We just got our little stray a month ago. Sweet calico girl she just showed up on our doorstep mewling, "Feed me! I'm hungry!" So we did and now she's one of the family. She's already spoiled rotten too! =)
I took in a stray kitten that was missing part of his bottom lip (was caught in a barbed wire fence), he was alright for a while, but I believe he was the embodiment of the anti-Christ. After three months of returning to a destroyed apartment everyday, I gave him to my parents. Life is better now.
I've never had a new pet, only used. My problem is with coridination. Even I know polka dot, stripes, and check don't match, but what the hell!
A while ago a cat kept wizzing on my mates car. He found it under the car one night and pointed his .22 at it. The cat started rubbing it's head on the point of the barrel. Couldn't miss....... One less lizzard and bird eating cat removed.
It is. Combined with humans removal of native flora, cats have a massive impact on native birds and lizards. Cats are fine if kept inside, out side they should be treated as feral and eradicated.
If someone with an absence of heart thought about it long enough, they could probably rationalize killing your friend too. It's laughable that one would pretend to care so much about certain kinds of animals, to the point of senselessly killing another kind of animal.
I don't have to rationalize...I would have an ear-to-ear grin while introducing his "friend" to a .44 Magnum slug in the guts. The more people I deal with, the more I like my cats.
An apartment complex I lived in once, decided to get rid of all the stray cats hanging around (about a dozen). The calle din the animal control guys and they removed all the cats. Before a month's time was out, people were getting mice, rats, palmetto bugs, lizards, and snakes inside their apartments. They couldn't wait to get the cats back. The original cats were gone but they went to the pound and brought 10 cats back, and set them loose on the property. Better to have cats than rats.