Background: Athens GA. Large fenced backyard and medium sized fenced front yard.
My dear bride and I are owned by 3 canines, 2 felines and 1 avian.
We restrict the canines to the fenced yards.
The avian lives in his cage and is occasionally released to be with me in my office.
The felines are another matter altogether.
They live indoors but venture outdoors on their own recognizance. We have a cat door that allows them access to and from the wild world of suburban Athens.
Most of the the time, they stalk the underground critters in the front yard and bring their trophies inside for our review. Sometimes, they range further and come back with scars of war from encounters with other felines.
I could close the animal doors and cause these felines to be restricted to the house, However, I am certain that Greymalkin and Bama Ringtail would be completely disrupted by their restriction. I know I am responsible for their well-being, but I have decided that it would better for them if they were allowed to follow their own imperatives even if such place them in harm. These feline individuals are well aware of the dangers of the giant crushing wheels that come down our street. I have watched them both react circumspectly and rationally when confronted with an oncoming vehicle, and I trust they will continue to do so in the future.
Greymalkin is 8 years old and Bama Ringtail is 2 years old. The former ranges far and may eventually find his demise on the streets of Athens if he decides a roadkill is more interesting than the oncoming wheels of a speeding car. The latter rarely wanders any farther that our property.
So should I force them both to stay inside? Safe and sound and unhappy and gazing out the windows and crowding the door every time anyone leaves the house?
I think not. These wonderful entities are worthy of respect.
Depends on where you live. We are in a development with that has no thru traffic (there are signs to this effect at the entrance) so our traffic is rather sparse and slow. All our cats (currently two) are walk-ons who have lived on the streets before, and we have a cat door that they can use as they please. One of our two never wanders more than one or two lots from ours and rarely stays out more than 20 minutes or so, while the other will be gone for several days at a time. And up to now all our feline fatalities have been from old age.
My 2 cats are from rescues, so I had to sign a paper saying they’d be inside only. When we first lived in this area, it was almost like the countryside, so I had a cat who went outside every day. She lived to the age of 21, and didn’t ask to go out in the last 2 weeks of her life.
Even so, in spite of it’s apparent safety, it could dangerous. One day she came in with an arrow piercing through her head at about jaw level-- almost like a cartoon cat, in one side and out the other. We were lucky it didn’t mean more than an emergency run to the vet hospital, no big damage done. Still, that wasn’t enough to convince her to remain indoors. She lived about 8 years afterwards.
Indoors. I live near a busy road. I’ve lost cats to cars (when I lived in the country) and one in town just simply disappeared. My parents had indoor/outdoor cats for years and they lived long lives, but they lived in a quiet residential neighborhood.
If I had a leash trained cat or a safe area to let them out into, I’d do it. As it is, I provide my three with cat trees and I keep the bird feeders full. I play and interact with them often. They have good lives indoors.
Indoor only. It’s cheaper and easier. Their daily quality of life is much decreased but it’s an acceptable trade off for a much longer life and fewer injuries/stresses, in my book. Also I am broke and lazy.
We live on a busy street, too, but we have a completely fenced-in back yard that we were able to catproof (because our cats are so old - it wouldn’t be good enough for a young cat that was all climby and jumpy). They’re out there all the time in summer and they just love it - dirt to roll in, flowers to smell, butterflies to chase, what’s not to like?
My oldest boy was born outside and has always been allowed in and out as he pleases. The one below him started out coming to our patio door and got adopted that way. He still mainly lives outside.
The two kittens (one is 2 yrs, one is 4 months) have always stayed inside. The little boy wants out sooooo bad though, I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep him in. It just seems terribly unfair to make him stay inside when two of the others are allowed out.
In other words, I think it depends on the cat. But I don’t have any problem at all with outdoor cats.
Mine goes out in the fenced back yard wearing a little harness with a leash attached, and I tied a big red bow on the end of the leash. This is so I can always see where he is in the yard at a glance and go out and check if I can’t see it (it’s possible he could squeeze through an opening in the fence or decide to see what’s under the deck. Uh, probably a skunk!) He likes to sit in the garden and watch bugs in the tall grass, he’ll sit and look out through the fence at the street on a square of carpet from the dollar store that I put on the ground for him, or up on the deck railing to get a better view of the birds. He’s not much of a hunter, in fact he’s quite slothful and doesn’t like it outside when it’s too hot, too cold, or too windy. I do put flea treatment on him during warm months until there’s a freeze; neither of us like doing the Vantage thing, but fleas are an absolute nightmare. Never ever again.
Hard to believe I grew up in a home full of cats that went in and out of the house all the time, in all kinds of weather. I can’t imagine letting cats out to roam now, it’s strange, like remembering how we all used to smoke in the office!
Miso and Wonton are indoors cats but I let them come out to the back yard with me on nice days. It’s completely fenced in and they don’t really seem curious to go beyond anyway. Mostly they just hang around the door sniffing and rolling like the world’s full of catnip.
We have a new guy who was dumped and of course I had to feed him. He cried so pitifully. I couldn’t let him starve. . . blah blah now he comes in some for short periods or when the weather is bad, but until I can get him fixed he’s not staying in for long. I know the stench of cat spray too well.
I don’t really have a problem with what other people do with their cats, but it pains me when my little girl sees them splattered all over the street, and it’s disgusting how some folks just dump them off with no concern at all. Some people assume cats can just catch mice and be just fine.
My cat is an indoor cat by his own choice. We could leave the front door open all day and he might poke his head out to see what’s going on, but he really hates being outside. He will go out on the fenced in deck but he seems to consider that just another room of the house.
I currently have 9 cats, live in rural-turning-suburbia TN, on 13 acres but with a pretty busy road at the end of my long driveway, and with neighbors whose dogs roam at will.
6 of my cats are indoor only, with a big screened porch they have cat door access to so they can watch bird and snooze in the sun and air.
The other 3 started their lives as outdoor cats (1 feral kitten, 2 barn cats from other people) and really get unhappy if they are kept in too long. They’ve wised up though that indoors ain’t so bad when it’s 20 degrees out, or monsoon raining, or 98 degrees with 90% humidity. I make them come in in bad weather, and I worry about them when they are out, but if I try and keep them in for too long their anxiety affects the rest of the herd, so for the sake of peace I do let them out.
My previous indoor only cats have all lived into their late teens-early twenties. My previous non-indoor only cats have all died on a road or disappeared before the age of 10.
It’s not just about your cats in your own yard, either. Cats are notorious for being bad neighbours when allowed to roam freely. It also annoys me when my cats are in my backyard, obeying the laws in Calgary which don’t allow cats or dogs to run free, when other people’s cats come around and drive MY cats crazy.
I hate outdoor cats, mainly because of the neighbor’s outdoor cat who likes to come up to our sliding glass door so the two of them can have a hissing match.
Definitely depends on the cat. We have three cats, all adopted as strays.
Cat number one is mainly indoors, but she does like to go out on the screened porch to sunbathe. She has gotten out into the fenced yard a few times, but has never attempted to escape.
Cat number two hates the outdoors…won’t go out even when a chance is offered to her.
Cat number three we tried to keep indoors, but she was always attempting to escape. We let her out in the yard just once, and that was all it took–she was over the fence in a flash. We decided it was kinder to let her have her wandering ways. She roams all over the neighborhood, and occasionally comes back to say hi. I think she’s got several families she’s adopted, because she has gotten FAT.
I selected “other,” but my answer is a variant of one of the other answers.
Background first: We’re about a quarter-mile from the nearest through-road, and about 100 yards from the nearest house. Behind us, there isn’t another house for miles. All of our cats are “fixed” and have their claws.
Now the answer: We allow the cats outside during the day so they can explore and have fun in the sun. We always bring them in at night so they don’t get eaten by large predators. This time of year, they generally don’t go outside at all.
I’ve never owned either cats or dogs, but I’ve worked in several factories which had a cat. I would imagine those count as “half’n’half”, as they pretty much came and went around the factory as they pleased, but some of the posters seem to be responding not so much “outdoors” as “out of the house”, so I’m a bit confused. Would our factory cats count as “half and half” or “outdoors”? There was no “living quarters” to speak of, and only a few locations they knew they were not to enter (lab, hotroom).
