‘Feels like theft’: Missing Georgina cat adopted by new family

Georgina, East Gwillimbury, Newmarket and Aurora prohibit cats from roaming free outdoors

Thestar.com
Sept. 6, 2022
Amanda Persico

Let one Georgina family’s story serve as a warning to other cat owners in town: keep your cats indoors.

For 14 years, Aslan (Lani for short) has been a part of Cassandra Oras life.

That was until the long-haired, dark cat with a white patch did not return home after a night of roaming in the yard at the end of June.

“Don’t judge a cat by the way it looks, especially a long-haired cat. He was a roamer, that was his personality,” she said of Lani who liked to sleep on the long grass on the side of the Keswick home.

“He was treated like a king.”

After a couple days of searching the neighbourhood, Oras called animal services.

“We were attached to him,” she said.

Georgina is one of many York Region municipalities that prohibit cats and dogs from roaming freely in the community.

And any cat found running at large can be impounded by animal services.

Within days, Lani was found, brought to the Georgina Feral Cat Committee, a cat rescue organization in town, and adopted.

Keeping in line with many other animal shelters across the province, the GFCC starts the adoption process if the animal hasn’t been claimed after 72 business hours -- that is if the cat does not have a collar or is not microchipped.

Lani has neither.

Cats are adopted after a thorough vet exam and spayed/neutered.

In keeping with the town’s bylaws, GFCC also has the added clause in its own adoption policy, where adopted cats are prohibited from roaming free.

Georgina, along with East Gwillimbury, Newmarket and Aurora, have bylaws prohibiting cats from roaming freely outside, unless on a cat leash.

And those four municipalities share animal control services.

But roam-free bylaws are municipality specific.

Oras moved to Keswick from Richmond Hill, where there is no bylaw prohibiting cats from being outside.

Vaughan and Richmond Hill also share animal control services, but Vaughan bylaws prohibit cats from roaming freely in the city.

“It’s up to here with the emotional havoc,” Oras said. “It feels like theft.”

It’s a very sad case, said GFCC founder Eva McDowell.

But it serves as a reminder not to let your cat out.

“All we see are postings for lost cats, lost cats, lost cats,” she said. “It’s just sad.”

For months, the GFCC had received calls about this particular cat. Nearby residents were feeding and providing the cat with shelter, McDowell said.

“People were calling and believed the cat was not well,” she said. “It sounded like it was a community cat. There were no signs it was an owned cat.”

Oras has 14 years of veterinarian bills for Lani’s annual checkup.

“He had a home,” she said holding back tears.

Although already adopted, she’s hoping to get Lani back and is willing to foot the bill for all vet costs incurred by the new adopted family.

Roaming cats are a nuisance to neighbours, McDowell said, digging up gardens and sandboxes. Cats also pose a danger to local wildlife by hunting birds and reptiles.

Roaming free is also dangerous to cats themselves -- cars, predatory birds, coyotes, raccoons, foxes and parasites.

The problem multiplies if the cat is not spayed/neutered.

“Then street cats have street kittens,” she said. “Leaving a kitten in the streets is a death sentence.”

This year has been particularly worrisome, McDowell said.

So far this spring, GFCC adopted or fostered out close to 90 kittens -- the most since the GFCC was founded -- and is gearing up for the next batch of kittens born typically in early September.

The pandemic played a major role in the high number of domestic cats abandoned as low-cost spay/neuter clinics and animal shelters were mostly closed during the pandemic.

Not to mention, this is the first summer where COVID-19 travel restrictions are lifted.