The etchics of keeping cats

[Vortigern99]

I don't know about that. It's difficult for an indoor environment to give cats what they love most -- the experience of stalking and pouncing, and the simple pleasure of enjoying the open air and grass and trees.

We used to think this, too. I mean, I ardently believed this and defended my decision to let them roam, using much the same argument you're making. I know where you're coming from.

Then Jack ate a poisoned rat he found in a neighbor's yard. He turned up stiff on the back porch. Then Sebastian died of heat stroke. He was my Wonderpuss and I miss him terribly and I feel just awful awful awful that he died. We buried him under the magnolia tree where I found him. Then an outdoor cat we had been feeding, Prince Abooboo von Snugglepuss aka "Blackie", got a horrible leg injury after being stuck between two fences for five days, and we nursed him back to health at great personal expense and effort.

Tika, the Huntress, used to disappear for days till my heart seemed about to burst from anxiety and fear. She'd show up none the worse for wear and I'd have shaved another six months off my life expectancy.

Now we keep our two girls inside! They're happy, well-fed, well-loved and there's no more danger from coyotes, people, cars, rats, owls, stray dogs, fences, snakes, spiders, poison, other cats or extraterrestrial aardvarks. Their lives are protected and they look and act as though they are as pleased as punch to be kept indoors.

Even with my fence, I still have to limit my cats' ability to roam, and I have to keep incursion of critters to a minimum or else they'll bring them inside. (Standing in my yard in my boxer shorts at 3 A.M. beheading a badly wounded rabbit with a shovel was the breaking point.)

I do feel bad about it. I call my cats "my pretty prisoners".

When I lived way out in the country, it wasn't a problem, although one cat did get FIV in a fight with a stray who had taken up under the house. I still cry sometimes when I think about putting her down.

I'm still in the country, but now in a little four-road subdivision nestled between two farms. I see too many cats waffled on the roads out here, and I can't trust that my cats wouldn't get lost if I let them out now. Wish I had the cash to expand the fence.

But sometimes it just breaks my heart that they can't be free to stalk and pounce like my other cats were.

I think the fence is a nice compromise. If and when we get back to a house we may add just such a feature. It really is the best of both worlds and I can't find a single thing to say against it. You can always buy mice and let the cats go after 'em inside the perimeter...!

 

[IXP]

You can always buy mice and let the cats go after 'em inside the perimeter...!

People who keep snakes would agree. A friend of mine bought mice to feed to his snake, but killed them just before giving to the snake for fear of the snake being injured!

IXP

 

[Vortigern99]

It is dificult to gauge whether an adult cat can adapt to being an indoor cat. However a kitten who has been raised to only live indoors usually will continue to prefer to be indoors.

In my opinion there are two kinds of cats, pets and working animals. An outdoor cat is supposed to spend its life killing any small animal that approaches your stores and teaching its young to do the same. You provide it with water, basic medical care and enough food to pad out the lean times but it is not a pet. An indoor cat is supposed to be coddled and loved and kept from getting out into the big bad world out there. It is a pet. Trying to get both things out of a single animal seems unfair to me.

Edit: Nice cat runs guys. Those are wonderful compromises between safety and freedom.

Some good points raised here. An adult indoor/outdoor cat can adapt to being purely indoors, but as others have noted it depends on the temperament of the animal. Our girls are just fine with it; others howl at the backdoor, I'm told.

The "two kinds of cat" position is fine for those who need a mouser and/or who believe they won't give their heart to a longtime visitor. With my wife and me the urge to coddle and protect tends to override the practicality of the non-pet pussycat.

 

[Piggy]

We used to think this, too. I mean, I ardently believed this and defended my decision to let them roam, using much the same argument you're making. I know where you're coming from.

Then Jack ate a poisoned rat he found in a neighbor's yard. He turned up stiff on the back porch. Then Sebastian died of heat stroke. He was my Wonderpuss and I miss him terribly and I feel just awful awful awful that he died. We buried him under the magnolia tree where I found him. Then an outdoor cat we had been feeding, Prince Abooboo von Snugglepuss aka "Blackie", got a horrible leg injury after being stuck between two fences for five days, and we nursed him back to health at great personal expense and effort.

Tika, the Huntress, used to disappear for days till my heart seemed about to burst from anxiety and fear. She'd show up none the worse for wear and I'd have shaved another six months off my life expectancy.

Now we keep our two girls inside! They're happy, well-fed, well-loved and there's no more danger from coyotes, people, cars, rats, owls, stray dogs, fences, snakes, spiders, poison, other cats or extraterrestrial aardvarks. Their lives are protected and they look and act as though they are as pleased as punch to be kept indoors.



I think the fence is a nice compromise. If and when we get back to a house we may add just such a feature. It really is the best of both worlds and I can't find a single thing to say against it. You can always buy mice and let the cats go after 'em inside the perimeter...!

Well, obviously, I've come down on the side of safety, too.

But comparing the behavior of the free-roaming cats to the fenced cats, I see that the fenced cats are more bored. I have to restrict their food or they'd eat all day. The free-roamers could have kibble at will.

Part of the problem is that I live alone and work constantly, so I can't play with them nearly as much as I should.

I do love the Purr-Fect Fence, tho! I can't imagine going back to indoor-only.

Since we're in the country, they do catch fieldmice, and even birds. I think they're finally catching on that they can play with them outside to their hearts' content, but if they come inside, the monkey's gonna take their toy away!

 

[Sam.I.Am]

A simpler cat run would be to use that collar (if you aren't using a harness then get one, collars can kill a cat by strangling them) and leash and run a long piece of clothes lline (or whatever) through the hand loop of the leash and then tie it off at both ends to whatever you have (like 2 nails on opposing fences for example). Make it fairly close to the ground. The cat can roam a bit, lie in the sun or whatever but can't go too far.

I did this with one of my cats and he didn't like the harness at first but within a week I could actually take him for a walk. I did get some strange looks every now and then when I took him into the vet on a leash.

 

[Piggy]

That is an extreme solution! We are now thinking about putting up a fully screened area (a cat aviary) where we could sit outside with the cat.

IXP

I have seen these and they can be very well done.

In fact, I've seen installations on the backs of houses which connect aviaries from all the windows by a set of... well... sort of mesh-enclosed fire escapes.

 

[Vortigern99]

Bogart, who was adopted from a shelter at 8 weeks old is the only one of my cats that will try bolting for the door. But when he gets outside, he stops and lets us pick him and bring him back in. Trouble, who thanks to the forum is officially The Best Cat in Orange County CA has ZERO desire to go outside. Outside is the scary place where bad things happen. Inside is where there's noms and comfy furniture to sleep on and hoomans to give scritches.

Reading this post, it's like looking in the mirror. Sweet Layla has zero interest in stepping her dainty paws outside, but our Huntress has done the same thing as your Bogart, maybe twice since we moved into the apartment: bolted out the door and then stopped cold when she realized this was not what she had in mind.

Concrete breezeway and asphalt parking lot =/= huge grassy backyard of yore. Also, the stench of dog is nigh in any apt. complex.

 

[Vortigern99]

Since we're in the country, they do catch fieldmice, and even birds. I think they're finally catching on that they can play with them outside to their hearts' content, but if they come inside, the monkey's gonna take their toy away!

Monkey?

 

[Polaris]

I am encouraged by all the people who have cats that don't mind being confined to a house. Licorice, our injured cat, is going to have to be in a cage for 2 months while healing after surgery. Perhaps after that, the run of the house will seem like a good compromise.

I like that idea of the cat runs, too. I had thought about building something myself. But it occurs to me that the reason they want to go out mostly about hunting birds and chipmunks.

IXP

Of the two that I have, one likes to try to make it outside, but once he's there he has no idea what to do and panics. The only time he's been out overnight I found him hiding beneath a window box, and my brother had to physically walk him along a retaining wall back inside.

I agree with Jackson Galaxy's philosophy that there should be no outside cats. There were feral cats aplenty (including the one who prefers to be inside now) in my old apartment complex, and none of them had good lives due to cars, competition, animal control, inbreeding and inexperience of new mothers.

 

[IXP]

A simpler cat run would be to use that collar (if you aren't using a harness then get one, collars can kill a cat by strangling them) and leash and run a long piece of clothes lline (or whatever) through the hand loop of the leash and then tie it off at both ends to whatever you have (like 2 nails on opposing fences for example). Make it fairly close to the ground. The cat can roam a bit, lie in the sun or whatever but can't go too far.

I did this with one of my cats and he didn't like the harness at first but within a week I could actually take him for a walk. I did get some strange looks every now and then when I took him into the vet on a leash.

We tried the harness. She would simply go to the end of the leash and keep pulling, and acting miserable. She even managed to escape the harness a couple of times. Maybe we should rename her Houdini.

IXP

 

[Arcade22]

You are violating the cats natural cat rights by keeping it locked inside like a prisoner when it clearly wants to go outside. It would be no different from forcibly keeping women locked inside your basement for "companionship".

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

My last cat was a "strictly" indoor cat. She would sneak out about once a year on a nice day and hang out in the yard. When the vet told us she was losing weight because of terminal cancer, we just propped the back and let her come and go as she pleased for a few weeks. Mostly she'd just hang out in the shade and watch the chickens.

By being an indoor cat she was protected from disease, cars, dogs and getting twigs in her long fur. She lived for about 15 years, which is about 3 years after the warranty expires on a cat anyway. Every other cat my family had over the years was indoor/outdoor and eventually got hit by cars.

Being an indoor cat she was very imprinted on us, and even learned to "talk" in the last few years. She had a different meow for "cat food" and "water," and had to learn a new word when we switched her to "squishy food" (3 syllables) toward the end. When I realized she finally was understanding that the noises humans make signify things, I started telling her the word for whatever I was cutting that she felt the need to beg for. I would show her something and say 'broccoli" or "apple" and she would be satisfied that I wasn't cutting meat. Later I would just say the word for things she knew and she'd stop begging, or she would sit by her bowl and wait for the bits of "meat" I was cutting. Not rocket science, but fun for the 2 of us in her last years. My wife thought I was nuts claiming I was teaching the cat to talk until she heard the distinct and unique two-syllable "mra yeaow" next to the empty cat food dish one day.

 

[TjW]

I see no one has yet mentioned the best part of a cat run -- the cat boxes are not in the house.

And this idea of unauthorized sheparding sounds like a sheep thrill.

 

[Piggy]

Monkey?

That's me. I'm the monkey.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

You are violating the cats natural cat rights by keeping it locked inside like a prisoner when it clearly wants to go outside. It would be no different from forcibly keeping women locked inside your basement for "companionship".

You are violating an animal's natural right to live in hunger and die of disease by keeping them as pets in the first place. But domesticated cats and dogs have been with humans for thousands if not 10s of thousands of years, so we've decided to get over it and make the relationship mutually beneficial.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

A hamster is hours of almost free kitty cable. An interesting habit for the hamster keeps them active and the cats watch for hours. I once had a picture of seven cats lined up by size in front of a hamster cage.

 

[GlennB]

You are violating an animal's natural right to live in hunger and die of disease by keeping them as pets in the first place.

This raises an interesting philosophical point.

My maximimum theoretical life span might well be achieved by putting me in a totally safe environment with a nutritious calorie-controlled diet plus "organised fun" ( the Sky Sports channel package).

Would I want to live that life or might I choose, sometimes, to risk my life skiing, or hunting sabre-tooth tigers in the forests, or white-water rafting or rock-climbing -40° overhangs?

Hmmmmm? We gonna choose on behalf of the kitty-kats? I'd say it's a judgement call based on circumstances. If "outdoors" is a metaphorical hail of bullets in the form of fast-moving cars and voracious predators then it's better inside. If it's all softball and nursery slopes then maybe not.

As I say, it's purely of philosophical interest.

 

[Vortigern99]

You are violating the cats natural cat rights by keeping it locked inside like a prisoner when it clearly wants to go outside. It would be no different from forcibly keeping women locked inside your basement for "companionship".

Nonsense. These are domesticated animals to whom we owe a responsibility of protection. We bred them to be dependent on us and introduced them to human society, which unfortunately includes deadly things like rat poison and cars. The least we can do is ensure the animals' safety and survival once we've chosen to raise them as our pets and wards.

 

[Vortigern99]

That's me. I'm the monkey.

I suspected as much! And supposing that domestic felines derive from an African original, it's possible that as a species they've had doings with monkeys since their development, perhaps even symbiotically. Just a hypothesis, I haven't looked into it but you've given me a spark of inquiry.

Will report later with any results, for those who give a darn.

 

[Shalamar]

I have two cats. At this point, both rather elderly. One is around 17, the other s 15. The older of the two, he's having some health issues, but it looks like a diet change, and some medicates will take care of it. The younger, she's slowed down a little bit, but still acts like a kitten sometimes.

Neither of them goes outside. The female did once, by accident, and was terrified by the experience. If the door is open, they'll peer around, but won't go out.
Inside they have places to climb, warm laps to sleep on, and a dog to harass and torment. If they feel the need to hunt, they can go looking for stray crickets (I have a pet chameleon as well. His food occasionally gets loose.)

I wouldn't have it any other way. They're quite happy in their home, and their people. And we don't have to worry if they'll get hurt or injured outside.