Outside Cats - is it a sin?

Yes and no.

touchy subject with a US/UK dividing line, thread should be insta closed to protect board sanity lest we start 2022 with another tipping

UK no, US yes? I'm Aussie and I think culture here is 50/50.

Take a stand Aimless you coward

i kind of thought it was a sin to be indoors only. rural bg here though.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/caught-by-cats-birds

fwiw re US/UK this might be an ecosystem issue, the RSPB (bird protection soc in the UK) don't consider cats to be a threat to bird populations in the UK - this may not be the case elsewhere

Damn, I’m living in 2021 … and posting in 2022! (I know, not really.)

Wow, nevermind. I suppose the drinks are settling in. Happy new year folks

when i was a kid, literally every cat we ever owned that were let out died outside. run over by car, lost a fight with a dog, eaten by coyotes, you name it.

There are some exceptions, but strictly speaking almost all cats should be indoor cats. However I have known both 'barn cats' in rural places, whose main function was to keep rodents in check, and cats who have spent young and formative months as feral cats, who adopted their "owners" on a provisional basis, but who simply could not tolerate confinement.

yeah HP indoors only is more common in the US than the UK. and people on both sides of the debate are often insane about it (i am pro-indoors only and quite insane about it)(with the exception of barn cats)

xxp

that's why I couldn't have an indoor/outdoor cat again. The first cats my mom got that were indoor-only made it to 23, 20 and 19, not sure any before made it past 10 without disease or disappearance.

But I also despise litter boxes so no cats for me.

That is the opposite of my expectation. I thought more land+higher libertarian values in the US would swing them towards the outside boys.

I'll take my stand, I let my guys outside. two of them never leave my garden, the other one has become cosy with the neighbours who really like him as well. They're all neutered, and over the year they have killed a baby possum, 2 or 3 butcherbirds, and maybe 7 rats?

I would keep them in if: the neighbours weren't happy (I know them all pretty well), or if they were killing things that weren't pests/numerous.

they are definitely a threat to birds anywhere, but I still think it is obscenely cruel to keep them indoors f/t when they seemed to have evolved into the perfect domesticated/wild balance lifestyle that dogs could only dream of after hanging out with humans for thousands of years. Of it's a more difficult decision for people that live in big cities and tower blocks.

"But I also despise litter boxes so no cats for me."

the stench of those things. I worked in a job where I'd go into 10-20 houses a week for years and have so many horror stories about cat shit.

calzino otm. I feel like the domesticated cat was designed to live with humans while still having access to the great outdoors. and whenever I have tried to keep them in I can just see every biological instinct within them rebelling. I get sad going to my wife's parents place and seeing their cats waiting at the door to try escape when we open it to enter, and they have been inside cats for years.

litter boxes kill me

I haven't done cats in a big city though so its all worked out for me so far.

average life span of outdoor cats is 8-10 years lower than indoor cats and nearly every domestic cat gets used to indoor life if you work at it a bit. dogs and hamsters would love to free roam as well but they adapt. domesticated cats have evolved to be domestic, and you can give them 100% of the enrichment they need by playing with them for 20 minutes a day and giving them vertical spaces to climb. many don't even need that. only cat i've ever had that didn't get fully used to indoor life was a feral stray we took in that we probably shouldn't have.

I've had 7 cats in my life and the feral one was literally the only one that ever indicated it wanted to go outside. Wanting to go outside is not an inherent trait in domestic cats lol...just play with your cats

i kind of thought it was a sin to be indoors only. rural bg here though.

― Nedlene Grendel as Basenji Holmo (map), Friday, December 31, 2021 5:14 PM (twenty-seven minutes ago)

same here

I only ever had inside/outside cats growing up, but we lived in a rural place. We never lost any of them. Since living in cities like Chicago and Minneapolis I wouldn't let a cat go outside on its own.

xxp
okay tbf my wife's parents cat was outside early in life and they have transitioned it to inside after like 4 years? So I'll take your words on how they're raised

world's best cat litter made from corn = no litter box smell, ever

i could never let my cat outside. she's happy inside and i don't want her to die.

I live right on a major highway. If we let our cat out he'd be roadkill.

one of my parents' cats adopted them when he showed up as a year-old-ish guy and he was indoor/outdoor for a couple years but then he disappeared for a few days and my mom was so distraught. he limped home with a bad animal bite and has been inside for the past 10 years, completely content after an initial adjustment period.

world's best cat litter made from corn = no litter box smell, ever

I use and endorse this

for the people with indoor only cats, do you have backyards or balconies, and do you let the cats go there?

I’m sorry but if you’re a bird (ie, a fly-er) and killed by a cat (ground-bound) u probably weren’t meant 4 this world

Grew up in the UK and had cats who spent half their lives roaming outside (we lived in urban areas) and it never would have occurred to me that cats might live otherwise. Moved to the US and discovered that people have indoor cats which seemed weird at first but--run over by car, lost a fight with a dog, eaten by coyotes--yeah it makes sense.

let cats do what they want in 2022

this is like arguing about parenting of human offspring ... I am so not gonna post anything prescriptive in this thread, apart from, if you are going to have a cat, you should love it, and also post pics

thank you!

My semi-wooded suburban neighborhood had a variety of outdoor cats roaming around when we first moved here. Coyotes arrived a few years later. Soon we had a half-eaten cat carcass in our front yard and within a year or so there were no more outdoor cats left.

woman across the road from me has loads of indoor/outdoor cats, she must have at least 8. It amuses me when there are some on the inside on the window ledge and others on the outside of the window all sat there in a row like some big organised crime gang separated by a window, not sure which ones are the happiest at this point but it is a funny sight!

i love my cat way too much to ever let her out no matter how much Outside is All She Wants, she is small and sweet-natured and i have many mean neighborhood cats and coyotes for neighbors. i also posted many pics of her on instagram this evening

Are coyotes actually real? I thought they were just a looney tunes character? Massive lol at the “Australian wild life will kill you!” Stereotype as well. While there might be some danger for outside cats in suburban Australia, it definitely does not come from wildlife

I grew up with multiple indoor / outdoor cats. One disappeared. One got mauled but healed. They mostly managed okay.

let cats do what they want in 2022

― k3vin k., Friday, December 31, 2021 8:52 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they're going to anyway so we should just accept it

Are coyotes actually real? I thought they were just a looney tunes character? Massive lol at the “Australian wild life will kill you!” Stereotype as well. While there might be some danger for outside cats in suburban Australia, it definitely does not come from wildlife

― hrep (H.P), Friday, December 31, 2021 9:34 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

coyotes are real, they live in the woods behind my house. a couple years ago one snatched a little dog out of a yard in my neighborhood. the next day a very distraught woman asked me if she could cut through my yard to get to the woods because she was just hoping to find some remaining evidence of the dog she loved.

We definitely have coyotes here. The tend to leave gruesome roadkill now and then. My kids, back when they were little, would sometimes have recess cancelled because there was a coyote about. I have friends who hear them when they take their dogs out for a walk, because you can hear the long coyote claws click-clack on the street. I myself have come across coyotes lurking about several times, in broad daylight.

When we got our cat (he was born on a farm) it was a challenge to keep him inside. Like, every day, every single time we opened the door, he would try to get out, and to stop him several times a day started to feel cruel. So for most of his life, he's been in indoor/outdoor car. He goes out when he asks, but especially as he gets older, he otherwise stays in. I know statistically their lives are better indoor-only, and tbf he's had a few mysterious injuries, one of which (however it occurred) left him blind in one eye (the eye is intact, but he sustained damage somehow to his optic nerve), but his life as indoor-outdoor has worked out pretty well for him. As he's gotten older (he's about 14) his roaming circle has gotten smaller and smaller. These days he's rarely much further afield than our backyard, or under the deck.

there's tons of coyotes where i live (just outside of portland), in the summer i tend to go running at night to avoid the heat and if i don't run into a few coyotes it's a weird night

Coyote I saw down the street a couple of years ago:

https://i.imgur.com/uh30YTR.jpg

I expect coyotes will be a living species long after the last human dies. they are exceptionally smart, sneaky and tough. Humans managed to eradicate wolves in many places. They have had zero luck eradicating coyotes anywhere, no matter how hard they've tried.

Coyote in Michael Mann's "Collateral":

https://the-take.com/images/uploads/screenprism/_constrain-1080w/Collateral_Coyote_Crossing.jpg

let cats do what they want in 2022

― k3vin k., Friday, December 31, 2021 8:52 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they're going to anyway so we should just accept it

― call all destroyer, Saturday, 1 January 2022 12:43 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I lean deterministic which definitely correlates to my outside cat position.

sin is a strong word, but cats should be kept inside

the animal that wounded my mom's cat and caused him permanent nerve damage was likely a coyote

my take is simple--cats that are born and raised indoors should stay that way for their safety in most places. cats that have spent some time outside for whatever reason probably should be allowed to continue. their lives will be shorter but from what i've seen bringing an outdoor cat inside full time can be very tough.

our kitty is much to clumsy, goofy and neurotic to be let outside. he seems pretty happy indoors, but needs to play a lot.

Some cats really want to go out, some cats don't.

https://i.imgur.com/iLLlFhL.jpg

one of mine sleeping in a gardenbed of cilantro

tbrr w/u i am scrolling through and only looking at the pictures itt

the important thing is that

https://i.imgur.com/qfZYfRC.jpg

tho we must also keep in mind

https://i.imgur.com/lAhV07A.jpg

i would like to add that

https://i.imgur.com/xfdM55B.png

clay otm

Not to be a contrarian, but we all need to keep in mind that
https://imgur.com/a/FGN8zuI.jpg

Good lord I used the same phrase as cowboy. Ban me pls

See thread: Reusing the same phrase used in a post several posts above yours - is it a sin?

not when you are making an excellent point, as H.P has! we can’t let minor concerns over word choice distract us from

https://i.imgur.com/tCaGzSg.jpg

Automatic thread bump. This poll is

http://i.imgur.com/rpf9D9X.jpg

https://giphy.com/gifs/Ybp1giphetsePsHxjI

my client considers the matter closed and is unwilling to offer further comment

Without outside cats, there can be no...

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48632574832_2823fb1b00_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48504536986_55066d6468_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51528922593_d51a8ae438_b.jpg

wish flappy bird was around to offer their perspective

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJGeBH8XwAokAVb?format=jpg&name=large

JUSTICE FOR SIMPKIN

SIMPKIN JUST WANTS TO LEARN, DAMMIT

THERE’S NOTHING IN THE RULES THAT SAYS A CAT CAN’T HAVE A LIBRARY CARD

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJJjd4cXoAQ_J48?format=jpg&name=large

apparently they already have a more civilised regular indoor/outdoor cat in this particular library called Walter. This unbidden intruder thug-cat Simpkin (who belongs at Hertford!) has been causing him some distress.

this is a matter for the cats to hash out between themselves, in the age-old battle for dominion over human knowledge and the right to snooze on that knowledge

Consider yourself lucky your library would have two cats! oh but to have only one :(

Agree that his seems to be a problem for the cats and the Brits considering their history would do well to stick to matters of their own kind. Let the Cats govern themselves

H.P otm, as am i. if this “walter” chap cannot defend his library then perhaps he should consider a less demanding and competitive venue, like a bodega or a wharf. libraries belong to those cats with the will to take them. this is the immutable law of the jungle and human interference will only disrupt the natural order of things.

Cowboy Bopeep a Simpkin burner account confirmed.

i’m just sayin you pull one thread and the whole house of cards could come unraveled, sheep on the bus, badgers in the closet, i don’t think the uk can handle any more chaos right now

JCO steps into the controversy

is this really good? our poor enervated indoor cats get virtually no exercise, ever. they are born to hunt, stalk, chase, kill, devour their prey, even in the dark...instead, not only are they fed constantly, their food is placed literally in front of their mouths. not good. https://t.co/1Wnv08DZx3

— Joyce Carol Oates (@JoyceCarolOates) January 17, 2022

We have an indoor/outdoor cat and there's no way we could keep him permanently indoors - on the few occasions we've had to keep him in for a few days, he's gone stir crazy insane. When I was living in Paris, I heard numerous stories of "chats d'appartement" who fell to their deaths from balconies - and I used to watch with horror a cat across the road from our apartment block, who would leap from one impossibly narrow ledge to another, five floors up.

It's tricky as no doubt cats are a scourge on the local wildlife, although I'm pretty sure my particular cat doesn't manage to catch anything beyond cockroaches and small lizards.

It was extremely cold in NJ yesterday, so I emailed my mom to check up on her, and as part of that, asked how her cat was doing. He goes out; he even has a little "igloo" on her back porch that he hangs out in, but I figured he might have converted to an indoor lifestyle. Turned out he hadn't been outside since October, but then went outside yesterday and lasted about a minute before curling up right next to her wood stove. She lives on the edge of a state park and has seen bears in her driveway in the past, but the cat seems to know not to go outside when there are large predators around.

This morning our cat projectile vomited his wet food all over the basement windowsill, where he was sitting, staring out. I would have much preferred he did that barfing outside.

“our poor enervated indoor cats get no exercise”

i’m sorry i’m assuming jco had a big house and cat toys. for fuck’s sake

has*

damn what luck josh, your cat threw up on glass instead of a rug. good for you

Ha, actually, the cat missed the window entirely and did it all over the windowsill/ledge (it's on the stairs leading down), where it *then* dripped down ... onto the carpet.

cats are very good at picking where to throw up it’s amazing

i’m sorry i’m assuming jco had a big house and cat toys. for fuck’s sake

I'm imagining poor, enervated JCO holding a cat toy and staring at it, wondering what it is, how it could possibly be used, why anyone would think she would need such a thing.

Most of my cats are not hunters. The one who is used to love it when I threw her kibble up the stairs, a piece at a time, so she could hunt it and kill it. Even she can't be arsed with that carry-on nowadays.

i imagine she is affluent enough that she could hire a personal trainer for her cat

but seriously -- more pics

https://i.imgur.com/U7PdCjL.jpg

Context: this is from last summer, when some birds were sick and sluggish with iirc West Nile, which explains how my guy, arthritic, missing a canine and blind in one eye, was able to catch his first anything in years.

That is a great picture Josh. Captures it all

Heeeeeeat veeeeeeeeent
https://i.imgur.com/TCaphW6.jpg

Norm outside at the end of summer.

https://i.imgur.com/8XL8Ed6.jpg

And trying to get back INside:

https://i.imgur.com/Yp3By2f.jpg

YOU are cold. They have fur.
Do not let inside. pic.twitter.com/WrVIdF9mkh

— Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (@OKWildlifeDept) January 20, 2022

I take it those furry kitties have the tendency to rip the face of people? Otherwise how could you not let a playful kitty like that into you home

Found out how to get Butch to stay with me when I’m studying too. I introduce, the washing basket.

https://i.imgur.com/XsjZ47b.jpg

Had a great lesson in the natural order of things very early this morning. Our daughter woke us up around 3am because she thought she heard a woman screaming outside. We figured it was an animal or a cat fight, and because we have other animals around here and our cat was outside, my wife went downstairs to let him in. She said when he came inside his tail was all bushy, but also that when she opened the door to call him she was met with this horrifying shriek from the darkness. She didn't know what it was, just that it was some demonic animal. Based on that description we surmised it was probably a fox, and when I woke up I googled and found a clip that my daughter and wife confirmed was what she heard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zk1mAd77Hr4

What's interesting, though, is that our cat didn't even react to the clip I played, staying sound asleep. Makes sense, the fox is not really a threat or predator, more an outdoor peer, and the cat is ambivalent at best about youtube clips. But when I called up a sound clip of coyotes, just to rule it out, he leapt from his chair in the other room at full attention, eyes wide, wildly looking toward the windows then to the computer then to me and back again. Because his tiny little brain apparently knows, through instinct or experience, what a coyote is, and knows they are bad news.

Meanwhile, our big guy was pretty happy to enjoy a near '70 degree day yesterday (though weirdly enough he seems to prefer colder weather; maybe it's the fur?)

https://i.imgur.com/CkdvAS1.jpg

We had a male indoor cat who, inexplicably, started pissing everywhere. On everything. There may be a way to break male cats of this habit, but I never found it. Anyway, he was exiled to the outdoors where he has happily lived for more than a dozen years. He never goes off very far, and despite the near constant presence of coyotes and foxes in the neighborhood has managed to stay in one piece.

This morning in a pleasant change to the monotony of dead lizards, we instead woke up to a half eaten sausage roll my cats had dragged off the street onto our bedroom floor

"it's for you"

I do appreciate that this is there way of expressing love

You provide food for us, we provide food for you kind of deal

imagine your cats instead of Lana del Rey in "Video Games"