indoor vs outdoor cats?

i think i know what people's opinions on this are going to be but i'm asking anyway bc the internet seems pretty divided on it. it also seems to be a national thing to an extent but we'll see.

i was originally planning on keeping my cat as an indoor cat but the shelter i got her from (as well as the other shelters i looked at) listed access to the outdoors as one of their adoption stipulations. obviously i said i'd let her out after 5 weeks or whatever, but 5 weeks is up and like... i don't wanna?

SO what are the pros and cons in your opinion of outdoor vs indoor cats? i have my own anecdata on the subject but since the national cats protection apparently disagrees with me i'm doubting myself.

my area/situation in case it makes a difference:

• suburban england
• all the neighbours have outdoor cats
• most dangerous local wildlife is probably other people's pets and the occasional fox
• the cat is black (a def. concern for me, she's been described as "very witchy" which is good for ME but makes me anxious re. other people)
• there is one other cat in the house and he is allowed out (i have no say in this)

 

Pros: Indoor cats do not contribute to the depredation of local wildlife; are less likely to suffer communicable disease such as FeLV, mites, ticks and fleas; less likely to suffer trauma from falling and unlikely to be hit by a vehicle; won't suffer an attack from wild animals or other domestic animals; are unlikely to wander off and get lost or trapped; you won't worry about anyone harming, trapping, shooting or abducting your cat; and indoor cats are less likely to ingest harmful substances eg slug pellets, antifreeze, or toxic plants.

Cons: indoor cats need more attention; need to be stimulated to exercise; may need diets monitored more carefully; can still ingest any toxic house plants, cleaning chemicals and drugs so you do have to take care with those; you'll need to clean a litter tray; also need to provide a scratch post or pad unless you like shredded furniture/wallpaper/carpet.

Spoiler: Anecdata: family cats

In honesty it was never going to be a serious choice for me. My cat is an indoor cat. She's never been outside and has never tried to escape. We took into account the fact that she's a pedigree Bengal with a congenital deformity and that we live near a fast, busy road as factors when making the decision. She's an extremely happy cat with no access to outdoors, and I will fight anyone who says it's cruel or unnatural to keep her in.

My sister's cat used to be an outside cat. She rarely played or meowed, and was a picky eater. Since keeping her inside, she has become vocal, eats heartily, and plays with toys. She still goes outside on a leash sometimes, but just into the courtyard to flop in a patch of sunlight. The harness is like a wee jacket with a d-ring between the shoulder blades, fastens with Velcro, is cute as fuck. She's safe and happy and still has outdoor access if needed.

 

Every outdoor cat I had in my youth except for one I lost to misadventure or animal attacks, wild and domesticated. (Loose dogs will absolutely try to kill cats.) When it became my choice whether to keep my cats indoors, it was no contest.

My current pair are happy and healthy - I take them out on harnesses most days when the weather is nice, and five to fifteen minutes of playtime a day, plus cuddles and general socializing, keeps them happy. They're sometimes a bit high maintenance because I have two and they're pretty active, but they're still much less maintenance than any given dog.

 

Harness training for outdoors is definitely one way around the problem. If you were in the US, I'd be really strict about how letting your cat free roam is practically a death sentence for a lot of reasons, but I've heard England is very different, both in terms of environmental dangers and in terms of general societal view of cats. I don't know enough to speak more intelligibly about the differences though.

 

My cat was always an outside cat and I really wish he hadn't been (it nearly killed him twice, but that's partially because Australia). Is there any way you could construct a cat run so he can get some fresh air without being totally free-roaming?

I think it's definitely a national thing, because the Australian attitude is 'please keep your predators inside and away from the vulnerable wildlife, and also hey paralysis ticks are a thing'.

 

i'd just leash train and then consider any time you spend walking her as outside time. people do fucked up things to cats when they don't see their humans around, i have hells of stories. that's a really stupidass requirement on the rescue's part, tbh.

 

this is more or less my experience and my thoughts on the matter. my mum was saying how she thinks her cat is getting old at seven. seven! they should be able to live to fifteen!

my cat is very active and attention seeking but i work from home and have plenty of time to play with her (rn she's sitting on me and glaring at me every time i put my hand on the keyboard to type). she's neutered and vaccinated and everything but she is a feline flu carrier which is another reason why i'm like ehhh about letting her out to mingle with all the neighbour cats.

i'll have to look into harness training i think that might be the way to go even though my parents are gonna side eye me super hard for it but like... my cat isn't gonna get hit be a truck so whatever.

@taxonomicAtrocity I thought it was weird too. this is their pamphlet on it which i was kind of like :o/ at.

 

@An Actual Bird Yep. Catios are a thing people do. Here's a link that sells DIY plans and stuff, and I think I've seen small prefab ones on Amazon.

 

for me it depends on area? i used to live in a super quiet neighborhood, barely any traffic, any wildlife was active mostly at night. the cats could roam where they wanted during the day and come in at night. we had to treat for fleas occasionally, but other than that nothing ever went wrong.

we're in a busier neighborhood now and i'm keeping my cat indoors. i will say there's been a....noticeable change in her personality. she's simultaneously lethargic and more agitated; she doesn't want to play, but she's not as cuddly as she used to be. she's also dropped a bit of weight. we live in a fourplex and i haven't been able to think of any way to let her get outside without endangering her :(

edit: i have two cats, one is about 5, my mom's cat is around 16. we've had both of them since they were babies.

 

Oh wow, yeah. Seven is like, barely middle aged. :( My dudes are going to be eight this November, and so far they're just as active and healthy as they were when they were two. My mom has a cat that's 15 and though she's a little old lady now, from last reports she's still doing well.

Cats can be harness trained perfectly fine, so ??? to your parents.

I haven't trained my dudes into being walked, but they're shy about other people and animals and don't really like to go much past the back patio anyway. The few times they've gotten out through the window - Finland doesn't do screens for some reason, and our windows don't have a locking position that is closed enough* - they didn't stray past the bushes bordering the back yard, which is the size of a postage stamp. I've seen some neighbors walking their cats, though, so it's totally possible.

* NB: I live on the ground floor and there's a chair on the patio just under one of the windows. If I lived any further up the windows would NEVER be left open unattended and without being able to lock into a more closed position.

 

'There is no evidence that cats are having an impact on the bird population, as they usually catch sick or weak birds.'
yeah, totally.

and fifteen? i've had all my kitties make it to 18, except for, oh yeah, the indoor/outdoor, who made it to a whopping 3.(and we lived in a relatively quiet area) it's just infuriating to me how people are willing to cut their cat's lifespans down to nothing just because they aren't willing to keep them inside and provide enrichment. 8(

here's a pamphlet on training your kitty to walk on a leash via positive reinforcement. idk how useful it is, my cat's got run of the screened in porch and hasn't needed to be walked before, but it looks promising!

 

yeah somehow i don't think my mum will let me wall off her patio and replace the sunlounger with a cat tower lmao.

 

One note of caution: In my experience, leash training adult cats is nearly impossible. Appearantly some people manage it but, just don´t be surprised if it doesn´t work?
Most of my cats have been indoor only and seem to be fine. If you have an enclosed yard or such available you could take them out to play with supervision there? Or a balcony.

 

Well, fleas can kinda still be a concern for indoor cats if you live in an area where they're bad--at some point a couple are going to hitch a ride in on your pants leg and then onto your cat--but it's a significantly smaller concern. My cats are 100% indoor but occasionally still get them, but it's a "call the vet and say 'hey I need to come by and get two doses of Revolution sometime this week'" problem and not a "take the cats in to be dipped and fumigate ALL the things while they're there" problem.

 

i saw an article study thing that put a gps tracker on cats (how many i'm not sure) and it turned out they would wander really far away, like the owners said "oh no he only goes down the street" meanwhile the gps tracker shows he went like nyoom 3 kilometres away or something.

also my mom's cats were totally fine as indoor cats then she had to give one to a friend when she moved in with my cat-allergic dad, lo and behold the friend let Max outside where a car got him :/

 

we had an indoor/ outdoor only cat, who lived to be somewhere between 15 and 17? he was a rescue so the exact age is *noncommital hand wave* over the years he kinda fluctuated back and forth between totally outdoor and "chilling in our basement"

but also he was formerly feral, and not rly amenable to human whims, and initially failed the "adoptable" test (couldnt sit in a person's lap without freaking out, therefore was deemed unadoptable) but my parents adopted his sister and didn't want him to get put down so they took him too. sister ended up being mostly indoors.

if i were to get another cat at this point though i would probably make it indoor only because i live off a main street and cars swing by reeeally fast. also i now live by a school and kids can be cruel

 

I'll be the voice of dissent then. My parents have always have cats (except for about 1,5 years when we were between cats) and they have always been indoor-outdoor cats. They have always been happy and mostly healthy. They have had pretty long lives.

When I was born my parents had two cats, Ceres and Tossie. Ceres was a breeding-mistake Persian (his pedigree was quite inbred) and he wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box. He died when he was around eight years old, I can't remember from what, but I think it was acute kidney failure. We were never quite sure about Tossies real age, but when she died she was around 22 years old. I remember she had to be put down, but I don't remember why. I'm pretty sure it was old age though.
Minoes was our next cat, we got her when she was around 4 years old, and she loved, loved, loved being outside. When the weather was really hot she wouldn't come inside the house. She had some problems with fighting (mainly not winning) and we had to take her to the vet a few times because of abscesses. She was around twelve when she died of acute kidney failure. She loved being outside so much I think it would have been cruel to deny it her. We always had to keep her inside on December 31st because of the fireworks going off everywhere, and she hated it with a passion. She would go completely stir crazy.

Now my parents have two cats, they were born on a farm, and we kept them inside for a while after they came to live with us, but now almost two years later they go out all the time. Especially Suske (the male) really needs to have his outside time. Like Minoes he goes completely stir crazy if he's not allowed out. Wiske (the female) also likes to be outside, but she's a little more forgiving of the times she has to stay in.

Personally, I would not want to own a cat who has no means of going outside. If the cat I end up owning in the future wants to stay inside, that's fine by me, but I don't like the idea of forcing a cat to stay indoors.

I think it's definitely a national thing. Here generally all cats are outdoor cats. You'll even find cats in the cities. There's this lovely orange cat that likes to hang out outside my block of flats. He's not usually cuddly, but he was really cuddly the other day, coming up to me for petting which was really nice. I really miss having a cat around :(

 

When the lanai is open, the cats go out there (because it's completely screened in and safe) and we leave windows open. Calipso is the only cat we have that is full indoors-outdoors, and she's supervised when she goes out into the yard. Every cat I've owned except for two have been indoors only (with the occasional exception for screened porch time) because I've never lived in a place without cars.

Our neighbor has an outdoor cat who's an absolute darling, almost 13 years old, and going blind. This is terrifying, because it means checking, double checking, and triple checking that he isn't under the car, in the engine block, or in a tire well, and then monitoring him as he crosses the road to make sure no cars are coming. This is a really sedate neighborhood, but even still it's really easy to hit a cat with a car at night without seeing them in time.

The only true outdoor cat I owned (or, more accurately, my step mother owned and didn't care to clean a litterbox over, so outdoors he went) I had to free from traps four times. He's missing an eye, half an ear, and is littered with scars. Coming back with new scabs every morning was pretty regular for him because he was a tom that fought every other outdoor cat in the neighborhood. He'd be about five now, and compared to my other five year old, he's got the body of a cat closer to ten.

Leash walking or other supervised variations of outdoors play is safer than unsupervised. I don't know if you have a fenced in area, but that's what we use for Calipso. We also treat her for fleas every month, and the rest of the cats too just in case-- the dog gets treated as well, so it's not usually a concern, but it is one if you have multiple animals with outdoors time.

Since you don't have major predators where you live, your biggest concerns are going to be humans and human devices. Cars are death traps, and humans can be cruel. I'd say if you're going to let her out, be there with her-- that's the easiest way to make sure that she's safe. Most of the cats I've had that get inklings for the outside are usually more satisfied with an open screened window, but that doesn't mean that every cat is okay with being 100% indoors, it's just that indoors is almost always going to be safer because it's easier to control.

(Regional anecdata: currently living in Florida with indoor-outdoor Calipso, outdoor tom lives in Northern California, and have owned indoor cats in Nevada, Virginia, and Georgia, mostly in suburban areas. Predators and environmental impact were a much bigger concern in Florida than in California, but the humans in California were more likely to do violence.

I have a friend who lives in Wales that has a healthy, happy indoors only cat, and a friend in Ireland who has outdoors only kittens that seem to be doing well, but they did recently lose a dog to a car accident. So that's the only personal UK info I have experience with.)

 

sorry if you thought it was clear but can i ask why? is it just the mood thing, as in you think the cats like being outside and/or go crazy if they're forced indoors?