if you let your dog loose on your property without ever correcting it, it's very likely it will leave eventually.


Sometimes the ones that make it can start causing problems for farmers. Larry Howard is the owner of Maple Valley Farm in Elletsville, Indiana. "We had cats earlier this year that were just feral cats that come in and they were getting some of the chickens," Howard says. "We've had numerous other situations where we've captured dogs and had to take them down to the pen or humane society because they didn't have tags and they were just wandering here."

He's had trouble with domesticated pets as well. He says packs of dogs have attacked his sheep and a llama. "I think if you talk to most people, they don't think their pet dog that they keep around the house and the yard and that they let wander they don't really think it would do something like that."

His experiences motivated him to change the way he raises his animals. He's implemented an integrated grazing system where the animals move to different areas of the property each day and graze as a mob. He even got Pyrenees dogs for guarding the animals. To top it off, he surrounds the animals with electrified fence. He's not taking any chances with his livelihood.

"Yeah, it could potentially be devastating if you have people letting a dog or two out and they pack up with another dog it can really cost a lot of money."

Who You Gonna Call?



When Larry or Gloria call the authorities about a loose animal, they deal with someone like Amber Zike, an officer in animal management with the Monroe County Sheriff's Department.

"I would say more often we get calls from big time farmers on larger livestock like cattle being chased by dogs," she says. "I did a call where dogs got into a pig pen and killed a couple pigs. Things like that are more common with farmers around here."

Monroe County pet ordinances say owners shall not allow dogs to go beyond their property without restraint, unless they accompany their owner on a hunt. Cats, on the other hand, can go beyond their property as long as they're neutered and wearing a collar or marked as feral with tipped ears. But in both cases, neither is allowed to be a public nuisance.

Zike says she often deals with people simply not obeying the law. "A lot of people have an attitude of ‘I live in the country so I don't have to put my dog on a leash' or ‘I have 50 acres so my dog's not going to leave that.' Well, if you let your dog loose on your property without ever correcting it, it's very likely it will leave eventually."

Lazy Cat Life



At Lazy Cat Gardens, the cats join Jacques' daily routine, from her early morning walk to her gardening. At night, the cats live in the lap of luxury. Gloria and her husband converted a one-car garage into a structure with beds, a kitty jungle gym and toys; or as Gloria calls it, the bunkhouse.

She says these cats wouldn't hurt a mouse -- literally.

"They are the most lazy cats you've ever seen," Gloria said. "They do not know how to kill anything... When they get together and they get a mouse, they do a square and they just bat it back and forth. So if that ain't lazy then what isn't?"

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