Is it ethical to keep a cat?

Great Debates
1

It seems to me that the natural inclination of a cat is to explore and to be wild and free. Whereas dogs, even in the wild, live in packs and take shelter in caves (which makes them ideally suited to being kept in houses as pets,) cats are solitary and independent, scavenging and hunting for food alone. It seems like house cats are not really all that different from wild lions and cougars, in terms of instincts, and the only reason why they don’t attack their owners and try to kill them is that they’re not big enough or we’re not small enough. They move in the same way, hunt in the same way, and generally behave in the same way as wildcats. We buy toys and furniture that attempt to replicate the cat’s natural habitat and natural prey animals, but is the cat really enjoying this as much as he would enjoy being wild and chasing mice in alleys, or hunting for birds in the woods?

Is it more fun to whack off or or to make love to a woman? Is it more fun to pedal a stationary bike or ride a real bike? Is it more fun to drink Postum or drink espresso?

See what I’m getting at here? A cat has certain natural desires, and being kept in someone’s house is preventing it from fully realizing those desires. I can’t help but think that my cat must be bored as hell, even though it has fake mice and catnip to play with and a scratching post (which it never even uses).

Whenever I open my front door, it tries to run out. Clearly it doesn’t want to be living with me, it wants to be outside. When I first found my cat, he was running around in the street. I stopped my car and ran out and grabbed him so he wouldn’t be hit by a car. Ever since, he has been my pet. But I think he misses the outdoors and I think deep down in his heart, he would rather be wild and free, to do as he pleases, even though this carries the risk of being killed in a traffic accident. He’s obviously not aware of how dangerous the outside world is; his instinct is telling him that the outside world is a jungle and that he is the king. He has basically the same instinct that a cat 20,000 years ago had, long before civilization even existed.

I can’t let him go free, for his own sake (and because I like having him as a pet.) But, unlike a dog who loves his owner and will jump and bark with joy each time you come home and open the door, the cat does not view me as his master. He just views me as someone who’s sharing a space with him. I don’t think he is loyal to me.

So, given this, are we doing an unethical thing by keeping cats in our houses? Are we basically subjecting them to an imprisonment in an unnatural environment?

2

No. Animals in the wild scrabble and fight for water, shelter and food. Your cat gets all that plus medical care plus companionship. I dunno about your cat but mine has a love-hate relationship with the outside world. Open a window and she’s pressed against the screen watching the birds and leaves with rapt attention. Open the screen and she’s as close to the line as possible without actually going outside. She loves the idea of it, but not the reality.

Edit: My cat loves me. She yowls in the middle of the night until someone reassures her that we’re all still here. When we go away on weekends and come back, if you press your ear against the door you can hear her mewing pitifully on the other side waiting for our return. She visits me for head scritches and pettings at night and sleeps curled up on my bed. The girl loves us.

3

It’s not unethical to keep a cat. You’re right that your cat isn’t particularly “loyal” to you. They’re solitary animals, not pack hunters like dogs, so they don’t naturally have that kind of instinct to obey you and want to please you that a dog does.

You’re also right that wildcats and feral cats have a larger range in the wild than your cat has in your house. A large part of that, though, is because cats, because they are solitary hunters and can’t bring down big game, need a large hunting range. Assuming you’re feeding your cat sufficiently, he doesn’t need to roam that much.

And, remember, cats sleep about 16 hours a day anyway. I don’t think you’re boring him.

4

Besides what else has been said, cats being animals don’t have the same understanding of the future, the same level of judgement as humans. They want/don’t want all sorts of things that they aren’t capable of understanding why they are wrong to do so. And since we HAVE taken them in and raised them in many cases, we have a certain obligation to look out for them.

I’d also add that housecats have adapted to humans and are somewhat dependent upon them. They don’t have quite the same capability to look out for themselves as a wild animal does ( and even they aren’t so hot at it ).

5

Cats want a small territory, and food, sex, warmth and companionship.

Your home provides all that but the sex. (and if they are fixed, they don’t want that so much anymore)

Yes, a street cat does want to go back outside- but given free choice he’d come right back to you- assuming he didn;t get run over or killed or lost or whatever.

You’re doing the ethical thing, he’d be far more miserable (or dead) outside.

6

Not all cats make a break for the door every time it’s opened. Some of them seem quite content to lounge around in the heat and/or air conditioning with the never failing supplies of food and water.

I think it’s perfectly possible that different cats tolerate being indoor-only better than others. There are completely feral cats who would probably go absolutely apeshit if you tried to lock them up inside a house (after catching them, presumably with a trap or a tranquilizer dart); and there are housecats who, if you put them outside to “go play”, would probably just sit at the door and meow piteously to be let back in.

7

Some cats in the wild are solitary and independent but not all of them are. Otherwise how do we get a pride of lions or a clowder of cats? Even domestic house cats can have social lives with a hierarchy as demonstrated by the cats of the Hemingway House.

A cat is a domesticated animal. What is it’s natural habitat?

Your premise is faulty. Cats aren’t independent and solitary. The house cats I’ve had in the past like to socialize with me, the neighbor’s cat across the street comes over to my house (no joke) and knocks on the window to get my dog to come out and play, and even when cats go outside they sometimes socialize with one another.

Odesio

8

I’m no expert on cats, but it seems to me that as soon as cats are allowed to live and breed in the wild, they immediately revert to a feral state and behave in an utterly primitive way, totally unfit to be pets if caught. Only cats which are born and raised in captivity are really “domesticated.”

9

Which proves what, exactly? Dogs can become feral as well.

10

I’m saying that cats are only “domesticated” in that it is possible to raise them, in captivity, to behave inside a home. But when born in the wild, they are completely wild.

11

I’m probably going to catch hell for this, but I let the cat out sometimes, sometimes she manages to get out. She’s brought us two shrews and a mouse so far. Good kitty! :smiley:

12

But as Odesio pointed out, isn’t that pretty true of all “domesticated” animals? It’s not like you can just go out and invite a member of your proverbial “pack of wild dogs” into your home and expect him to act like Fido. At most, a truly feral dog or cat can be “tamed”, just like a wolf or a leopard.

13

A cat is the only animal I don’t feel guilty about having as a pet - because she’s free to do as she pleases. We have a catflap, and in the summer, there’s always a door open to the outside, so she’s free to come and go as she pleases - and she does. She was more detached from us when she was younger (she’s 14), but now she likes to keep us in sight - to the extent that when I go out on foot or in my car, she’ll follow me to the end of the road, and wait for me to return, when she will follow me back. I’m impressed that she either recognises me in the car, or recognises the car as mine.

As I’m aware that if she finds a better deal elsewhere, she’s perfectly capable of taking it, so I make sure that I look after her, and show her as much affection, as well as I would any other member of the household.

14

OK, so we can all agree on a definition of “domestication” which basically means “suppressing the animal’s natural instinct.” This is the point I’m trying to make - that you can’t really call a cat domestic by nature, because it is not, by nature, supposed to live in a house; it is supposed to live in the field. So, scientifically speaking, if the cat is conditioned from birth to accept the confines of a house, I assume it would not want to live outdoors given the chance - however, born and raised in the wild, it would miss its old surroundings and wish to be wild again if it were taken in as a pet?

15

This is not true. There are cats at our shelter (and two living in my house) who were feral but were caught and tamed. They are not “completely wild” and unable to be domesticated if they are feral. They are still domesticated animals who have gone native. Most of them can learn to be house pets given time.

“Domestication” means “bred to live with people.” Their natural instinct IS to be around us, which is why feral cats can easily be tamed. We’ve bred them this way over centuries/millenia.

No, it’s not. That’s what “domesticated” means. The cat’s scientific name is Felis domestica, for god’s sake. They can live in the fields, but it shortens their lives dramatically. That doesn’t mean it’s their “natural” state. It’s not, anymore.

We are not reinventing the wheel every time a kitten is born and we “tame” him. They have been bred to be domesticated, just like cows, chickens, and other domesticated animals. Part of why we domesticated them is that they have the instinct to hunt rodents and vermin, but that doesn’t make them wild. Sure, they want to go outside, because they have retained the instinct to hunt, but they do not need to, and I don’t believe their well-being is compromised by a life indoors. They adapt very well to it. I say this as someone who has two rescued ferals as pets, and has taken several unneutered male cats off the streets and made them house pets.

My cat Thomas was a completely outdoor stray when I took him in. He had a wide-ranging territory and defended it bodily, and I saw in numerous locations in the area away eating out of garbage cans before I took him in because he was gravely ill. Even when he would sit outside in the front yard with me, he would never go out of my sight, and would sit patiently by the front door to be let back in. He was not pining away for his previous life. This is true of all of my rescue cats: they seem relieved that they don’t have to life the life anymore, and can partake of the luxuries of home. The cats that seem to want to go out the most are the ones who never really have, or did recreationally, but never really needed to hunt and scrounge to survive. But that’s cats for you-- they are contrarians by nature.

16

This might sound totally idiotic but can I get a little leash for my cat and walk him outside?

17

You can train a cat to wear a leash, but it’s much easier if you start them as a kitten.

18

Argent Towers wrote: …Whenever I open my front door, it tries to run out. Clearly it doesn’t want to be living with me, it wants to be outside. When I first found my cat, he was running around in the street. I stopped my car and ran out and grabbed him so he wouldn’t be hit by a car. Ever since, he has been my pet…
Maybe he lust wants to go home. Could be that’s where he was headed when you grabbed him, and he’s just trying to get out of your house so he can get back where he really wants to be. There may be a sad family somewhere just waiting for their beloved Fluffy to come home, hoping against hope that he hasn’t been killed by car or cur.

19

I doubt it. I called the animal shelter, checked the classifieds in the paper, Craigslist, and looked around the area for missing cat posters. I didn’t want to accidentally take someone’s pet and keep it, so I tried to see if it had an owner, but I don’t think it does. It’s most likely the offspring of one of the many cats that the college students here get and then let go after they get tired of taking care of it, or if they have to move or whatever. It’s a very green town here so it’s not like they’re throwing the cats right out onto a concrete jungle, but inevitably they make their way into the alleys and streets. The animal shelter is constantly overflowing with strays and there are always posters up urging people to adopt kittens and puppies.

20

We have a harness for the cat that likes to be outside. The other four are content to look out the window. This includes two former strays, who are the most loathe to even go to the screen door. They’ve had both worlds – warm, cozy, safe, and cold, treacherous, scary – and they clearly prefer the former.

Cats have been bred into an indoor lifestyle, just like dogs. That’s called being “domesticated.”

Cats also do development attachments to people and one another. It’s a wild exaggeration (generally comic) that they don’t give two figs for their people. Many cats are aloof, some of ours are, but we’ve got books by animal behaviorists that do talk about how cat territoriality and independence are one side of their nature, they also have familial attachments. One of my cats is always in the room with me, trying to get into my lap, and “acts out” when I’m gone (he’s got much more attachment than the others). Two of our cats are blood relatives (mother/daughter) and are quite close, but all of the cats groom one another and play. Feral cats form colonies when there are enough of them in one place, sharing food with one another, protecting one another, etc.