And why or why not?
My answer’s yes, but only since my neighbor’s dog got euthanized. I also put in a better fence. Mrs. Who is only allowed to roam the back yard.
Three cats, three reasons:
Barbara- a found four paw declawed stray, He is very very clear that he DOES NOT WANT the outdoors and since he has no claws should not be out there anyway
Cee-cee- In the seventeenth year of her ongoing love affair with ultraviolence. Too old, Too crazy
Hedwig- he gets lost on the porch, we would never see him again.
our cats come and go as they please. We leave a small window open for them. We have no nearby neighbors, so I don’t think they are bothering anyone.
I picked the first option but either of the first two would work. Even if I didn’t worry about the cat’s safety I’d still keep him in. I’m not very fond of bloody dismembered ‘gifts’ on the welcome mat.
Yes, we have three cats and they are almost 100% outdoor cats. They sleep and are fed in the barn; they enter the house maybe twice a week at most. I only kept them indoor when they were small kittens.
My parents live in a house in a city, with a small garden that communicates with some other small gardens, though all are fenced. Their cat and the neighbors’ cats go along well and hang out in each other gardens’.
Unless one lives in a flat, virtually everyone I know with a cat let it going outside. Before reading this message board I had no idea letting a cat going outside was seen negatively by many people in the usa. I wonder what is the custom for my european neighbors.
Our two cats used to go outside. We had a fenced backyard, but they would occasionally slip through the gap where the shitty fencing leaned away from the shitty gate and go wandering up the alley.
We moved recently, and now we have a fenced backyard where the shitty fencing leans away from the shitty gate AND we’re about three houses away from a larger street where cars zoom quite quickly. In light of their propensity to slip out and wander nearby, Mr. Shoe and I have agreed that while we live in this house (unless we win the lottery and can afford to re-do the whole fencing) the kitties will Not Go Out.
So far, they’ve been quite good about the change. Neither was ever the type to try to run out the door when you open it to get the mail or anything, and the new house has these nice, wide sills so they can sit and sniff the breeze when we open the windows. It seems to be enough.
Both were formerly lost, starving, wandering the neighborhood aimlessly. Neither seems all that anxious to return to that life.
Both of the first two options will work ( picked #2), but you missed a third that’s important to me: consideration for my neighbors by keeping my cat in so it does not crap in their yards. This drove me crazy when we lived in an urban area where people let their cats out to crap wherever they pleased, so there was cat crap in everyone’s flower beds.
Now that I’m in a nice suburb, I haven’t seen an outdoor cat in ages, which allows me to dig around in my garden without trepidation.
No, for far too many reasons. Among them are:
Older guy is about 17. He’s aging very well, so much so that he’s still learning that he can’t do things he used to be able to do. If he fails to make it onto the couch in the first jump, he’s fine; if he fails to make it onto that next tree limb, he could be toast. He’s also front-declawed, so while him getting into a tree in the first place is actually pretty unlikely, he also wouldn’t be able to defend himself very well in a fight.
The other guy is about 7. He’d be much better able to handle himself, but he’s kind of an idiot, and I really don’t know whether he’d be able to find his way home again. And he loves to eat leafy greens, so him ingesting a poisonous plant is a concern.
There are all the diseases - the big ones like FIV, feline leukemia and rabies, and the more ordinary stuff like respiratory infections. And fleas. We got infested when I adopted the older guy, and it was no laughing matter.
Beyond all that, neither of them have been outdoor cats since they were extremely young, so I’d worry about them understanding how to deal with cars, dogs, cats, other animals - the world, basically.
But fortunately, neither of them seem to have any desire to go out. I used to try to take the older one out in the back yard, and he’d just hunker down next to me with his ears back until I brought him inside. Both of them are wary, not curious, when we open a door, and have never tried to run outside. When I lived in an apartment, the younger guy was always happily darting out into the hall (and onto the elevator once), so it does seem to be the outdoors that makes the difference.
My three are all strictly indoor, partly because I don’t know how safe it is for them to run free in this neighborhood and partly because there’s a HOA restriction about cats and dogs being outside unleashed. Occasionally they will hang around the door when I go out and I think they’d go out if I’d let them, particularly the oldest who probably remembers being allowed out back when we lived in Chicago (the twins have been indoor cats since I got then at four weeks, but they like to sit by the sliding doors to my deck and watch the wildlife).
My kitty is indoor and I think she has always been an indoor cat, so I don’t know what she would do outside.
Plus there are cars (and coyotes) outside, and after seeing a childhood pet cat hit and killed by a car, I never want to witness that again.
I live too close to busy streets and I’ve come around to “it’s better for their health” POV ( I’ve lost two outdoor cats over the decades, one fairly young ). My current two are the first to essentially become 100% indoor cats ( the occasional short-leved dash for freedom and a couple of leash experiments aside ), but my previous cat of 17 years was a “90-95% indoor” cat - she mostly went out to do her business in my yard, then immediately would scratch to come back in.
Yes they go outside as they please, but we live off of a pipestem court, and are not near a main road or heavy traffic, and the cats mainly stay in our yard or on the deck the vast majority of the time. My cats would be miserable if they could not go outside. They LOVE passing the hours lying on the deck, or in the patio chairs, basking in the sun and watching the world go by. Honestly I think it would be cruel to keep them inside, it would be like keeping them in prison. Their greatest joy is being able to go outside. And I myself love watching how happy they are when they’re outside.
Our two cats are kinda’ outdoor-ish; we have a huge screened-in back porch that they live on when they’re not hanging out in the house. They still get to roam around, hunt the occasional lizard that slips in, talk smack to birds and squirrels, and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine without the threat of roaming dogs, pissed-off neighbors or fast cars.
I have two cats. Emma is strictly an inside cat, but Ariel goes out as she pleases, which is most of the time anymore.
I’ve had dozens of cats over the years, and almost all of them were more like Ariel than Emma.
Strictly indoor, after losing an indoor/outdoor cat about 15 years ago. It’s mainly for their safety, but keeping them in has saved money in vet bills. No injuries. No fleas or ticks or chiggers or cockleburrs to cut out of their hair. My daughter spent about $1K on her cat (grooming and boo-boos) before she decided he’d be safer (and cleaner) indoors.
It’s a fairly benign environment around here for cats - there’s no serious larger predator* - so many people let their cats out at night to do cat things. De-clawing is a serious no-no here so the mice/rat population is kept down somewhat, and the cats pretty much always come home. A few moggies get lost to traffic, and some just move away to where there’s a better offer.
*badgers and foxes - no sensible cat will get involved, and the foxes and badgers will not seek confrontation.
Yes, wherever they want. That’s how I was raised, and that’s how the cats were raised. At this point, I think it would be cruel to keep them in (and I doubt my father would stand for it). If and when I get more cats, they may very well be indoor.
I live in the country.I have four cats. Two of my cats were originally supposed to be barn cats, but they decided house living was preferable, but they like to go out. One of my other cats is front-declawed (not by me, she’s a pound-kitty), but I’ve never seen her go more than 10 feet from the house. She likes to sit on the porch or skulk in the bushes. The otherrarely goes outside. She thinks she’s far to delicate for that.
I have 6 large dogs, and never have strange dogs or cats stray into my yard. The dogs are all good with the cats.
I will note that all the animals are spayed and neutered. No babies, no tom-cat fights.
StG
My cats are strictly indoor. At first it was because we live on a slightly busy street, but now it’s because the woman next door feeds the feral cats. If we let them out they’d be in fights and covered in fleas within seconds.
Our cat is purely an indoor cat. We would let him out in our gated courtyard (condo) but he doesn’t want to go. Once or twice he’s investigated right outside the door but always comes back in.