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“I thought in your lease, there’s supposed to be no pets,” says Enid Pagnini, an 87-year-old Westdale resident, surrounded by her five adopted cats.

Pagnini contacted us not long ago about the stray problem she’s noticed in the city. The former teacher, cat rescuer and 42-year-strong Hamiltonian finds it difficult to understand how so many students have pets to take care of, when they already seem to have enough of a challenge taking care of themselves.

Hamilton is not immune to the issue of stray animals, a growing problem across North America. Cats and dogs alike are known to wander neighbourhoods and forested areas, causing alarm to local residents and forcing these same residents to jump to conclusions about where these animals are coming from — in particular, irresponsible student pet owners.

Students have been known to abandon pets in the neighbourhood, but they are not the only group contributing to the problem. Stray animals have been an issue in the city for years, and its citizens across the board contribute equally to the matter. According to a 2013 study by the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, shelters across the country brought in a total of 103,000 stray cats and 46,000 stray dogs in one calendar year.

While students may not be at the root of the issue, we are still contributing to it. Should certain precautions be taken by students and the university to ensure that we are not adding to this growing municipal issue?

In regards to Pagnini’s earlier comment about having pet clauses in leases, according to the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, it is illegal for a landlord to stipulate that pets are not allowed. While animals may seem like something forcefully preventable for student house renters, a landlord can only request for the removal of a pet if they are a danger to other tenants. With this in mind, it then becomes solely the responsibility of the student tenant to ensure that they are responsibly taking care of their animal.

Pagnini, along with other longtime Westdale-Ainsliewood residents, has seen numerous students over the years acquire animals and mysteriously part with them before graduation.

“They get their pet, while they’re still living at home, and the parent really takes care of the cat or dog. And then the child goes to university and the parents say, ‘take the cat!’” said Pagnini. “And then they dump them. And that bugs me, that really, really bugs me.”

According to an independent survey conducted by The Silhouette, only three percent of survey respondents admitting to “dumping” their pet outside, whereas a majority 82 percent of respondents claimed to have hung onto their pets long-term.

“It’s not nice to see a starving cat. It’s a very, very sad picture.”

While Pagnini’s anger towards the abandonment of animals is justified, there is no way to identify where these strays are directly coming from and who is to blame for the animals she sees in her neighbourhood.

Who takes in the strays?

Karen Reichheld, the manager of Animal Care and Adoption at the Hamilton/Burlington Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, has been working with strays for the last six years and has seen a pattern in the types of situations that lead to the surrendering of animals to the HBSPCA, as well as the situations that lead to adoption.

“Typically we’ll see people bringing animals in if their animal is having issues or they may not be able to take care of them, and then they would surrender,” said Reichheld.

“We bring in 1,000 animals from Hamilton animal services each year.”

As of the end of October this year, the HBSCPA took in 651 surrendered animals, and found homes for 1,738 of their animals.

“We have many different people come and adopt from us. It could be younger people with their first place, it could be families, it could be a single person in the community just looking for a companion…. Definitely it would include students,” said Reichheld.

At the SPCA, there is a standard adoption process that ensures animals are going into homes that will adequately care for them.

“When students arrive at our doorsteps, we do want to counsel them,” said Reichheld. “Anyone who adopts needs to have a plan.”

The counseling service offered by the SPCA is part of their “Meet Your Match” program, which gives future pet owners the option to learn about an animal’s personality before deciding on which one they will take home.

According to our survey, only 36 percent of student pet owners acquired their pets from family homes, whereas a larger 44 percent made the choice to adopt their pets after moving into their student houses. It seems that students are consciously making the choice to care for these animals, and with the SPCA’s precautions and training in place, these adoptions should theoretically be long-term solutions for these formerly stray animals.

In addition to their adoption service, the SPCA also offers foster care programs for people who are interested in taking care of an animal, but may not be prepared for a lifetime commitment. The foster program is a great alternative for students who want to have an animal, but are worried they won’t be able to take care of the animal after they vacate their student house.

“You have to become a registered volunteer of the HBSPCA. You come to an information session, you tell us what you’re interested in, we counsel you, provide food, medical care,” said Reichheld. “All you have to do is provide the space and the love.”

Where the wild things are

If students are doing a good job taking care of animals, and the SPCA is helping those who aren’t, what’s the problem?

The issue with stray animals is that they are not a problem that will simply be solved overnight, and even those of us who do not have pets already in our student houses should be taking precautions to reduce the impact we have on wildlife and stray animals.

“If somebody finds a cat, and believes it has an owner, don’t feed it, don’t let it come in. Even just petting it and encouraging it to come by, don’t do that, it’ll likely go home,” said Karen Edwards, the Animal Services Advisor for the City of Hamilton.

35 percent of student respondents from our survey confessed to having fed stray animals that they found outside their homes. While caring for stray animals may seem like a good idea at the time, allowing them to become dependent on you can prevent previously owned animals from returning to their homes.

The SPCA sheds a more positive light on animal adoption, but the City of Hamilton knows that it is simply not feasible for all stray pets to find homes or live a safe life.

“We deal with stray animals. So with regards to dogs, we will go out pick them up on the road. We don’t pick up cats anymore, because there are a lot of unowned cats roaming, and we are ending up with far more than we can handle. So in order to lower our euthanasia rates, we stopped picking them up on the road. We will pick up anything that’s injured, ill or deceased, but alive and healthy, we don’t want to have them coming here,” said Edwards.

“We do also take owner surrenders, they pay us a fee and we will take the animal. We do not promise adoptions. Because we don’t even have an adoption program, we rely on our partners. We work with them as much as we can, but there’s no guarantee because we aren’t responsible for their program.”

In an effort to reduce the number of stray animals, especially cats that are found in Hamilton, the city is working to develop a cat-licensing program that will require owners have the same responsibilities they would with a dog. They also passed a bylaw that makes “outdoor cats” illegal, to avoid owned cats from mixing in with strays.

“We’ve reduced our intake so it may seem like there are more out there. It’s not an easy, measurable thing. It’s not an uncommon thing, it happens all across North America, it’s not just a Hamilton thing, even though a lot of people think it is just a Hamilton thing,” said Edwards.

A number of the stray animals we see in our community are tacked onto the issue of an ongoing wildlife crisis across the country. That is in part true, but many strays are still found sporting signs of previous ownership like declawing and neutering.

As student residents of this city, it is just as much our responsibility to ensure that we take care of the animals we own and do what is best for strays.

We may not all be able to take in five cats or care for a foster, but efforts should be made to ensure we are able to care for our animals. Regardless of whether it’s in our leases or not, committing to a pet is a contract.

Photo Credit: Jon White/Photo Editor

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Light Chau / The Silhouette

It is funny how underwear and bikinis are the exact same thing. They reveal the same amount of skin and, yet one is socially accepted whereas the other isn’t.

The same can be said about stray and feral cats. Every day when I walk home, you would not believe the dozens of cats that I see with their curious eyes watching from the tall grass. There is even a colony of cats and kittens living by a bridge nearby my house. With cuteness being my kryptonite, I made it a habit to feed them every morning. After doing a bit of research, I found that it is okay for a person to feed a stray cat because they were once indoors and are used to human contact.

It is not recommended, however, for a person to feed a feral cat because of their lack of interactions.

Not many people may know the difference between the two; a stray cat is any cat that has been lost and a feral is the offspring of a stray cat.

Of course you can wear that bikini top with a pair of shorts during a hot summer day, just don’t mistake it for your bra. I thought this was ridiculous; a starving cat is a starving cat. That was enough for me.

Feral cats that are brought into shelters are euthanized after a certain holding time to make room for more stray cats that are said to have a better chance at finding a home.

I’m sure that if two cats were presented to me I wouldn’t be able to tell which was stray or feral while browsing through the cages. Feral cats shouldn’t have to be segregated because of their upbringing. It’s just a matter of giving it time and love - anyone would be cautious of their surroundings if they had been fighting for survival throughout their whole life. These cats should not have to suffer for what someone most likely did to them.

They did not just one day end up on the streets. A lot of careless owners let their pets escape or abandoned them simply because they were no longer wanted. The numbers of cats living on the streets are increasing, just as are the amount of bikinis and old lingerie being added to landfills. Of all the cats being brought into shelters, only 10 per cent have been spayed or neutered; that leaves the other 90 per cent able to find mates and reproduce. Unlike bikinis that are only manufactured seasonally, most cats start carrying offspring as early as five months and can reproduce up to three times a year.

The numbers just keep increasing. I hope that the government will start funding for a stray and feral cats program so that there will be more shelters that are willing to take in and care for feral cats instead of putting them down.

This is also for the safety of other animals as well as us. A lot of the cats are territorial and end up in fights that leave them with injuries that go untreated, which results in diseases that can be transmitted.

With more cats off the streets there will be a lesser chance of a flea infestation and less complaints from your neighbours about loud cat fights and mating sessions.

I also hope that pet owners realize the urgency in getting their pets neutered and spayed so that if their pets do wander off into the streets, there won’t be any unplanned litters and less fights due to hormones. Not only does it benefit us, but them too. Spaying and neutering will prevent diseases and cancer and help limit the already overpopulated streets and shelters.

You would not believe how many girls I recently saw wearing a sheer chiffon shirt layered over top of a bra.

That’s not appropriate for the public; they should have just worn a bikini top instead. We really need to get our hearts straightened out and stop categorizing strays from feral cats. They’re all facing a common problem and suffering just as much as the other.

They both need our help and have the right to receive the same kind of attention and care. Shelters should stop euthanizing feral cats to make room for stray cats just because one is claimed to be more adoptable than the other. They are both animals in need of love and care and that’s all that should be accounted for.

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