I saw a stray cat by the curb today, he/she was standing pretty close to people which is pretty weird. I kept walking since I didn't want to stop the pedestrian traffic while the light is for us. I stopped at the next curb and was watching the cat, a lady in her early 20's started talking to me about how she felt bad about leaving the cat there. As she didn't have enough coin to buy a can of food, I offered to buy it for the cat, because why not? We bought one, did y'all know it was only 79 cents? I opened it and the cat ate it! If she hadn't approached me, I wouldn't have bought it anything. Quite happy the dice rolled in such a way as to allow us to actually feed it ^.^ :icon_bigg
Taking care of a vulnerable animal be it stray or completely wild is what I like most. When you get to the point where it completely trusts you makes it all worth while, and make you feel really good about yourself.
We have a lot of strays around here and unfortunately they're so feral that you can't really go up to them and feed them. I always make sure whenever I have food left over to take it out and throw it out for them to eat later.
You aren't actually doing them any favors by randomly feeding them. I'm talking mostly about cats in this situation. There are organisations who should be dealing with this problem. By feeding them, you are teaching a habit, that they can expect food, at that given point, then they start to cause trouble, going through trash, acting hostile towards people, and generally being in the way. Then you have the whole problem with reproduction... It's actually, somewhat cruel, to help these cats, by extending their otherwise miserable life, by offering them a piece of "heaven" that they will probably never taste again. By getting the idea in their head, that they can expect such "treats" from other people as well, when in reality, the possibility of that is quite miniscule. My personal take on this. If the cat was physically healthy... Take it home, or to the closest shelter.
