Isn’t there such a thing as responsible indoor/outdoor cat ownership?
I can understand the facts that feral cats greatly reduce sparrow populations etc etc.
But the fact of the matter is: my Charlie-cat goes outside perhaps 45 minutes a day. He loves it. He does his rounds around the backyard, then he sits on the porch for awhile. Occasionally, he’ll bring me back a rabbit or a chipmunk. He’s fully immunized and neutered. Today he provided me with some very agreeable company while I raked the leaves. He makes these cute little “caves” in the leaf piles.
He would be miserable to never be let outside. There’s gotta be a happy medium, right?
There comes a point where this blind reliance on cites, authorities, and studies turns stupid. And you guys have reached it on this thread.
My fiancee’s family and mine have had several cats each. Never has any of them been an indoors-only cat, and the majority have spent nearly 2/3 of their lives outside. Only one that I know of has ever lived less than 10 years, and that’s because her father threw it against the wall for licking milk from her face as a newborn.
Scylla, do you need an authoritative study from the NOAA to tell you that the sky is blue? Do you need a cite to tell you that you shouldn’t touch a hot stove?
Sometimes simple observation is enough, and I frankly don’t give a shit what the humane society or the veterinary association say. The claim that outdoor free-roaming cats only live 3 to 5 years is asinine.
Just go back to a not-so-original precept that the only good “kitty” is a dead one. If you can’t take care of an animal and make darned sure its “footprint” on others is minimal…well, you shouldn’t own such a satanic beast. Poor bird.
(16 lbs., huh? That is NOT a house “kitty”…see if a local zoo needs snacks for its lion house.)
Agreed. I don’t care if you own a cat, a dog, or a giraffe, just keep it off of my goddamn property. People who let their pets run wild on other people’s yards have no consideration at all for others…how would they like it if I came over and took a shit and killed some animals in their yard?
My grandmother smoked until she was into her nineties, when she died of unrelated natural causes. I have known plenty of old people who smoked all their lives and never had problems. By your logic, “Joe_Cool”, should I therefore go around encouraging kids to smoke, since I have seen firsthand that smoking has no ill effects?
Then I guess there’s no need to even have science from now on… whenever people want to know something they can just ask Joe_Cool! His “simple observation” is obviously more reliable than any studies by experts. :rolleyes: