With the spaying and neutering of feral cats in the Village of Saugerties well underway, just this past week, the village’s designated cat trapper nabbed two adult cats and five kittens.
One resident wants to know why, in the eyes of the law, cats are treated differently than dogs. She sees inconsistency.
Market Street resident Nancy Campbell dropped village officials an email, citing a recent Saugerties Times story about feral cats as the impetus for her note. Though she called the program for feral cats “a step in the right direction,” she wanted to know why dogs have to be leashed or kept in a yard while cats were allowed to room free and do their business where ever they liked.
“We can’t bring them (dogs) in parks because of the possibility of them leaving ‘souvenirs,’ on the fields,” said Campbell. “Yet it’s fine for cats to do their business wherever they want on private property.”
Cats do not bury their poop, and they tended to do it in people’s yards, creating a “stench (that) is unbelievable” in private gardens. She suggested cat owners be required to keep their pets on their own property.
The matter was aired at the July 18 meeting of the village trustees. The solons agreed that Campbell had a good point. Trustee Vincent Buono said the village would be hard-pressed to require that cats be leashed. “But I can’t disagree (with Campbell), but I don’t know what the solution is,” Buono said.
Trustee Terry Parisian conceded said that people shouldn’t let cats wander off their property. While there was no way to enforce such a law, he added a plea for amity. “People should be good neighbors,” Parisian said.
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