Remember my kitty napping story? My Murphy was kidnapped for 8 days and came home neutered. Well...a big story in the local paper today answers my mystery.

Seems there is a Motor Home driving around town picking up animals and fixing them for "free"...then they release them. It's supposed to be a 'service' to the community.

I call it audacity! They should not do this without the owners permission...JMHO.

They shouldn't do it without permission. Do they do this to all cats and dogs they find? Your poor kitty!!

Wasnt Murphy not...healing...correctly?? Wasnt he infected when he came home???

I think you should see if the cops could charge those people with damaging your "property".

Poor Murph! How is he doing now?

GJ - I still am sorry that Murphy went through that as well as you. At least now you know the answer to the mystery. I hope that some serious consequences will have to be paid to these people.

They do fix and release around here too. I was wondering if that's what had happened to your cat. I'm sure they figured he was a stray when they did that, but our authorities are allowed to snag any and all cats for this program, as I hear it.

Reason being, if your cat is out there, it can mate with the strays too.

And no, they don't do dogs. Dogs go to the shelter and are euthanized - so you tell me, what's worse? Whether they belong to somebody or not, they get 3 days.

They don't bring cats to the shelter because there are far too many to bring in, and nowhere to house them.

It's all very sad I think.

Not only can it mate with the strays it can pick up whatever diseases the strays have.

The animal population is grossly overpopulated. Far too many cats and dogs alike are put down everyday....when all it would take is to spay and neuter. It's just the responsible thing to do for your pet and the animal population in general.

Not to mention, they are less likely to stray, get in fights, or get certain diseases like reproductive cancers.

Our little Rocky came from the local shelter. They 'fix' them as soon as they arrive, then they're adopted out to the locals who want a pet. The neutering is included in the adoption fee. My little precious is never going outside. Our previous tomcat, Tiger Puff was allowed outside for awhile, and he got into all kinds of trouble plus fleas! He also window-peeked at the neighbors!

I wish my sister's neighborhood would have such a program. She has been feeding and adopting out all the resulting kittens for the past several years. Some of them are killed by various means before she can help them.

Have you thought about getting Murph "chipped"? The chip is a little microchip, about the size of a pill, that Tiny's vet placed under the skin on the back of his neck. The chip can be scanned at the pound, or most vet's offices and Tiny's information was in a database that would tell who and where he belonged. Plus, I think the vet had Tiny's medical info in the database too.

I did that with my dog TinyMonsters. He wore a collar, but he was a little Houdini sometimes, and had slipped both his collars off every once in awhile. We used a regular collar with his ID/rabies vaccination tags, and a pinch collar.

The pinch collar would come apart if he shook his head just the right way and the ID collar, depending on how thick his furry neck was at the time, would slide off if he turned his head the right way while on a leash. (we had a little leash "splitter" thingie the connected both collars to each other, so that if one fell off, we might be able to keep him from wandering away after a cat long enough to get the other collar back on)

We figured that chipping Tiny was a good way to be able to get him back if he wandered off. (not a chance, he knew where his munchies were, and didnt like to stray too far away) But, Tiny was an extremely expensive dog, and we were also worried about theft. One of the big reasons we chipped him.

I remember that! Well at least you know who did it. I'm sure it doesn't make it easier to take but at least you know.

How is Murphy now?