Does a cat that has a collar living on the street belong to anyone?
Ask the cat, and it’ll probably tell you it owns human slaves instead, but according to a minimart, because it has a collar and is outside its shop, it belongs to them.
But according to a couple, that isn’t the case.
Here’s what happened over at Chai Chee.
Netizens Divided After Minimart at Chai Chee Claimed 2 People Stole Its Cat
Yesterday (28 January 2023), Rakhis Shop, a minimart in Chai Chee, posted nine videos, all of them featuring the same content.
In the videos, a CCTV camera captured a couple approaching the shop, which appears to be closed, with a box.
They then did something off frame and then appeared to text someone for instructions.
Eventually, after reading something on their phone, the man grabbed the box, this time showing that box was used to carry a white cat.
They then walked away.
You can watch the video here.
As you probably can tell from the text overlay, the owner of the minimart wasn’t happy, claiming that the couple had taken their “beloved cat” and ask for people who knew them to contact them.
One of the nine videos has gone viral, and netizens have a lot to say.
Why is the Cat Outside the Shop?
One thing that you might not be able to tell is that the cat has a collar, which implies that it has an owner.
This leads to two types of comments on the viral video: one criticising the minimart for leaving the cat outside the shop…
…and the other believing that since the cat has a collar, it’s clear the cat has an owner, so the couple shouldn’t have taken it away:
The cat, according to replies by the minimart, is a Persian cat, so it’s unlike the usual tabby cats that live in your void deck.
Instead, this “atas cat breed” could fetch a price of $500 to $1,500, depending on whether it’s purebred or cross-bred.
The minimart has also responded passively aggressively to some negative comments:
This leads to the next question: How do we know if a cat is, indeed, owned by someone else?
Microchipping Determines Ownership
While some people claim that the collar would suffice in determining if the cat has an owner, that isn’t exactly true.
The accepted way (accepted because there’s no law…yet) is through a microchip, whereby a chip with a number is implanted into a cat.
Whenever a vet treats a cat, they’d also scan for a chip to find its owner—if it has any.
This is because collars aren’t usually the way to determine ownership—cat owners sometimes put a collar on for aesthetic purposes or to hang a bell so that they’d know if a cat is moving.
The minimart said in a comment that the cat is “tagged”, though it’s unknown if that means the cat is microchipped:
Simply put, the couple would most probably return the cat if their intention was to adopt it, since the first vet visit would’ve revealed that someone else owned the cat—if it’s microchipped and registered, that is.
Featured Image: TikTok (@rakhis.shopsg)
