Dear Prudence,
My sister recently gave me a cat. She claims it was a stray, but I found out it belonged to her neglectful housemate. She was not feeding or cleaning up after the kitty and leaving it to everyone else. My sister got fed up when her housemate took a spur of the moment Caribbean vacation with her boyfriend and didn’t leave food or litter behind or even any money. She later confessed that she lied and told her housemate the cat escaped. She showed me a clip of this girl hysterically crying about her cat. My sister found it funny and turned defensive when I said that it was pretty cruel of her. She says it is cruel to get a pet and then purposely not take care of it. The girl was treating a living animal like a toy to be put up on a shelf as she pleased. I know my sister was fed up with having to be responsible for a pet she didn’t even want, but I guess her behavior just rubs me the wrong way. Do I say anything to my sister? And for the record, I am keeping the cat.
—About the Cat