indoor vs outdoor cats?

Discussion in 'General Advice' started by Sol, Jul 13, 2016.

  1. Petra

    Petra space case

    Like obviously I don't think people who let their cats are are bad wrong pet owners or anything. I just think the hard data supports keeping cats indoors when possible.
     
    • Like x 3
  2. Emma

    Emma Your resident resident

    No edits necessary :) Thanks for being so understanding though :)
     
  3. theambernerd

    theambernerd dead to all sense of shame

    true, though the barn I grew up riding at sorta did treat them in between- all their cats were fully human-socialized and they would play with and care for the cats on the same level as house cats for health and vet care, and the mother who showed up was allowed to stay indoors when she had her kittens until they were 2 months old, so I'm more used to they type of barn cat life.
    And yeah my post sorta derailed itself into my own personal struggle, i'd love to be responsible and wealthy enough someday to own horses myself and have barn cats and all that, but at the moment I'm barely responsible enough to properly care for a house cat in a stressful time so idk if i'll ever be responsible enough for my dreams -shrug-
     
  4. Sol

    Sol needs a coffee

    i feel you. my mum is the same although not as house proud and last night she got drunk and lay on the floor outside my room with the cat loudly proclaiming how much poor little chloe OBVIOUSLY wants and NEEDS to go outside boo hoo. i mean she's not so much as had a sniff at the open window but like... ok mom sure. luckily though i'm an adult and i do what i want so she can't really do anything about it except whine at me.

    and like, as far as making decisions based on what the cat wants well. chloe tried to eat half a chocolate cake the other day so i don't really think she's the best judge of her own safety. lol. (she's fine we caught her before she got through to more than a few crumbs)
     
    • Like x 6
  5. Aondeug

    Aondeug Cringe Annoying Ass Female Lobster

    Yeah I think I'll just leave this conversation since we're going to be assholes.
     
  6. wait, what? i think the only person who's approached asshole-level has been me in my last big post, everyone else has been fairly chill. i'm sorry if my wording offended you, i think that it's been established that the way i presented the information and ideas that i was presenting was overly harsh.
     
    • Like x 1
  7. Aniseed

    Aniseed Well-Known Member

    i would absolutely never have an outdoor cat but i also grew up in very crowded suburbs and have seen a lot of bad shit go down with outdoor cats. families would regularly leave out anti freeze and stuff for loose animals to drink and be poisoned by, and you'd hear often about bored teens torturing cats for fun. even outside of that environment i still wouldn't feel comfortable risking it.

    around here you do get some rescues stating that some cats are required outdoor time but it's usually specific semi-feral or barn cats that are adopted out to rural homes with barns and not people in the city or suburbs.
     
    • Like x 2
  8. Morven

    Morven In darkness be the sound and light

    I'm dubious about those statements of how damaging cats are to the ecosystem -- in that the urban ecosystem is artificial anyway and tends to be short of predators since humans have a habit of killing them off. Yes, cats kill a lot of birds. But urban birds can be very high in numbers due to access to e.g. trash to eat.
     
  9. An Actual Bird

    An Actual Bird neverthelass, Brid persisted, ate third baggel

    Dunno about other countries, but it's a massive problem in Australia because our native animals don't have a lot of natural predators, certainly not ones as good at killing them as cats are. There's a good article here (cw for a cat eating a dead bird as the first image.)
     
    • Like x 2
  10. KingStarscream

    KingStarscream watch_dogs walking advertisement

    It depends on how 'urban' an ecosystem we're talking about. Downtown Tampa isn't going to have the same ecosystem as suburban Tampa, which isn't going to have the same ecosystem as the greater Hillsborough county-- but all (or none) of them could be counted in the data for cats vs local wildlife killings.

    I'm not sure how much of the 'original' ecosystem the UK has, but depending on which birds are invasive (and better at avoiding cats) that could also be a factor in the damage reports.
     
    • Like x 3
  11. Sol

    Sol needs a coffee

    @An Actual Bird ngl I snort laughed a little at your username in this context
     
    • Like x 3
  12. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    Time from "wtf is outdoors" to "I'M NEVER LEAVING THE OUTDOORS HOLY SHIT I LOVE IT": Five minutes. I had to carry him indoors after half an hour, and he's already begging for walkies.

    What even are cats.
     
    • Like x 1
  13. Codeless

    Codeless Cheshire Cat

    They exist to confuse us.
     
  14. albedo

    albedo metasperg

    CLEARLY.

    Next time I'm budgeting two hours. I was not prepared for Nugget to be that interested in the outdoors.
     
    • Like x 1
  15. keltka

    keltka the green and brown one

    As someone from Hawai'i it's...eurgh, complicated. A lot of my neighbors let their cats roam, mainly because we don't have winter/as many large predators around. But the thing is, that means the cats can go after all those cute little edible and HIGHLY ENDANGERED animals.
    My main argument against it would be the fact that we have a frankly fucking ridiculous amount of feral cats here, and there are maintained colonies pretty much EVERYWHERE, but it's Still An Issue.

    Basically like...there are already so many outside kitties, I wouldn't wanna risk it for mine. Especially if they ran into a cat that was better at fighting or a dog like one of my friend's ><

    EDIT: friend's dog is a cat killer—pet killer, actually, he's gone after birds too.
     
    Last edited: Jul 19, 2016
    • Like x 1
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