CELPIP Reading Part 4 Practice Test: Keeping Cats Indoors in Millbrook Debate

Cats have roamed Millbrook’s backyards for generations, but a draft bylaw would confine them indoors or to their owners’ property, either leashed or in an enclosed pen known as a catio. Enforcement would depend on complaints: after a neighbour’s report, an officer could trap a wandering animal and return it, with fines for repeat cases. Comparable rules in several Canadian municipalities have produced mixed results.

Councillor Dana Whitfield, the bylaw’s sponsor, notes that cats digging in gardens, spraying doorways and brawling beneath bedroom windows now rank second among complaints to the bylaw office, trailing only parking. “Dog owners have been accountable for their animals for decades,” she observes. Disclaiming any punitive intent, she envisions a full year of warnings before the first fine, and has asked staff to investigate discounted enclosures for low-income households.

Owen Pratt, president of the Millbrook Field Naturalists, welcomes the measure on behalf of songbirds, which outdoor cats reportedly slaughter in enormous numbers. “Members report that nesting sites along Cedar Creek have fallen silent,” he says. He nevertheless refrains from exaggerating its reach. “The biggest threat to birds is the loss of the places where they live,” he cautions, though confining cats remains among the few remedies a municipality can apply cheaply and promptly.

Dr. Raj Bhandari, a Millbrook veterinarian for twenty years, considers indoor cats demonstrably safer from traffic, coyotes and infection. Legislation is another matter. “Most clients lack not willingness but know-how,” he maintains, so he would redirect the money from officers with traps toward free workshops and low-cost spaying. Fines, he suspects, could also persuade some owners to surrender their pets.

That prospect alarms Marguerite Hall, whose Second Chance Cat Rescue already has over sixty cats on its waiting list. She keeps her own five indoors and sees no justification for pets wandering. Many animals on Millbrook’s streets, however, have no owner to penalize. “A bylaw only works on people who can be fined,” she remarks, predicting fuller shelters and undiminished strays. Her preference is a municipally funded program to trap, neuter and return them, gradually reducing their population.

As someone who feeds birds all winter, I welcomed this bylaw; every spring I find feathers beneath my feeder. The councillor’s principle strikes me as unanswerable: 6. Choose…cat owners owe what dog owners doparking and pets deserve equal attentiona household’s budget shouldn’t decide complianceindoor animals live longer and safer lives. Owners crying persecution should reread the timetable, since the plan would 7. Choose…fine only repeat casesdiscount cat enclosuresstart with warningsrely on neighbours’ complaints.

Not unlike Ms. Hall, I doubt the bylaw can do the whole job, because 8. Choose…fines may drive owners to surrender petsofficers need a neighbour’s reportwarnings delay any penaltymany cats answer to no owner.

The veterinarian’s faith in owners seems generous to me: he supposes they would comply if 9. Choose…the fines were steep enoughthey got some guidancethey grasped the dangers outsidespaying were less costly. Mr. Pratt’s candour, however, disarms me. For a man defending songbirds, it cannot be easy to grant that 10. Choose…cats do little damage to songbirdsnesting sites have gone quietcats aren’t the worst threata bylaw would be slow. A cheap step that helps somewhat still beats none.