Oh, I’ve been looking for an outdoor/indoor cat thread.
I have two cats. One is an outdoor/indoor cat. I’m pretty sure he would tear his way through the screen to get outside, although he is otherwise mellow. One is indoor only, and she is psychotic.
I don’t know whether she is batshit crazy because she stays indoors. I do know that on a couple of occasions she did get out, and she stepped in the grass as if it was something vile. Nor she she like the texture of the patio. She somehow got onto the roof, and then couldn’t get off. She doesn’t actually seem to want to go out, which is good. (She got out because the other one can work the screen door, but cannot be persuaded to close it behind him.)
Mostly the other cat stays indoors, too, and they do keep each other company (although Miss Batshit Crazy occasionally attacks violently. Mr Mellow is younger and he does like to play, and once Miss B.C. has attacked him he usually feels righteous in attacking her back, all in play of course–and she takes him apart. The fur flies, and I mean that literally. Of course eventually it falls back down on the carpet and has to be vacuumed.)
That said, you can buy the cat a bed, but the cat will probably find some other place to sleep. Mine like the wooden in-box on my desk (and Miss B.C. will knock papers or anything else that happens to be in it, out of it, so she can have it). They also took over a box I was filling up with old Halloween costumes–it is a preferred place for both of them and it is fun to watch one of them feign interest in something on the other side of the room to get the other one out of said box so the first one can steal it.
They do have toys. They tend to appropriate things that are not really toys. He likes to get socks out of the clothes hamper, for instance. She likes ping-pong balls. Kneaded erasers are also popular. The official cat toys have pretty much been washouts. However, they both like play mice made out of feathers–these don’t last very long–and things that catnip can be put into.
They are both crazy about catnip. Miss B.C. likes to eat house plants, then throw up. You can get trays with grass, and supposedly indoor cats like this, but as I’ve mentioned she doesn’t like grass (and, since I bought the cat carpet just for her, naturally she wasn’t interested). He liked it for a couple of days, then it was old hat.
Miss Batshit Crazy was a single indoor cat for a long time. She was nutzo even then–actually a little less so now, I think. Both cats were strays we adopted. (One of my sons is a cat magnet–every cat we’ve had in the last 20 years has walked up to him and more or less jumped into his arms, starting when he was 4 years old. What I mean to say is, that’s how we acquired them–they sought him out.)
It is probably best to acquire an already-indoor cat. Mr. Mellow is supposed to be an indoor cat but he’s very quick and, as I mentioned, he can work the screen. I don’t think he’s going to make it as an indoor cat. We do try very hard not to let him out as dark approaches, although unlike many other cats I have known, he comes when called. Miss B.C., also a stray, was obviously an outdoor cat at one time. The thing is, both of these cats are excellent cats that used to belong to somebody else . . . who let them out.