The four socks cat was a small juvenile, scared and angry. It had every right to be because it had spent the night in a small trap I'd baited with a cheap tin of cat food the night before. It wasn't happy as I carried the cage out into the field, scrambling back and forth, still looking for a way out of the cage. Then I took a .22 pistol and put it out of its misery.

This is a job I don't like to do. It was a waste of what could have been a perfectly good pet for someone had things turned out differently. But it didn't.

I have had three predator incidents in the year and a half I've been keeping chickens. One was a possum that went away as soon as I changed the way I stored food. The other two were because of domestic animals.

This tells me that 66% of my predator problems - the dogs that my Wyandotte rooster died fighting off when they attacked a hen and the four socks cat who was making a habit of sleeping in a next box in the coop, a threat to my incoming chicks - were domestic animal related. Now you might say that the four socks cat was feral, a stray. It was still felis domesticus - a common house cat.

This tells me that if people took more care with their personal pets, I - and probably most other keepers of livestock, from chickens to cattle - would have a lot less predator problems.

I realize I'm probably preaching to the choir here. Most of the people who come here are interested in keeping chickens, which means they show or are willing to learn some responsibility when it comes to animal care. But just in case there are some strays in the choir...

You're not doing anyone any favors if you don't control the reproductive capacity of your pets. Legitimate breeders I have no problem with - for the most part they control where their animals go and what they do. But pet owners who are non-breeders should bite the bullet, pay the vet, and get their pet spayed or neutered. We always have, and we felt it made for a better pet. And it made us better neighbors, too.

The courtesy goes the other way, too. One of our neighbors have a spirited dog that they keep under control, but there were a couple of occasions when he got away. When my daughter got her goats, I was a little concerned about the dog and what he might do if he had a couple of herd animals to bedevil if he got loose. So my wife and I went over and had a nice chat with the owners.

Here's the secret: we didn't say "Keep your dog tethered, because if he hurts our goats, you're going to have a lawsuit on your hands." We said, "We have goats now, and if they get loose, please let us know because we don't want them to inconvenience you."

We haven't had a problem with the dog since. By telling them we anticipated a potential hazard on our side of the road, they naturally anticipated what might happen on their side. We're both being good neighbors.

So keep these things in mind. You can draw more flies with honey than vinegar. And by being responsible about your pet's reproductive capacities, you can cure a number of ills.

Again, I figure that most of you reading this already keep a careful watch on your animals. Good for you. And forgive my foaming at the mouth here. It's just that I had to shoot a perfectly good cat this weekend and I'm still ticked off about it.