I allow my cats to go outside. I understand that not everyone approves of that, and if you need to bash me on it, pls. take it to the Pit. This thread is where I seek advice from other people who allow their cats to go outside.
Many years ago, I installed a cat door for my old cat (who lived to 19, despite going outside, thereby disproving the “you’re dooming them to a short and unhappy life” theory … oh wait, those folks all left for the Pit already, right?). He was already an experienced going-outside cat when this was installed – I don’t remember exactly when I put it in, but let’s say there had been several years of people-door ingress and egress before he got his own door. I showed him how to use it, he got the hang of it quickly, and proceeded to use it freely for the rest of his (long) life.
He died (of old age) last winter, and I got two new kittens last summer. They are now about 9 months old, have had full sets of shots, and have each had their reproductive organs removed. Following all the above vet care (at about 6 months), I started letting them go outside when I’m home.
They really like going outside, but I’m not always home. I am, in fact, gone about 12 hours a day (or more) on weekdays. I let them out when I get home, but now that the weather is getting nicer, I’m thinking about unblocking the cat door and letting them use it.
My question is – how old should cats be, before they can use a cat door rather than relying on a human being home when they go outside? They have occasionally been outside when I’m not home (if I go out for a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon and they’re having fun outside), but I’m a little nervous about giving them such free rein when they’re still not totally grown. There are also other cats in the neighborhood who like to hang out in my yard, though I’ve seen zero evidence of fighting or even arguing between my cats and their visitors. (My guys sometimes hang out under the neighbor’s porch.)
Very much so. In Great Britain many cat shelters won’t let you adopt unless you have a garden or common green area where cats can be let out to. In the United States many ( urban/suburban ) animal shelters will refuse to let you adopt unless you promise to keep your cat indoors at all times.
There are arguments pro and con for both, but the bottom line is that there is a real cultural divide on the issue with the UK and rural America favoring the one and urban America favoring the other.
Tamerlane, urban American that used to have indoor/outdoor cats and now has strictly indoor cats.
It’s a cultural thing. Especially in crowded suburbs, loose pets have a disturbing tendency to get themselves run over. Letting them run loose is seen by some as practically inviting an early death to your kitties.
I never had a cat door, because the weather here does not permit. However, my main concern would not be whether the cats are too young to go out, but rather that other animals would choose to come in … I assume that isn’t a big issue where you live. Here in Toronto there are so many aggressive racoons and skunks, I’d be concerned.
When I was renting, during the summer I would occasionally open our second-story window to allow the cat to come in and go out freely; but in that case, our cat was somewhat exceptional in her climbing ability - I doubt many a raccoon or skunk could get at that particular window, and in fact none did.
To answer the OP, my old indoor/outdoor cat was definitely using a cat door at nine months. I will say though that, anecdotally, subadult cats, with a perhaps not yet fully developed sense of territorialty, seem to be slightly more prone to inviting in “guests.”
I live in a residential neighborhood in the city. I have a small yard, from which the cats can (and do) visit my neighbors’ yards and also go out to the sidewalk and street. There’s a fair amount of traffic on said street, most of it local. (I don’t live on a main drag.) The wildlife is pretty limited – squirrels, the occasional possum, I’ve seen a groundhog once or twice, maybe a raccoon – but not nonexistent. The ground-floor cat door is behind a bush outside and into the mudroom inside.
The old cat was a male who’d gotten his territory pretty well staked out before the cat door came into play – there were occasional incursions from a curious cat, which he’s put a stop to briskly, but none (that I know of) from any wild critters.
ETA: Thanks, Tamerlane. Useful info. The kids were both looking extremely longingly at the back door this morning, but I wouldn’t let them out because my departure for the day was iminent.
Heh, it is very different in my neighbourhood. My cat gets along fine with the local wildlife (except the mice - well she likes them, but the feelings are not reciprocated); but there is no question a lot of it - racoons and skunks in particular can be a major nuisance. We had to get a garbage house to keep the 'coons out, as with their clever hands they can unlatch most garbage cans (or simply knock them about until they pop open). I regularly have to steer clear of skunks.
The thought of either of those furry menaces in my house … just no.
On the topic a bit of trivia: Resident Evil: Apocalypse was filmed here in Toronto, and in it Toronto was entitled “Racoon City”. Made me laugh.
I’d be worried about not just wildlife but other kitties. I’ve got a feral cat that seems convinced he lives here. (He doesn’t and he wasn’t abandoned either, he just wants to come inside and pick fights.)
My kitties seem content with just going out when I get home and staying inside and sleeping on the sofa in the sunbeam when I’m gone. And when I let them out, they want to come back inside frequently anyway. But they are older. When they were younger, they did like to roam and would sometimes disappear for an evening.
Other critters having access is the only reason I haven’t installed a cat door for mine, actually. So we humans live to serve her “out, no in, no out right now omg out! Let me in!” whims.
I’m sure someone somewhere has developed some type of electronic collar that can be keyed to unlock a critter door, but I’m afraid of collaring my kitty and her strangling herself trying to get it off. We had multiple instances of hearing her meow and finding her dangling by her collar from the fence or tree branch she’d been climbing when she was younger, so no more collar for her.
However, if outside critters aren’t the concern, we often leave a window slightly opened in nice weather for Missy Thing to come and go as she pleases. She had no problems going in and out that way at that age, although I had a problem with her bringing me kills to impress me with her mighty hunting prowess. Started with earthworms when she was just a wee thing, quickly progressing to live birds which freaked me right the hell out. Now we know not to give her free access and to do a visual check before allowing her back in to ensure she’s not bringing in half-dead company.
I’m going through a similar thing right now. Over the years all of my cats have been indor/outdoor since they were all strays or ferals who have been adopted over the years. For the first time I have a cat from the shelter who had been an indoor cat all the nine months of her life. Because one of my cats is still semi-feral, I decided after a few weeks to unlock the cat door again so he could come in out of the bad weather.
Result - Pearl, new shelter cat, adores her outdoor access and is in an out all day, but never shows any inclination to leave the area. Nijel the Destroyer, the feral, has decided that it’s much nicer to spend cold winter days under the bed than holed up in the weeds. All my cats are fixed, vaccinated, and chipped. I have never lost a cat to the big, bad outdoors, and never had much problem with visiting wildlife. On rare occasions, a neighborhood cat will check things out, but Nijel is the size of a small tank and very territorial (although little Pearl beats him up all the time) so we don’t get visitors much anymore.
With the coming of spring, I guess we’ll find out if Pearl will become a hunter - I suspect that she’ll do her best.
Some cats just don’t take well to the indoor life (especially if they’ve had that taste of freedom.) I prefer the indoor only path but I have had cats who won’t adapt to it. Right now I have two ferals who come inside at night and that will change once it gets warmer (their preference) and another semi-feral who I lost patience with and allowed outside where she routinely gets herself up a tree and is too scared to come down.
I had a male who started spraying when I denied him outdoor access. I caved. It made us both happier for years but he’s now been missing for over 2 weeks and I know I’ll never see him again which is heartrending.
To answer the OP, I’d say just wait until you feel the time is right. Perhaps unblock the door during the day and keep them in at night?
My dreamhome will have an enclosed cat run with a kitty jungle gym. They can frolic outside, eat grass & puke to their heart’s content and I won’t have to worry.
We have 8 cats. Only the first one was deliberately brought home. People who dump animals or not get them fixed … Grrrrrrrrr
Anywho, we have a cat house, two runs and they are inside the house a lot. We try to put them up every night. We are out in the woods at 40th & Plum and there are kitty killers a plenty besides the usual possums, raccoons, foxes, stray dogs all of which can’t do much. The owls, hawks, coyotes, bobcats, idiots who shoot other peoples pets, poisonous snakes, live traps out and about, have taken one of ours.
Due to the wild critters, we don’t use the cat door but some times weather permitting, leave a window open.
We believe in letting them out all day and bringing them in at night due to where we are. In other places would would do different.
All shots and ‘fixin’ is done with all who come to live here.
We even have a fox buffet we put out at night so the foxes will stay around. They are great to watch. A full fox does not hunt kitties all that much… So far…
I have a cemetery for really bad, nasty bad tempered critters that mess with our bunch or refuse to become one of the clan.
Live and let live until you mess with Mama’s kitties, then either stay out of the yard or go to the cemetery.
i remember years ago, there was a person on the board (i can’t remember who) who had a very elaborate kitty in/out system.
there was a outside cat door, some sort of chamber or cat foyer where the computer would “look” at the cat. the cat had to match the silhouette stored in the computer for the indoor cat door to open. if the silhouette did not match there would be some sort of alarm so the human would be notified. the human could then look at the screen and see if it was okay to open the inner door.
i believe the reason for this elaborate set up was to keep hunt trophies and non-household cats/beings out of the house. the unauthorized beings would be held in the chamber/foyer until cleared by a human.
there was a nifty show and tell slide show in the post. almost as cool as “how it’s made”.
I’m not sure I understand the dilemma. Are you supervising their outdoor time now? We have two indoor cats, though not for “ethical” reasons, but because one came from a laboratory and is also about as intelligent as cream cheese (no correlation) so he’d be likely to get himself eaten in about thirty seconds. Anyway, they live indoors but sometimes if we’re out in the yard we’ll let the cats out to roam and keep an eye on them.
If you’re not watching them anyway, what difference does it make whether you’re home or not, or opening the door for them? We used to put our rabbit out in the hawk yard during the day sometimes (without the hawk) when we were home until it occurred to us that it didn’t really matter if we were here or not. Now we stick him out there when we leave for work and he has a nice long day out in the grass under the plum tree. Sure, he might one day burrow out or a critter might come along and get him, but either of those things might happen anyway regardless of whether or not we were in the house at the time.
Twickster, I wouldn’t discount possums and raccoons as being a possible danger. We had a possum that got into the garage on a regular basis, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have come in the house too if there’d been a pet door. I wouldn’t be surprised if you had skunks too - and they also got into small buildings when they could. Google “cat door possum” and “cat door raccoon” and you’ll soon see they do want in your house.
Our current cats came to us as indoor cats, so they only go outside on a lead or in the screen house; one really loves swinging on the porch swing with us But our last trio of indoor-outdoor cats lived to each be 13-14. We live out in the woods, so they were only allowed outdoors in the daytime (traffic isn’t such a problem but sadly, when we first moved here we had a cat escape out at night and it was killed by a fishercat. so were a few of the neighbors’) for just a couple of hours a day because one of them would wander to the neighbor’s yard if we left her out longer. Besides things coming into the house, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable allowing the cats to be the ones to decide when it’s the right time of day or right weather conditions for outdoors-ing.
elfkin: My old cat was free-range (used the cat door as he saw fit) for approximately ten years. I am planning to let these cats use the cat door – the only question is “when.”
I think I’ll introduce them to the concept this weekend, see how that goes. I’m hoping once they’re spending more time outside they’ll realize they don’t need to come in to use the litter box. My old cat, I just had one in the basement for when the weather was completely horrendous.
NajaNivea – my wanting to be home has been because A) it’s winter here, so I don’t like leaving them outdoors for hours and hours at a time (though they’ve each spent either a day or a night out because of failing to come back in when I was either leaving for work or going to bed); and B) knowing that there are other cats plus wildlife out there, so I wanted to be available to break up a fight if one should erupt. B) doesn’t seem to be a problem; and A) won’t be, if they’re using the cat door.
Do you mind if I hijack the thread with a similar question, since there a bunch of outdoor friendly cat owners here?
I have 2 cats who, at the request of our previous landlord, were indoor cats. They have always displayed a certain longing for the outdoors, but aside from a few momentary escapes, have never been on their own outside.
They’re now a year old, and we live in a fairly quiet area with a gigantic yard. I think they would really enjoy being able to roam around a little and explore, but I’m not sure how well they’ll adapt to it now that they’re a year old and have only known indoor life. My biggest worry is that they’ll get hit by a car or attacked by a dog, or get hopelessly lost.
Does anyone have any experience in letting indoor cats become outdoor cats? My suspicion is that they won’t venture very far, as they’re extraordinarily clingy, but I’m not entirely sure. This was supported today by Tessa venturing outside by escaping through the bathroom window. She suddenly appeared on the outer sill of my office window, prompting me to run to the door. She came tearing into the house as if she’d made the biggest mistake of her life (hey, it’s a big scary world out there) so she seems to display enough interest in returning home at least.
It would make life so much easier for all of us if I could just fling open the door and let the animals walk in and out as they please. I just don’t know if doing it at such a “late” age is a good idea.
But our last trio of indoor-outdoor cats lived to each be 13-14. We live out in the woods, so they were only allowed outdoors in the daytime (traffic isn’t such a problem but sadly, when we first moved here we had a cat escape out at night and it was killed by a fishercat. so were a few of the neighbors’) for just a couple of hours a day because one of them would wander to the neighbor’s yard if we left her out longer. Besides things coming into the house, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable allowing the cats to be the ones to decide when it’s the right time of day or right weather conditions for outdoors-ing.