Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 23, 1995 TAG: 9504240004
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Not a bad idea, I guess. If Rover and Fido are required to be orderly, it seems only fair that Snowball and Mittens get similar treatment.
But just how to control them is a more difficult question.
I would invite any council member with guts to try to put a leash on my feline companion.
Eight years old. So gravity-challenged he looks like he's going to hibernate for summer and winter. Steely, green eyes that ask, "Madelyn, what are you thinking?'' when I approach him with the black leash I purchased at the Hobby Shop.
Though Mayor Roger Hedgepeth says he doesn't think the town would go so far as requiring leashes (``I think everyone pretty much agrees you can't have a happy cat at the end of a leash," he said recently), I bought one. I've attached it to my cat's collar seven or eight times now, but he has yet to walk a step with it on. Usually, he shrinks back into a corner and hisses.
I did not buy the leash because of a possible ordinance, but because my cat needs to shed a few pounds and I naively thought I could get him to walk with me around the block or for a short stroll in the woods.
My roommates rolled their eyes. They had urged me not to waste the $5 for an accessory my cat would see only as an implement of torture. And when I refused to pay heed, they got on their hands and knees before the cat, gesturing and pointing.
"Beckett, this is HER idea, not ours. HER idea. WE had nothing to do with it."
While most cats won't walk on a leash, most cats will hold a grudge.
"I'd say less than 20 percent of the cats around would walk on a leash. Seriously," said Dr. and Del. Jim Shuler when I pressed him on the question. A veterinarian in town as well as a political figure, I figured he'd know.
"If you start it early on, you can train them to do all kinds of tricks, from flushing a commode to walking on a leash," he said.
But once they pass a certain age, forget it.
The town, fortunately, is looking at other options.
A task force examined the problem for several months and talked with other towns about how they handle wayward kitties.
The committee members found some towns that trap cats when there are complaints (``you can't catch them" Hedgepeth says) and bring them to the pound. They found towns that require licensing.
Someday, if there were to be an ordinance in Blacksburg, it would likely center on licensing and specifying what would happen if there were complaints about the behavior of a particular feline, Hedgepeth said.
More likely is the possibility that the town won't opt for an ordinance at all, but will instead offer educational programs, aimed primarily at college students.
"We'd try to prevail upon their sense of values to not abandon animals, like in May when they go home," Hedgepeth said. "That has been a problem, with cats, especially, since they tend to roam anyway."
Another possibility would be to sponsor a clinic at which cats could be spayed or neutered at a reduced price.
"I think that's the approach we would go to before we went to some kind of legislation," Hedgepeth said.
Good thing. Because if leashes were law, even Shuler would be in trouble.
He has two cats. "One's 17 years old and so arthritic and geriatric, he does well to walk at all," Shuler said. If he put the other cat on a leash, he said, it "would flip out."
by CNB