Wow, I thought the only people that kept cats indoors were those who lived on the 16th floor of a tower block or something. I’m amazed.
(Re the fox “threat”, my parents were amused recently to see a fox running scared across the back garden, hotly pursued by their small female cat 
)
The domestic cat is a pedomorphic adaptation of the wildcat (Felis silvestris, typically assumed to be a subsubspecies of the African Wild Cat, but in fact it’s difficult to distinguish which subspecies it derived from; more likely it has intermixed with various subspecies of F. silvestrix.) Anyway, taxonomic lesson aside, the domestic cat is adapated to living around and with humans, which was an evolutionary “choice” that has manifestly benefitted the species. While cats retain predatory behavior in their “play” and can make effective predators (sometimes too effective), they don’t need to hunt, and typically don’t eat their kill. This is fine for a barn cat or factory cat kept around to reduce vermin, but not acceptible in a suburban environment where wildlife populations are at reduced levels and rarely threaten to do property damage or carry contagion that threaten livestock and poeple.
Keeping a cat indoors isn’t selfish and you need not feel guilty about it as long as you’ve provided adequate stimulation. Letting them out in an enclosed yard may allow them some additional space to explore, but if you’re letting them roam the neighborhood then you have to accept the consequences, including pissed off neighbors and injured or dead cats.
And yet, people do this all the time. Go figure.
Stranger
I really enjoy it when stray/loose cats come in my yard, shit, urinate, yowl and annoy my dogs and me, fight with each other and are otherwise a pain in the neck. I think everyone should allow their cats to just roam free! Out of sight is out of mind after all. I’m sure they’re no bother to anyone else!
PS- thanks for the muddy cat prints all over my truck this morning. The hood, the windsheild, and the top. I appreciate that a lot.
This is a fantastic link! I never thought of growing grass indoors or building a window perch for my very indoor little fluffballs. I bet they’ll love it!
Our most recent kitty rescue, Melvin, was very much an outdoor kitty when he started coming by our last apartment. He had a collar and I assumed he belonged to someone else in the neighborhood. That said, he was always very hungry when he came by and we always fed him because we’re suckers for a hungry cat.
Two months later we were ready to move and I was torn on whether or not to bring “Backyard Kitty” with us, since he did have a collar and could’ve potentially belonged to someone else.
Well, I came by to clean the apartment one afternoon after we’d moved and lo and behold, there is a quite thin Backyard Kitty with a giant seeping wound on his backside and he’s missing giant clumps of fur.
Fewer things are more revolting that draining more than an ounce of green goo from a giant abcess from a cat’s rear end, let me assure you. After draining his wound, cleaning him up as well as possible and starting him on a regimen of antibiotics, I decided to pack him up and move him out of the city with us.
I realize that I may have catnapped the poor thing, but I say better with us than neglected, sick or dead.
The issue was that now I had two (grudgingly) indoor kitties and one very outdoor kitty in an underdeveloped area of town that still sees alot of coyotes, snakes and other potentially deadly critters.
Keeping him inside was really hard for the first month or so. Melvin would push his face against the screen whenever we tried to open the door to leave and I was terrified that he’d bolt and we’d never see him again. But it’s been a few months now and he’s settled into his role as a fun, energetic indoor kitty.
Sure, he’d like to go outside, but the begging and the mwowring stopped after a period of time.
I didn’t mean for this to be so long-winded, but my point is that
A.) Outdoor kitties can learn to lead happy kitty lives inside of a house and
B.) Another potential hazard of leaving your cat out is that your nosy, cat-loving neighbor may take him away forever, mistaking him for a malnourished, wounded throw-away stray.
Also, per the board rule, here is a picture of a fully recovered, indoor Melvin.
It sounds more like Melvin’s people moved away and just didn’t take Melvin. Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about catnapping too much - as you say, responsible pet owners don’t let their pets wander around with seeping wounds.
The cat bylaws in Calgary are also very clear; not only are cats not allowed to roam freely, but they are supposed to be registered now, too. If you live in a culture where all cats roam freely, and you have a cat who craps and digs in other people’s flower beds and other cats come and crap and dig in your flower beds, good for you - that’s not our culture here. Our culture here is that one homeowner’s pets are expected to not bother other homeowners.
Another reason for not letting cats roam (at least here in Calgary) is that my law-abiding cats get bothered by other people’s rebels - a loose cat comes to the screen door here in summer and my indoor cats can hear and see it, and it drives them nuts in their own home, or my cat is out on her leash, and a stray roams by and my cat nearly chokes herself trying to run it off of her territory (and yes, I am always nearby when they’re on the leash - I’ve seen them get themselves tangled up in about a minute flat).
As a non-pet owner, I have no problem if you let your cat out, supervised, and clean up after it. I start having problems when your cat comes on to my property unsupervised and:
-Walks all over my car
-poops or pees in the yard where my kids play
-kills wildlife and leaves it for my kids to find
(I’d have problems if the cat did this while supervised, too, but at least I’d know where to go to complain).
Cats might be wildlife, but they are wildlife that someone is responsible for. I can trap the rabbits on my property and remove them, and I can poison the groundhogs, etc. The minute I do this to a cat, however, I invoke additional liability, so please, let’s keep our respective interests protected, and you keep your cat somewhere that isn’t on my property unless he’s invited.
As mentioned above, it is much, much safer for the cats to be kept indoors - and safer for me, too. I literally cry when I see a dead cat on the side of the road and it’s not safe to drive while crying.
In addition, roaming cats are well know for using tended soil for a litterbox. If a pregant woman has already been exposed to toxoplasmosis, it is no danger to her baby. If she doesn’t have cats and has never been exposed, digging in her own garden can put her child at risk if the neighborhood cats are using it for a litter box.
I spent quite a bit of money when we moved into this house to convert a double garage into a “cat suite” with carpeted shelves and even a 10 foot cedar tree for scratching. Neighborhood cats like to come and spray the garage door, which leaves me a mess to clean up. They also seem to like to pee in my Wrangler if I leave the top down or doors off, which irks me beyond the bounds of rational thought.
I have no problem with working cats in rural areas.
If you live in an urban or suburban area, keep your cats inside, please. You’ll be doing your cats and your neighbors a favor.
Is there any way to discourage an unwelcome cat?
We live in a rural area and there has been a presumably feral (no collar visible) cat in the yard every now and then for the last month.
I will have free range chickens and ducks in the yard in about a month and a half, and I am not about to have them killed by a feral cat.
I will shoot the cat if I have to. I will not attempt to “zing” it with a BB because I’d rather the cat be dead than wandering around with a septic wound. But If I can scare it off without killing it, that would be the ideal situation.
I’ve had cats that I kept indoors only. But, it was because they wanted to be. One had been a stray, and once inside, never wanted to venture out again. The other was just lazy. I had one cat that was outdoors only because he was so wild he would’ve had to been caged if kept indoors. He lived a long happy life and populated the whole neighborhood with gray cats. My current cat is an indoor breed, and spends 98% of his time indoors. We have a screened porch that leeds to a huge fenced yard, where he spends the rest of his time. Sometimes, he goes on an adventure by climbing the fence, walking around the side of the house, then going to the front door waiting to be let in.
You know, here in town and I suspect in many places, there is a leash law. It isn’t just for dogs. The first people to complain about dog crap on their lawn let their cats out all day to get hit in the road.
I’m going to need a cite for that. A quick google search lists several cites where cat predation kills millions of migratory songbirds a year.
http://library.fws.gov/Bird_Publications/songbrd.html#Cat
http://bird-dog-news.com/Article/ACat.html
Stray animals in cities can be stolen for dogfights. Catch feline aids. get hit by cars and suffer a slow death, etc. etc. etc. But worst of all, they piss in the woodchips in front of my window, and now I can’t open my friggen window on a nice day. A person of less patience would have poisoned the little fuckers already.
Good thing, that. Grays being the rarest and all. You must be proud of yourself.
Once, while taking my morning walk, I had the unpleasant experience of seeing someone’s pet kitty lying in the street, half-crushed by a car and partially disembowelled, but still alive and gasping its life away. I rushed home sobbing to call animal control or the police or whoever, but the police had already been called and were in fact picking it up as I was on the phone. I’ll never forget it - it was nightmarish.
It was a plump pet housecat, wearing a collar, not a feral animal.
As noted this is very much an American/European cultural divide. Or rather an urban American/European-rural American cultural divide. In many U.S. metro areas animal shelters will often quite literally refuse to let you adopt a stray cat if you admit to not being willing to keep it as an indoors-only pet.
I think the statistics are pretty clear that indoor cats live longer, healthier lives. And if properly stimulated ( playmates, play-time ), just as apparently happy ones. The qualification to that of course is that “working cats” have a different value and role to play than purely pet cats.
All my previous cats were indoor/outdoor. Cut wayyy down on litterbox cleanings :). But I’ve converted over and my current two are indoor-only. As they are only pets and not mousers, it only made logical sense. But I still nostalgically miss the litterbox-less days. One of mine thinks dried feces is a fun and charming toy to remove and bat around the floor - I have to scoop frequently :p.
I’ll be honest. I really hate cats. They kill my beloved songbirds. They make messes. Etc.
That being said, I love *pets *and it would positively break my heart to run over someone’s beloved cat. I always ask as gently as I can: please, please try to keep your cats indoors. They are not smart things and run out in front of cars all of the time.
I don’t really agree with 90% of the reasons to keep them outdoors in urban areas; especially the one about the cat “not wanting to go outside” - is it the pet, or are you the pet? Make it stay inside unless controlled! And this from **malkavia **pretty much confirms it for me:
They can be trained to stay inside.
I don’t let mine outside for all the reasons already stated. My neighbors are asshole drug addicts that would to (and have) run a cat over for fun. I lost my outdoor cat this way (I’m rural, for the record).
And my three kitties get panic attacks if they get outside. I’ve taken them out on little jaunts and they shiver and freak out. I set them up a nice hardwood shelf near a window though where they can watch the birds and the horses. I keep a bird feeder outside and both the cats and I get a lot out of it. They seem satisfied, although I make a concerted effort to play a lot with them.
My cat got shot just last night. Pit thread I started, with plenty of people telling me why it’s my fault it got hurt, and not the guy holding the gun. Thankfully, though, they’re in the minority, and the majority of people just feel bad for the kitty.
My two cents: keep it inside if you have close neighbors. People are shitheads.
OK, I swear I"m not trying to be a complete snarky bitch, but where exactly do you THINK they pooped and peed? I use scoopable cat litter and have 1 cat. I clean the box out twice a day and ALWAYS have some pee or poop to clean. This cat is a shit machine, seriously. So I wonder: Do you know know where they poop and pee or do you not care?
My opinion is: If your neighbors wanted cat piss and poop in their yard (which IS where they go, by the way), they would GET a cat and let it piss and poop in the yard.
I dunno- maybe your cats went outside, pooped invisible non-stinky poop and pee. I doubt it though. I find it unbelievable that anyone could talk about the advantages of NOT scooping cat litter in a thread where people are complaining about animals peeing and pooping in their yards. Is there no connection there? Unreal.
Hey, as long as it’s convenient for you, I guess. Nobody else really matters.
:mad:
Here is another european who finds the idea of keeping a cat indoors voluntarily a bit grotesque. You learn something new every day.
Well, do you want a live pet cat or a dead pet cat? If the answer is* live*, then don’t let him out.
