28/10/2026
🚨 IF YOU SERIOUSLY THINK LETTING YOUR CAT ROAM THE STREETS IS GOOD FOR THEM, YOU NEED TO RETHINK THAT. OR DON'T GET A CAT. 🚨
I'm absolutely DONE with people's bu****it excuses for letting their cats roam.
You wouldn't let your dog wander the streets unsupervised because you know the risks to their safety. So why the hell do people think it's acceptable to let their cats do exactly that?
CATS ARE NOT INVINCIBLE. THEY ARE NOT EXEMPT FROM DANGER JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE CATS.
If you want your cat to enjoy the outdoors, build a fully secure catio. There are ways to give cats access to fresh air and sunshine without putting their lives at risk.
There are SO many dangers associated with allowing cats to roam freely.
And this is one of them.
💔 MEET OZZIE.
Ozzie is an unsocialised street cat living on the streets of Forster. We've been trying to catch him for the past 2–3 YEARS.
Early Saturday morning, we came incredibly close to catching him.
Saturday night, we spotted him BLOCKS AWAY from the colony.
Let that sink in for a moment.
CATS CAN AND DO ROAM MUCH FURTHER THAN YOU THINK.
We didn't see Ozzie on Sunday or Monday.
On Tuesday morning, he showed up again, and we were once more close to catching him.
It was a relief to see him. At least we knew he was alive and seemingly okay.
Or so we thought.
💔 LAST NIGHT, EVERYTHING CHANGED.
I went down to put out fresh food and found Ozzie terribly injured after being attacked.
He wasn't walking far. He was trying to curl himself into a ball, attempting to hide in plain sight.
Seeing him like that was absolutely sickening.
This isn't just upsetting. This could become a life-or-death situation for Ozzie.
He's now more vulnerable and at risk of being attacked again. His injuries also put him at risk of infection, something we've unfortunately witnessed with another unsocialised tomcat when we first started working at this colony.
And what makes this even harder?
Ozzie is still not safely in our care.
We are trying everything we can to catch him, but we cannot simply walk up to him, pick him up and take him to a vet. He's an unsocialised street cat, and catching him safely is a challenge in itself.
We are trying. We are working on it. We are doing everything we can.
But he shouldn't have to go through this.
No cat should.
And as if finding Ozzie in this condition wasn't enough, I walked back to the car and saw THREE MORE CATS running around.
God knows whether they're unsocialised strays, dumped cats, or somebody's supposedly beloved pets being allowed to roam the streets.
And that is part of the problem.
When owned cats are allowed to wander, it becomes even harder to determine which cats are lost, abandoned, unsocialised or simply being put at risk by the people who are supposed to be protecting them.
It makes an already difficult situation even harder.
Meanwhile, the cats are the ones paying the price.
THEY ARE THE ONES GETTING INJURED.
THEY ARE THE ONES GETTING ATTACKED.
THEY ARE THE ONES LEFT VULNERABLE ON THE STREETS.
And we are the ones out there trying to pick up the pieces.
😡 AND I'M SICK OF IT.
I'm sick of the excuses.
I'm sick of people insisting their cat is fine roaming because "they've always done it."
I'm sick of hearing "they always come home."
I'm sick of "they love being outside."
And I'm sick of people acting as though keeping their cat contained is somehow cruel.
YOU KNOW WHAT'S CRUEL? LEAVING YOUR CAT EXPOSED TO PREVENTABLE DANGERS WHEN YOU HAVE THE ABILITY TO KEEP THEM SAFE.
You cannot guarantee that your cat will come home every time they leave the house.
You cannot guarantee they won't be attacked, injured, hit by a car, become lost, contract an illness or never return.
And you certainly cannot guarantee that somebody else won't have to deal with the consequences.
Ozzie is a reminder that the risks aren't just hypothetical.
This is happening out there, right now.
We have unsocialised street cats to catch, injured cats to worry about, colonies to manage and lives to try to save. We do this because these animals deserve a chance at a safer life.
But we cannot fix the problem while people continue contributing to it.
RESPONSIBLE CAT OWNERSHIP MEANS KEEPING YOUR CAT SAFE. IT DOESN'T MEAN LETTING THEM ROAM AND HOPING FOR THE BEST.
And yes, I know the people who need to read this probably won't.
I know some people will get defensive. I know some will disagree. And I know some will continue doing exactly what they've always done.
Copied from another page.
But if this post makes even ONE person reconsider letting their cat roam, then at least it's reached someone.
Because Ozzie matters.
Every cat out there matters.
And they deserve better than this.
