Outside Cats - is it a sin?

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"