Rather than hijack this thread, I’ve started this one here. Let me once again say that I am in no way blaming An Arky for her cat going missing.
Like I said in the other thread, cats as indoor-only pets is not simply a politically correct just-for-show type issue. Cats that are allowed outdoors do not live as long as indoor cats. They are stolen, they get lost, they are injured in fights, they are run over by cars, they are hurt by people and other animals, they pick up diseases, they damage other people’s property, they irritate other animals that are being kept indoors, if they’re not neutered they breed, and where I live, keeping cats indoors is the law.
There were a couple of questions I’d like to address from that thread. Yes, keeping your cat indoors is the law in Calgary. Yes, keeping a cat indoors is much more common in North America than abroad. Yes, it is natural for cats to go outside, and yes, they do kill mice, etc, but living in a city like I do, we simply can’t have hundreds of thousands of cats roaming the 'burbs. If a cat is kept indoors from kittenhood, they do not miss the outdoors. They often won’t even go outdoors if allowed. Is it wrong to keep a cat indoors from kittenhood? I don’t think so. My cats are probably going to live longer, healthier lives as a result of being kept indoors, my neighbours won’t have any complaints about my cats digging and scratching, and the local birds won’t have another predator.
No offense, but this is a perennial thread, and like any other essentially “religious” issue, isn’t going to accomplish anything except irritating people. (By “religious”, I mean that people have hard and fast beliefs on the subject, there’s no one right answer, and you’re not likely to convert anyone by arguing.)
My own opinion is that the * cat * will be happier outdoors, but the owner will be happier with the cat indoors. My own solution has been to put a cat outside on a lead which is a compromise that’s not totally satisfactory to either, but at least lets the cat lie in the sun, sniff the air and glare at the wildlife.
You are probably right. Some day I will be faced with this decision.
It’s not illegal here in Denver to let your cat out.
We live in the heart of the city.
I had a huge neutered Russian Blue mix who lived 17 years as a part-time outside cat.
I still have a spayed calico who is almost 19 and really doesn’t go out much anymore, except for the patio right outside our bedroom on sunny days.
Both were excellent mousers, unfortunately my calico has retired from mousing. They did get a few birds but mice were more their specialty.
Both were out in the day on an as-wanted basis, and slept with us at night.
While our next-door neighbors on either side of us liked our kitties, I am sure our felines must have pooped here and there and done other annoying things.
They never got any diseases, though.
My neighbor down the street still has her cat (19) who was allowed outside, but also has a younger cat who stays in.
The younger cat is disgustingly, dangerously overweight, and also has litterbox issues. I doubt that he will live as long as his housemate.
While I realize this is not an example of the average indoor cat, it still haunts me as I consider indoor vs outdoor.
Bra-freakin’-vo! We have a stray who lives 95% of the time in my laundry room and 5% out, but the rest of my cats are 100% insiders. The pain is too much to bear when your pet gets whacked because you let it go out.
Our cats were strays and we live out in the sticks in a country with no terrifying predators. They’d probably go mad if kept inside all day, though they do spend most of the day sleeping on various people’s beds. Cats should be neutered anyway, indoor or out.
There are always exceptions, of course, on both sides. But it is a fact that the typical life span of an outdoor cat is about 5 years. Indoor cats? Triple that.
If one is concerned about the welfare of an indoor only cat, there are plenty of ways to enrich their environment so they aren’t “punished” (I don’t think they are at all, but I realise some people do) by being kept indoors. Vertical access, access to cat grass, open windows + window seats, bird feeders, going through the “hunt” sequence when playing with your cat.
It just bothers me when people have a blase attitude about their animal’s welfare. For example, in the thread the OP linked to, Crafter Man states that where he lives cats don’t usually make it past 5 because of coyotes. I just can’t imagine being that casual about your pet’s welfare* that you can just dismiss the risk with a ‘well, at least they had fun being outside… until that coyote of course.’
Cats can have perfectly enjoyable and completely fulfilling lives as indoor cats.
Well mine is a purely indoor cat but if it were practical, I’d be happier to allow her outdoors if she wanted. (Although she diid not seem to have been faring terrifically well outdors when I first adopted/kitnapped her.)
I’ve had cats fall into fish tanks (survived but we were home), get under a car wheel (hello, garage), down a sewer drain (nose poking where it shouldn’t be), die during birth, get trapped inside all manner of household appliances, and eat all kinds of foods and poisons.
The only very non-indoor problems were one barbed wire fence incident and one car vs cat (cat won).
I could probably live to be 112 in a nursing home. Doesn’t mean I want to be there.
They are wild creatures we are semi coopting and crippling by bringing them into our homes and lives. They keep the mice down, we keep them in fresh litter and some scratch. There is room for both ways of living. Cat-friendly fences are a good thing, so are leashes.
Spaying and Neutering are also good. But some cats aren’t all happy indoors, some cats aren’t all happy out. There is no one best way to keep companionship with a furball.
Who knows if that was the first cyote the cat met. Maybe he should have known better. It’s what happens, just like the two SOBs who coulda killed me because I was wandering out doors off a leash a few weeks ago.
My personal preference is to keep cats indoors, but that’s just me.
My daughter insisted on letting Oscar be an outside cat. She said he was happier outside, he hated being inside, meowed and yowled, etc. (I think she just didn’t want to deal with a litter box.)
When she moved to a new place, she had to keep him inside for several days because he kept roaming back to the other house. He howled for awhile, but now he doesn’t want to go outside at all.
He’s adjusted to being indoors, and I’m glad. She spent over $1,000 on vet bills over the years, and it never made sense to me to let him roam around and encounter stray cats, dogs, cars, etc.
I used to let my cats be outside, but we found one of them dead in the street (no blood, no marks, we don’t know what happened), and they’ve been inside since then.
How do places with indoor-only laws for cats deal with barn/farm cats? Are those banned too? The barn where I board my horse has 3 regular barn cats and one more that comes around from time to time (like once a week on average) for meals. They’re all ex-feral cats who came into the warm barn one night and stayed because they get fed. What would the law say about those cats? I doubt they’d be candidates for adoption. They were all fully grown adults before they got regular human contact. Even now they’ve become friendly but not exactly tame. Catching the one who only comes by from time to time can be an adventure! (They get taken to the vet once a year for vaccinations and check ups. A trip that usually involves long thick gloves! They’re also all neutered or spayed.)
My cat was indoor only. However, it was entirely for practical reasons. When I got her, I lived on the 6th floor of an apartment building. I doubt my cat could have figured out how to open the security door and work the elevator to come back at night! Even as a former stray, she seemed mostly okay being indoors. She did try to escape whenever I’d open the front door, but that was all she did. She didn’t cry at the door or windows or anything. When I moved to my house, she did manage to get out occassionally. She’d always come back, but often with something she’d killed. Besides my concern about traffic, I really didn’t want her killing things. It’s not like I had a pest problem. She was killing things (mostly birds) I’d prefer her to have left alive.
My friends who live further out of town do have problems with mice and annoying starlings in their barns (and they don’t have heavy traffic), so their cats go out. The cats all seem to be healthy and happy. I don’t know how old they are, but it’s definitly older than 5!
Your cat is a free, living the wild life kinda animal. In all fairness to this wild and free livin’ lifestyle, when it comes in my yard and digs up, and craps in my garden, can I kill it? Wild and free is, after all, wild and free.
I personally don’t care for anyone who lets their animals roam outside in sub-urban neighborhoods. Not only is it unhealthy for the animal, but it causes issues for other people.
When we moved into our new house, I was overwhelmed by the smell of cat shit in the backyard (the previous owner did not have a cat.) I went to Animal Control and picked up a (humane) trap. 7 different nights caught 7 different cats. Half of them had tags. I turned them all in to animal control.
Sorry, but no one’s pet needs to be another person’s problem. This caused an issue with some of my neighbors, but I made it clear if their animal was in my yard it risked being trapped and brought to Animal Control.
Since I’ve been so kind as to provide cites for my statement, I would like cites from you that show that having an indoor only cat is “crippling” to them.
Would you say the same about a small dog (or even cat) that was eaten by a coyote in his own backyard? That it was the dog’s own fault and he should have known better? It happens around here, which is why it’s recommened that you don’t let you dog out unsupervised. A domestic animal should not have to worry about wild predators - they shouldn’t have to worry about pedators at all - hence them being DOMESTICATED. Why even bother having a PET if you aren’t going to make an effort to keep it safe? If you don’t give a damn if it gets eaten by coyotes, or carreid off by hawks (also happens around here - a leash wouldn’t help with that much).
We’ve got over a dozen cats, all neutered, all rescues, all receiving regular vet care and regular expensive parasite treatment.
They all go in and out as they please, through a cat-door with a magnetically sealing flap.
But outdoors in this case means a fenced in area. The fence is 6’ stockade with 6" plastic tubing over the top, so their tiny paws slip off when they try to climb out.
The area includes a deck, 2 fountains, 2 gardens, a pole barn, 3500 ft^2 of grass, and woods. It totals 3/4 acre.
Our cats never have the problems people describe above. So it is possible to have the best of both worlds. But it was quite a lot of work.
You made an incorrect assumption, Mauvaise: our cats are not pets; they’re tools. They have a job to do – kill mice. And despite the fact that they don’t get any lovey-dubby affection from us, they appear to be very content and happy living outdoors. Even when it’s 5 °F outside (such as today).
And when a coyote eats one of them for a snack, it’s no big deal. We just get another one.
Why don’t we let them in the house? Two reasons: 1) If they’re in the house, it means they’re not outside killing rodents, and 2) Cats make a house smell bad. When I walk into someone’s home my nose can instantly tell if they have cats. :eek:
Of course they don’t - they aren’t being allowed to roam free, beyond the limits of your personal property. They aren’t exposed to stray cats with FIV and FELV, cars, people that like to abuse animals for fun, wild animals, etc.
I’m not trying to state that cats should never ever, no matter what, go outside - I would feel very comfortable letting my cat outside in a situation as you described. And I’m harness training him as well so if I ever have a house with a backyard, he’ll be allowed out under my supervision. Your set-up sounds wonderful! I would definitely do something like that if I could (make a backyard completely secure).
I’m just saying that if you allow your cats to free-roam (at least here in the States, maybe things are different in other countries), on average, you are lowering that animal’s life span. Not to mention having a negative impact on the natural wildlife for the area (ie. birds.).
Both my cats are indoors-only cats. They’re both shelter cats, and usually freak out if given the option to go outside. The little one can’t find her way home (the one time she got out, she sat on someone else’s doorstep, howling to be let in, but when a stranger opened the door she ran away and hid until I found her - she was only one floor above me), and the older one has no interest in being outside. The little one was pretty severely abused before I adopted her, so I think she might have some learning problems - as in, the doctor surmised that she had been kicked in a head a bit, so she has few survival instincts and would never be able to fend for herself. When she’s inside, she’s healthy and happy, but outside, she’d probably get killed or die relatively quickly. I think the older one might do alright, but not where we live. I live in the city, and though we do have some outdoors cats around, they rarely last more than a few months outside. It really sucks.
