We tried to tell you!
I know I know. I’m becoming Pussy Whipped.
:eek: I didn’t just say that :smack:
Dont feel bad- we started with lots of rules, and gradually ended up with just a few we try to enforce. Spike is spoiled rotten, and out friendd and family think it is the funniest thing ever, as we are the last people you would expect.
Thankfully no allergies here.
Our bathroom remodel started today (3 days early due to the rain), and we told them there are only 2 rules: 1. Do not let the cat out. 2. DO NOT LET THE CAT OUT!
Not that we obsess much. . .
The only thing that keeps our Emily from sleeping on my mom’s husband’s face is his cpap machine. Maybe you ought to get one of those?
Don’t let the cat out!! BUWHAHAHAHAAA!!
I accidentally let my sister-in-law’s cat out once. She didn’t speak to me for a year. I kid you not. She was out in the yard krinckling the packaging the deli-cheese comes in for an hour trying to get the poor cat to come back. (he usually comes running when she opens the deli-cheese thing…conditioning :rolleyes: )
He finally meandered back in… But I got the whole schpeil. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU THINKING??? I ASK ONE THING WHEN YOU COME OVER!! DON’T LEAVE THE FUCKING DOOR OPEN !!!”
Geez! I said…And no one came ot my rescue either…Is it that bad to let your cat out?
There are three controversies in cat rearing:
-
Claws: most people disapprove of declawing. I do.
-
Spay/Neuter: for a pet, you must spay or neuter.
-
Indoor/outdoor. This one is the only real big divide.
Now, I will say right away that our cat is an “outdoor” cat - i.e., gets let out once in awhile. Not everyone approves, as outdoor cats have a much higher chance of being injured or killed, or catching a disease. However, they love going out, and in my experience an outdoor cat is much happier and saner than an indoor cat. A happy life, but a risky one. Fortunately, I live on a dead-end street without much traffic, and my kitty is a female who doesn’t roam.
Now, there are some who say that indoor cats can be just as happy as outdoor. This may be true for some individuals, but with this caveat: once a cat has tasted the outdoor life, it is difficult for him or her to be happy with an indoor life. Thus, if the choice is made to have an “indoor” cat, the cat can never be let out - not even a few times. Otherwise, the little dear gets very unhappy at being imprisoned, which leads to bad behaviour.
This is one possible reason owners of indoor cats are really unhappy when people let their cats out.
Uh well yes it’s that bad.
See, indoor cats don’t understand things like traffic. Or large mean dogs or even other feral cats.
And indoor kitties can pick up nasty fleas, which can carry icky diseases.
And if they are not current on their feline leukemia vacinations, they can catch that too. It’s not a good thing for kitties to get that.
I bet in a month, you’ll be blanching at the thought of letting your Precious outside in the harsh, evil world.
It is admittedly risky. But in my opinion, the risk is often worth it, as indoor cats often have strange behaviours, caused by their lack of interaction with the outside world and other cats.
But yes, if the choice has been made to have an “indoor” cat, it can’t ever be let out.
O don’t worry there. we are having enough rain here that I doubt any cat would want to be outside. And we already decided she’s going to be an indoor kitty…
Are women Manic about cats? Don’t curse the monitor yet…I’m just kidding, but seriously. My wife has never spent a night alone. Of course she has but you know what I mean… And last night she slept with kitty. Isn’t this inherently bad? I mean what happens when kitty gorws up and mommy comes to bed?
Oh and big news!! Thanks to Bosda and some coaxing our new family member’s name is MinMei minny for short. It means bright and Beautiful or something along those lines. Bosda has a thread about it in GQ.
And as I just started a thread in MPSIMS about GOD declaring us New Englander’s can’t have a summer, and I mentioned MinMei in that thread. I thought I had better tell the people here who really care… Thanks for all the advice and stories. Keep it coming! 
One of my friends stayed over last night after the concert (see MPSIMS) and my cat slept on his until he rolled over and then on the back of his legs. When my cat and I woke up in the morning he stared at my friend (who sleeps with a CPAP) for a few minutes at a time, would circle me (I was sitting up in bed), and then go back to staring. He eventually went over to said friend and put his paw on the nose mask of the CPAP. It was too cute.
I am allergic to cats too (among my many allergies) but I find that they aren’t that bad. I wake up with a slightly stuffy nose because of him but it is significantly less than walking through the perfume department (AGONY!) of the local department stores.
Don’t fool yourself - weather won’t stop an outdoor cat! I live in Toronto, and my cat wants out all winter, except in the worst blizzards. 
She has a territory to patrol!
That cat’s gonna be using you as a pillow before the month is out. I’d bet money on it. Will your cat-crazy wife be able to tolerate the little dear meowing outside the door all night?
I think you know the answer to that already, don’t you?
Wow, Minmei sure is cute. But I wouldn’t worry about Mommy sleeping with her as a kitten, though. Adult cats live in their own worlds…I doubt she will be dependent on sleeping with her.
I, too, am struggling with the whole indoor/outdoor cat problem. I’m also wondering about cat intelligence and the ability to learn new things.
We have two fifteen year-old outdoor cats. They started out as apartment cats in California before we moved east. The house we moved into already had a cat door. It took me months to teach them how to use it. They would meow to get out and I would push them through the door. Then they would meow to get in and I’d have to do the same from the outside. This literally took months before they caught on.
So now we have a 2 year-old kitty, the sweetest cat I’ve ever had. And we really don’t want him to go out. Of course, he really wants to go chase birds etc. The funny thing is, he watches the other cats go in and out the cat door every single day. Yet he never tries to do it himself.
Have any of you ever had a cat that figured this out on his own?
Cats vary widely in their ability to figure stuff out.
Our previous cat, Tabitha, was super-smart in this respect: she figured out how to climb up onto the overhang over the front door (I live in a duplex, on the second floor) and in through the window there, all on her own. She could figure out how to get in anywhere, climb anything climbable - she figured out how to open doors with latch-type doorhandles, by jumping & hanging off of them.
She also solved the annoying “batting small toys under furniture” problem, which besets all cats - one day, we discovered that she had gathered up her small toys and stuffed them in a hole in a sheer curtain hem - where she could bat at them to her heart’s content, and they would never dissappear under the fridge or sofa.
Tabitha would have been out that cat door in about two seconds.
Our current cat, Miette, is cute as a button, but in no way as clever.
“Who let the cat out?” Meow, meow meow meow. Who let the cat out?
As you will soon learn, it is that bad. At least if you want to see your cat again. Soon you will become very attached to said cat and realize that if said cat gets outside it may be next to impossible to catch it, unless the cat wants to be caught. Plus we are on a nice corner lot- so two roads to worry about. Add in Coyotes, neighboor’s dog’s not on leashes, plenty of birds to chase, and there is a real worry we might not see the cat again. Given the amount I have dropped on Vet bills I need to keep the cat for a few more year to help amortize the costs.
Free cat indeed. . .
On the claw thing, definitely get a cat nail trimmer and start and a young age. We do it by one person cradling the cat upside down, like a baby, while the other person trims the nails. Your vet can show you how. You may want to have him/her do it the first time while you watch.
BTW- the cat used to sleep in our bed for a while, until he got bigger. Now he sleeping in his bed right next to ours- I guess we move too much.
As to Malthus “big 3”:
-
Don’t. Bad idea- turns them into biters- at best.
-
Yep. You vet will tell when it is safe. We paid extra for the laser surgery (laugh it up- you try to deny that cute fuzz ball of yours and you will see). The recovery time and wound recovery was much faster and we didn’t have to put goop on the site of the surgery.
-
Indoor. I grew up with outdoor cats, but given the location (and the high rate of cat attrition in retrospect) and all my research, indoor is the way to go.
The kitty fountain sounds neat- but our cat trained us to fill a sink for him. He also likes the toilet (just a little dog in him)- so the lids have to stay down. The cat has no fear of water- he must not have got the memo.
Interestingly, my sister’s cat will not drink out of her bowl. Instead sis has to put the fosset in her bathroom on dribble, and let the cat go in there and drink it like that…
Mine likes to lick the water in the shower after I’m done taking a shower.
You simply cannot catch a cat outside. They are faster than you. Or at least, most are.
However, they will come back, particularly when hungry. Our cats are female, which tend to stick closer to home and not roam. I have never worried about them running away.
Heavily travelled roads are a definite cat killer.
The upside is, the outdoor cat tends to be happier and less prone to mental problems.
The indoor/outdoor thing is definitely a dilemma, and while it varies from owner to owner, it also depends on the cat.
When we got our kitten, we were determined that he would be an indoor cat, because we knew all about (1) longer lifespan, (2) lower incidence of disease, (3) risk of horrible accidents, (4) killing birds, and all the other arguments. He, of course, had other ideas, which meant every time we came into the house we would crack the door and immediately block it with a bag or leg or something because he knew he was scrambling to get out.
We put up with this for a while, but when he figured out how to get the kitchen window open on his own, we gave up. We weren’t happy, but there was absolutely no way this cat was going to accept an inside role. If we’d wired the windows shut, he probably would have chewed through a wall. We’re resigned to the downsides now, but he’s a lot happier.
YCMV.
About the mental problems part, I have seen plenty of nutso outdoors cats too. Many get obssessed with hunting or defending “their” territory, or become less then social. There are as many issues with outdoor cats as indoor cats. The worse is the “inbetween cats” better to be one-way or another. I think it all depends on the cat.
While it is possible to catch a cat outside, at times it seema like chasing the “golden snitch”. Hence the golden rule for vistors and guests- don’t let the cat out.