cats

"It's TORTURE in that house, they give me JUST 3 MEALS AND 2 SNACKS A DAY!"

We found our cat young and starving, being left alone outside.
But he was used to be outside and just locking him in would be cruel.
He mostly happily hides in a hole or some cellar around, when he is outside anyway.

We tried giving him a safety collar, but he was already like 6 months old, when we found him and wasn't used to one. So he always got rid of the safety ones and we were too afraid that he should strangulate himself with a non-safety one.
He is chipped. So I hope this is enough, when someone catches him.
But he is very shy with other people and it worked out for 13 years now I'm different areas of the city - sometimes, in his young and wild years, he was gone for 2-3 days, but he always came back happy and hungry :-)

A collar or other physical appariments wouldn't stop you from abducting it either. Where I come from and (I assume) in many parts of the world, cats have an electronic chip in their neck with basic info about the owner and how to contact them, which would be discovered when you bring them to the vet.

But I think that's more of a cultural thing. Personally, I consider not letting your cat roam free in the neighbourhood (if you have the ability to let them) unjust and borderline animal abuse, close to how I would consider it if you kept your dog inside all the time.

Finally, taking a cat home out of, what, pettiness(?) sounds like a terrible idea, because beyond any notion of ethics, dealing witha cat you keep away from their territory and the people they know would be both a psycological and financial perspective. If you want to be hurtful to someone, there are easier and cheaper ways to do it than to abduct their pets.

So no, as a pet owner, abduction is really not anywhere near being a concern for me. Getting run over though? That IS a concern, particularly when cats panic. However, cats have far better hearring than we do and can hear cars from a mile away (esp when they're familiar with them).

I think the owners assume that no one has been a dick in the last 5 years, and hope it means no one will be a dick for the next 5 either. It seems like you're getting close though so maybe take a different road so you avoid the temptation of stealing a cat since it seems unusually strong in you.