It is time guidelines were put in place to help cat owners

Sir, – There has been much discussion around the issue of cats recently. While I would agree with the licensing of cats in the same manner as dogs, I would also like to see some guidelines put in place to help cat owners. I have never witnessed a dog owner open their front door and put their dog out into the community for it to do as it pleases.

Similarly, cats never receive any training. One contributor to your newspaper suggested that to licence cats would result in cats downing tools and never catching any mice ever again. Who would have thought cats had such an understanding of their own existence?

Now we all love the phrase that dogs have masters while cats have slaves but there is a darker side to the cat story that should be acknowledged. There are approximately 60 million cats in the UK (they especially love cats over there). How they come to that number is a topic for another day given cats are not registered.

Each cat kills about six birds annually. That is 360 million birds killed by cats in the UK every 12 months.