Daniel Chessare stated he has one other cat who additionally goes exterior, however she has by no means been taken.
The couple says Phil has a contented life as an indoor/outside cat.
“They just can’t mind their business,” stated Daniel Chessare. “Literally, we looked out into the backyard the other day, and there’s just a woman walking across our backyard holding out cat. When my wife opened up the door and was like, ‘Hello, what are you doing with our cat?’ The woman was like, ‘Oh, he was just sitting in the woods, and he was cold.’”
Phil wears a collar which has a tag with the Chessares’ cellphone quantity on it. Chessare stated, on this latest theft-attempt, the girl didn’t even attempt to name the quantity on his tag, she simply got here into the yard and tried to walk away with Phil.
“We had another woman, we had one of those safety collars, it must have fallen off and she scooped him up,” Chessare stated. “But, everyone in the neighborhood knows who this cat is.”
In one other earlier theft, somebody posted about discovering a lacking cat on Nextdoor, a hyperlocal social networking app and web site which connects neighbors. Chessare stated that a lot of individuals advised the girl posting that the cat she discovered was Phil, and the he belongs to the Chessares. When the girl stated she didn’t imagine the cat she discovered was Phil, she determined to offer the cat away to somebody who lived in Schenectady.
“Luckily, we were able to get him back from that person in Schenectady,” Chessare stated. “On a third occasion, Jen [Chessare] came home just as another woman was grabbing the cat. The woman said she saw him walking down the street and lured him over with some food to see if he was OK. Jen told her Phil is an outdoor cat, and he was fine.”
Phil’s tag additionally tells would-be catnappers that he’s an out of doors cat. The couple has solely had Phil for a couple of 12 months, Daniel Chessare stated. Phil was rescued from a shelter after he had been discovered on the aspect of the street along with his lifeless mom. When he was adopted, Phil was strictly an indoor cat, however he actually appreciated being exterior, Chessare stated.
“We got him all of his shots and everything, so he can go indoor and outdoors,” Chessare stated. “Ever since we started doing that, people have been trying to kidnap him. He doesn’t look malnourished, or mangy. He looks like a perfectly normal cat. He’s just super friendly.”
Phil wouldn’t reply effectively if he needed to keep inside on a regular basis, Chessare stated. Using an AirTag — a monitoring system developed by Apple — or getting a cat collar with a digital camera on it are two potential subsequent steps to attempt to maintain Phil protected, Chessare stated.
“We had to track this woman in Schenectady to get our cat back,” Chessare stated. “And the woman who gave it to her was like, ‘Oh, can’t you just let her keep him overnight?’ Like no, we’re not letting some stranger keep our cat overnight … Then this woman kept texting us telling us to text her a picture letting her know we got Phil back OK. She was asking for updates.”
People ought to have the ability to inform when a cat is homeless or will not be taken care of, Chessare stated. A homeless cat would seem mangy or emaciated and if it has a collar and a tag it most likely has a home, he stated.
“I get that some people might think that the cat escaped, and that’s fine, just call the number on the tag,” Chessare stated. “Don’t immediately bring him to the shelter, there’s a phone number on him. I think some people believe too strongly in the cat distribution system — just because you see a cat, it doesn’t make it your cat now.”
The cat distribution system is an web development common on TikTok and Instagram, which describes how cats randomly come into individuals’s properties and lives. The cat distribution system means that when a cat comes right into a person’s life, it’s selecting to undertake them, and never the opposite approach round.
“I really do want to put a camera on him, just so I can start recording these people,” Chessare stated, “but then I am kind of worried because my cat is so friendly that he’ll run up to somebody and they’ll just take the camera off the cat.”
