Feel free to unfollow me right now if you believe it’s okay to endanger your house cat or the local native fauna it absolutely will kill by allowing it outside unsupervised/off lead.
Outdoor cats have a lifespan of 2-5 years. Indoor cats regularly live 15+, even getting up to 20+ sometimes. Unsupervised indoor-outdoor cats often don’t make it past 5 and the ones that do are a very lucky exception. Why?
They get hit by cars. They get attacked by other animals (predators or other pets like dogs) including other cats. They eat things that are toxic to them. They get killed by other humans. They contract diseases like FIV and FelV.
Even if your cat DOES live longer than 5 years, cats that go outside are responsible for the deaths of billions of birds and other small fauna per year. There have been studies done on this. It’s not people pulling stuff out of their asses, it’s something scientists literally studied and reported results on. Don’t believe me? Google “do cats kill wildlife” and have a read. They’re on the IUCN’s list of worst invasive species and have contributed to the extinction of 60+ species, and they continue to cause a problem for other threatened species of small animals.
If you think it’s okay to expose your cat to these hazards and potentially cut its lifespan by more than half, if you think it’s okay to allow your cat to kill native fauna to indulge it’s “natural instincts” instead of, I don’t fucking know, playing with it with toys literally designed to allow it to safely indulge those instincts, then you have no business following me.
I’m not here to indulge your whimsy about how cats “need” to be outside unsupervised to be stimulated and lead a happy life- I can assure you, they don’t. There are p l e n t y of enrichment devices and structures people can buy or make to ensure that their cats lead happy, full lives indoors to the ripe old age they are supposed to lived to.
You also have the option of lead training your cat if you really believe they need to go out. This is something that proponents of “let cats go outside” ignore almost completely. They somehow believe that it’s all or nothing- either the cat lives 100% indoors without ever seeing sunlight OR it’s let outside without supervision where it can be injured, killed, or cause harm to the environment. Those aren’t the only choices. Cats adapt to leads very easily. They don’t like it the first couple of times, usually, but also usually when they figure out lead=outside, they get over it and the best of both worlds gets to happen- your cat remains safely under your supervision where it cannot come to or deliver harm, and it gets to go outside.
TL;DR Letting your house cat outside unsupervised is extremely dangerous both for your cat and the local wildlife and people arguing otherwise can see themselves out the door because I’m not about people endangering animals out of willful ignorance. You, along with every other pet owner out there, have a responsibility to protect your pets to the best of your abilities, and choosing not to do so in some misguided attempt to indulge their whims is poor animal husbandry. Any argument to the contrary is just an excuse to continue doing things which put animals in danger.
Your arguments sound very professional. Good for you being able to stay calm and argued your point so well.
Double on the unfollowing me if you have an outdoor cat.
Additionally if you do want your cat to go outside, you can buy “cat cage” installations and have them span your yard! It looks like this (pictures of our backyard):
We have this span your 4x6 meter backyard and is attached to the house directly. This enables the cats to go outside when they want without going off your property. And it’s nice to sit with them!
Here they call this a “catio” and it’s becoming more popular as a way to allow your cats outside time without having to directly supervise them, and they are GREAT.
Here’s one not attached to the house:
Here’s some from the outside view:
There are smaller versions too!
Catios and outside cat runs/perches are a fantastic way to give your feline access to the outdoors while still keeping them safe.
Serious question, because I agree with all of this but we have a naughty cat.
If our cat slips out when we open the door, and we can’t catch her, what should we do? We live in a place with a LOT of wildlife. She normally comes back in within an hour (she gets mad at us for “letting her outside”) but obviously we don’t want that to some day not be the case, and we want her to stop bringing us presents. Because gross and also not good for the environment/ecosystem.
Do we lead-train her and let her go outside and then she won’t get very far? Part of the reason she goes outside is to eat grass, so should we just buy some cat grasses and have them inside? We’ve thought about that but the grass isn’t always the only reason she’s outside, so we’re worried that she’ll keep getting out anyway and then that defeats the purpose of buying cat grasses.
Do we just not stimulate her enough inside? Like, seriously, what do we do about this cat?
For this, it sounds like she’d likely lead train fairly well. If she’s only gone for a short while, she probably just wants a little bit of outside time and she’d be fine. The thing about lead training isn’t that you just pop it on and let them out, you do need to stay with them while they’re out to ensure they don’t get tangled in anything or escape the lead. May I also recommend this person’s cat jackets for a harness? They are comfortable and fairly escape proof.
As for the “gifts” you may want to look into some additional toys for her that can satisfy her desire for that particular behavior. Stick and string toys and laser pointers are good for this, but a lot of people don’t reward their cats for a solid catch, which is fine, but if your cat is looking to chase and catch a thing she can eat, it may help to give her a treat at the end of playtime. This encourages play behaviors with you over going outside to do it.
As for the cat grasses, you can actually make her a little grass mat!
All it takes is a large litterbox (or if you want to do bigger, go to a hardware store and look for the cement mixing section, and they sell rectangular black tubs there- that’s what the first two tubs are at least), some clean dirt, and some grass seed without fertilizer in it (or if you can’t find that, you can plant cat grass from a pet store in the middle, it will spread but not as fast).
Again, any one of these on their own likely won’t completely solve the issue, but between the three, you may see a decrease in escapist behaviors.
As long as we’re here, @crabcakedraws asked what I say to people in apartments whose cats scream and destroy things demanding to be let out, and first you should go have a talk with @pangur-and-grim about Grim’s behavior around go-outside time. My own advice is to take the time and effort to train your cat to go outside on a lead with you. If you think that’s too much trouble and you’d rather just expose your cat to the risk of illnesses, injuries, or potential death by opening the door and just letting them out, I definitely can’t stop you. But that doesn’t make it right or good.
Think of it this way. Children, actual human children, throw tantrums when they’re not allowed to do whatever they want; does that mean parents should allow kids to do whatever they want all the time? Absolutely not, and you’d be appalled at any parent that said they did so. Even if a child screams and cries, even if they throw things or hit you, you’re still the parent. It’s still your responsibilityto make sure that they are receiving the correct/best care you’re capable of providing. Don’t want to do that/think that’s too hard? I have news for you: you may have chosen the wrong pet.
I’m going to keep adding to this because I have been getting questions.
Stray/Feral cats that do not belong to anyone are not what we’re discussing here. If you are managing strays or ferals that don’t belong to you but that in your location, that’s a different situation than someone who buys/adopts a cat and then releases it outside either permanently or off and on. The best course of action for managing ferals is to get them fixed (low cost spay/neuter places are GREAT for this! We got some feral cats at my college fixed for like $30/per) and make sure you give them what protection you can from diseases (for example, offering them wet food with a liquid wormer in it a couple of times a year). You can also affix reflective cat collars to them with bells- this will make them more visible to cars, and the bell can reduce their kill success by up to 30% (which, if you or others are feeding them is a good thing for local small fauna). If you aren’t sure a cat is a stray or an indoor/outdoor cat, buy a reflective collar and a tag with your # on it (costs like $10 total for both in a lot of places)- I can almost guarantee that you’ll get a call soon if the cat has an owner.
I’ve also talked some about enrichment, but we’re gonna talk some more, since it seems like people aren’t sure what counts for indoor cats. SO, let’s start with toys.
Wand toys (stick and string) are great for interactive play with your cat. They look like this:
They stimulate your cat’s drive to chase moving, fluttering objects and allow you to provide that live “kick” response when they pounce on it, because you can pull the string. They’re widely available but easy to make yourself- Here is a tutorial on making them yourself for cheap!
Laser pointers provide the same entertainment with a different sort of allure. Laser pointers are better for if you have a cat that likes to run a lot- you can easily send the dot far from you! They’re like $3.
You can purchase any number of chase toys that you can throw for your cat, in all sorts of shapes and sizes from mice to birds to random shapes. Many of them come with catnip in them. Some of them have noise makers so they shriek like the wildlife your cat is not killing outside. Some of them rattle. Some of them crinkle (in fact, you can get neat foil balls to throw that are shiny and crinkle). Some of them are spongy. There are so many options and cats LOVE them!
Kick toys are another great thing! Kick toys are usually bigger than throw toys and somewhat oblong, like a fish. In fact, many of the toys are shaped like fish! But there are also other kinds- I’ve seen rainbows and cigars and just big thin rectangles and bananas and a lot of others). These toys help satisfy your cat’s fighting/gutting instinct. If they were to indeed catch a big fish, they would be able to grasp it in their front paws and kick with their back legs to disembowel it. The same goes for other animals your cat might find itself in a fight with, including other cats. If your cat likes to tussle, this might just be the toy for them!
Circular ball toys are good fun for containing the small fast object your cat wants to chase (so they don’t lose it under the couch or something.
If you want to spend a little more for an active cat, you can look into getting them an exercise wheel! Many cats, when they figure out what it does, will thoroughly enjoy running on these things (and the videos on youtube are GREAT, if you want a good time go type in “Cat exercise wheel”). The first photo is the original wheel, but there are others out there now too.
If you want to take your cat outside but don’t want to lead train them or build a whole catio, there are other options like cat tents!
Indoors, cat tunnels are totally a thing and cats love them, especially soft ones.
You can also buy window perches that just suction cup to windows and don’t cause any damage to walls (good for apartments!) and they come in a variety of styles!
You can get your cat an autogroomer device, they come in several different styles:
This allows the cat to receive grooming from a source outside of themselves when you aren’t around.
You can purchase a see-through window feeder for birds, and place it somewhere that your cat will be able to see, so they will have something to watch while you’re not playing.
In addition to toys and activity devices like the above, you can give your cat enrichment during feeding and watering times as well. Waterers that have moving water are preferred by many, many cats:
And puzzle feeders can both provide enrichment and slow down cats so they don’t gobble all their food quickly (which often results in an upset tummy… I have heard a lot of stories of folks whose cats eat a bunch and then immediately puke it up whole… puzzle feeders help alleviate that! And they can be DIY for extremely cheap!)
(this one has toys in it, but you can put food in it too)
Anyway, there’s no reason your house cat HAS to go outside unsupervised or uncontained, and there are P L E N T Y of ways to vastly enrich an indoor cat’s life experiences while under your care.
I literally live in the woods. There is no shortage of wildlife. No species in my area are endangered or threatened.
Cars however, are an issue. A small tabby nearly died. Most cats are good at avoiding cars though. Whether a cat should go outside depends on that cat’s ability to survive its environment and the ability of the environment to survive the cat. There is no one size fits all approach here.
Okay. Let me explain something from a big-picture ecological perspective as someone who has done a lot of species surveying and habitat restoration and who also lives in the woods.
You are falling prey to the shifting baseline problem, which essentially means that your idea of a “normal” amount of wildlife for your area is going to be very different from what was normal 100 years ago, 200 years ago, etc. And the more we move the baseline of what’s normal, the more we lose sight of what an ecosystem was like before we went in and damaged it. We shouldn’t be looking at wildlife populations as they are now and considering them the standard to strive for, because these are populations that are struggling a lot more than you think.
What you consider “a lot of birds” is almost certainly lower than what “a lot of birds” was in the same place a century ago. Sure, maybe your LOCAL ecosystem hasn’t seen what you see as a significant drop in wildlife population. However, just because a species hasn’t been marked as endangered or threatened by a government entity (which, by the way, tend to be woefully behind the reality of things because bureaucracy and lobbyists) doesn’t mean it isn’t in decline. In fact, a large portion of bird species worldwide are in decline, even ones considered common.
This is due to a combination of a whole bunch of factors ranging from drastic habitat loss to pollution to, yes, predation by invasive species like cats. You can’t single out any one of these as THE reason; it’s the fact that they’re acting like a one-two (three-four-five-six-etc) combo punch that’s making it so damned hard for wildlife to adapt to the many ways in which humans have fucked things up so badly. It’s like when you get your rent raised by 40% and your car dies and you lose a third of your hours at work and your significant other loses their job entirely and ends up with a chronic medical diagnosis that’s going to need expensive medication for the long term, and all this happens in one week and guess what? Next week’s going to just be worse!
Your local birds are parts of more widespread species whose genetic diversity is shrinking due to individual populations going locally extinct. And yes, that’s very important, because the rate of species extinction and endangerment has risen in the past 100 years and it’s only going faster. Which means that MORE species are going to edge toward endangerment, including ones you think are okay, ESPECIALLY as climate change hits us harder and makes it exponentially more difficult for all species to adapt to rapid changes in their environment.
So we NEED to treat our local wildlife as though they are precious, irreplaceable reservoirs of biodiversity and genetic resources, because that is exactly what they are. And the more people are “fuck, I don’t care” about the effects on their local population of a given species, the more likely it is that that species is going to experience greater fragmentation as more and more pockets of individuals go locally extinct and the remaining animals are more isolated from each other. Maybe it’s not obvious now, but it will be, and we have the power to do something about it BEFORE it becomes a problem.
So look past your own woods, and pay attention to the overall pattern that we’re ALL a part of. You and your cat aren’t isolated, and neither are your wildlife.
All of my cats in my entire lifetime have been indoor-outdoor cats. All of them have lived past 10 years. One of them even reached 19 years. He’d go off for days at a time and come back perfectly fine. I understand where people are coming from but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with it.
Another note, humans have killed more than cats have and we still let them outside. Maybe before you go blaming cats for killing other animals, go and take a look at your own species.
I. Did. Do. That. Read this again:
“This is due to a combination of a whole bunch of factors ranging from drastic habitat loss to pollution to, yes, predation by invasive species like cats. You can’t single out any one of these as THE reason; it’s the fact that they’re acting like a one-two (three-four-five-six-etc) combo punch that’s making it so damned hard for wildlife to adapt to the many ways in which humans have fucked things up so badly.”
Cats are our fault. WE domesticated them. WE put them in ecosystems they weren’t native to. And WE’RE the ones perpetuating the problem by giving outdoor cats a pass.
With Easter fast approaching with its spiked rabbit sales and subsequent spiked rabbit abandonment rates, I thought I’d use my powers for good by spreading some information I think everyone should know before they get their first bunny. I usually don’t want people reposting my art, but feel free to spread this one around! Reblogs are very, very appreciated. If you want more information about pet rabbits, you can for example check out rabbit.org. And remember: Adopt, don’t shop!
Bitches be like “skip the straw, save the turtles” or whatever other trendy environmental movement, but still insist on having an outdoor cat
Blaming basic bitches yet again for the problems that billionaires cause
Erin please. I’m saying that straws are a scapegoat for a bigger problem yet these “basic bitches” solely focus on them to the point of harassment and ableism while actively doing something much more directly harmful. It’s not billionaires’ fault that Becky across the street lets her cat outside. I hate billionaires as much as the next person but letting your cat outside is a matter of personal responsibility.
I once had a neighbor who was thoroughly convinced their indoor/outdoor cat never strayed further than a couple houses around. As proof, she put a GPS tracker and little camera on her cat. 24 hours later she had the proof she didn’t want. Her cat went as far as a mile away, into the nearby woods where their were coyotes and other predators that would a snack of her cat. Her cat crossed the interstate several times, went to a construction site, and various other places that had me surprised her cat was still alive.
The following week was full of them building a catio and enriching their home. The cat became an indoor cat and chilled out very happily in the catio. They spent the summer harness and leash training their cat as well.
Oh, and the cat killed over a dozen birds and didn’t eat any of them in the single day my owner tracked them with the camera and GPS. They had been going out daily for over a year. Imagine a cat killing 12 birds a day, everyday, for just a year. That devastates the local bird population and leads to the extinction of entire species.
Enrich your home, install a catio, get a few cat trees/towers, play with your cat, and they’ll live long healthy lives. No worries about some random person killing them with poison or shooting them, no worries about them getting hit by a car, no worries about destroying the local ecosystem. My cats are 17 and 15 years old, 100% indoors their entire lives, and they’re happy.
Oh and since avian flu aka bird flu is spreading, please remember that it kills animals that eat the contaminated meat. That means if a cat kills an infected bird and eats it, they will get sick and die.
When you go on Facebook and one of your mutuals is disputing a screenshot of one of your tumblr mutuals what is going on my worlds are mixing
That Jack Lindon person has clearly never been around cats in a country house. A dozen birds seems pretty lame to me after what I’ve seen. Anyway, fixating on the number of kills instead of the cold hard fact that cars and highways and predators are a thi g that exist is peak pigheadedness. Co grats to Lindon’s perseverance on being wrong.
That and your cat misses the chance to wipe out native species from local ecosystems.
I lived like in bumfuck no where and people not practicing safe hunting is what killed my cats, and my daddy pulled the code violations up for me so I at least knew I was supposed to be living in wildlife respecting land. He also told me which neighbors were probably breaking the law that killed animals and told me to go knock and ask if my cat was in their traps—traps are supposed to be checked frequent enough nothing dies in them… but I was so scared of people who just let animals die and rot for nothing that tweeny me wasn’t gonna go knock on gun owing safety neglecting homes.
Add to that I knew a bunch of boys that literally practiced taking out birds with one slinged stone and I just become kind indifferent. Like “cats kill birds”? Well I know humans and human children do the same shit when you send them out to make their own fun in the middle of no where.
That’s also bumfuck no where that doesn’t really get WiFi without a satellite subscription for at least $400-$600 USD a month depending on the provider.
FIRST OFF NO. YOU CAN LEASH TRAIN A CAT AND BUY VARIOUS TOYS, INCLUDING ELECTRONIC ONES THAT ACTUALLY FUCKING MOVE FOR ENRICHMENT AND YOU CAN EVEN TRY THIS FUN CONCEPT CALLED ACTUALLY PLAYING WITH YOUR GOD DAMN CAT! SECOND: FOR THOSE DISABLED OR UNWILLING TO WATCH THE VIDEO.
Highlights include:
The average cat can birth up to twelve kittens a year.
The kittens are born feral which means there are at least seventy million (70,000,000) feral cats as of that Adam Ruins Everything Segment.
For every cat inside there is one outside.
Outdoor cats suffer from more pain and harm compared to an indoor cat which includes disease; attacks from dogs, coyotes, hawks, other cats, humans, and even being hit by cars
Outdoor cats live much, much shorter life spans than their house kept counterparts. Indoor cats can live up to fifteen (15) years versus an outdoor cat who tends to live up FIVE (5).
OUTDOOR CATS ARE AN INVASIVE SPECIES TO THE ENVIRONMENT AND DO NOT BELONG OUTDOORS. PERIOD END OF FUCKING STATEMENT.
REGARDLESS OF IF THEY ARE HUNGRY OR NOT, OUTDOOR CATS WILL KILL BIRDS FOR FUN! A CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATE IS THAT FERAL CATS HAVE KILLED OVER 1.3 BILLION BIRDS AND HAVE DRIVEN AT LEAST TWENTY (20) SPECIES OF BIRD EXTINCT IF NOT MORE. EXTINCT SPECIES INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING: Chatham Bellbird- EXTINCT 1906, Lyall’s Wren- EXTINCT 1895, Bushwrens- EXTINCT 1972, Laughing Owls- EXTINCT 1914, and the Chatham Fern Bird- EXTINCT 1905 BIRDS SUCH AS THE NOW EXTINCT ABOVE HELP POLLINATE AND SPREAD SEEDS HENCH WHY THEY ARE AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ECOSYSTEM!! CATS ARE NOT PART OF THIS ECOSYSTEM! THEY! ARE! AN! INVASIVE! SPECIES! THAT FUCKING KILLS NATIVE ONES!
While groups such as Hannah Shaw (TheKittenLady) and the Orphan Kitten Club promote Trap, Neuter, and Return (TNR) for adult feral cats and even go as far as helping domesticate any feral kittens she comes across, it still doesn’t help the problem of CATS BEING AN INVASIVE SPECIES TO A LOCATION AND MURDERING ENTIRE SPECIES OF BIRDS.
honestly, as someone who’s cared for a LOT of cats, indoor cats are very often unwittingly maltreated, bored, and low key traumatised from too little space and insufficient nutrition. I wouldn’t tell anyone NOT to keep an indoor cat, but I would honestly suggest you research the other side of the fence and it’s benefits. Trapping a cat inside because you’re scared of it being hurt is very selfish, they deserve to live full and free lives
I’m sorry, but you’re wrong - and please be aware, you’re following a blog with indoor cats.
though cats are less work than dogs, they still require WORK. like maintaining a mentally stimulating environment with proper nutrition (not sure why not eating local wildlife = malnourishment?)
I think the root of the problem is that your language (”trapping”, “free lives”) is anthropomorphic. which is compassionate, but PLEASE understand that a genuine understanding of their needs will benefit cats more than blind compassion.
rather than go on & on, I’ll link to ppl more eloquent than me with helpful studies, as well as rare instances where outdoors cats are alright:
I would like to show the many examples of the traumatic life my non free roaming cat faces.
Here she is suffering in her own personal sandbox filled with toys.
Here is in one of her four horrible, cruel harnesses.
Here she on a weekend getaway to Cape May. This is an awful place called Higbee Beach. It was very hard for her having to be on a leash, She was very upset, as you can see here.
Here she is sunbathing on a rock overlooking a bay. Cats hate sunbathing!
We also have tortured her by keeping her safe while hiking in a state park.
Lastly, here she is tied to her stroller on a Sherpa blanket in a 3 layer sweater hand made sweater.
I would like to apologize. I see the traumatized life my indoor cat is living. She has very little space, her cat food only costs me $3 a can, and shes clearly dying of boredom. Please someone save her from this agony. My selfishness will be the end of both of us!!!!!
I get so fucking frustrating reading posts like these.
Say what you want but I think that depriving cats of their natural environment is he same thing as letting them out and having a hunting problem. Except you can easily solve the hunting problem by sticking a bell on the cat, or letting it have supervised outside time. If you’re worried about your cat running away from you, then, spoiler alert, you aren’t a good cat owner. Another pro is that having your cats acclimated to your neighborhood prevents them from getting lost if they do get out. I hate this ‘issue’ and I hate people on both sides who seem to exist only to call their opposition terrible people. The comments on this post are just full of people willfully ignoring the other sides points and calling them names and generally being assholes. There are valid points on both sides, and context is so important. If you live in the middle of a city, yeah, leaving your cat outside is irresponsible and dangerous. But if you live in the countryside without busy roads and have a cat that works to catch mice and other pests, then let them do that. There are so many subtleties to this debate and I’m so tired of all the people straw manning the other party.
There are no “subtleties” in this issue. You don’t say there are “subtleties” to letting a small child run around outside without supervision, or leaving a short haired dog outside in the snow with no shelter, or letting your dog terrorize and eat your neighbor’s chickens, or other forms of neglect and poor animal husbandry. Bells do NOTHING to inhibit a cat’s ability to hunt. They are capable of hunting even with a bell. The country still has dangers to cats. I see more roadkill cats in the countryside than in the city, and you have more predators that will eat cats, and there are still free roaming cats and dogs that will maim your animals. I see SO many outdoor cats whose owners live in the country come into the vet clinic with swollen faces and broken bones and respiratory disease and oozing wounds. The vast majority of emergency cat cases that require intense care and oftentimes EUTHANASIA are country cats. Stop trying to see “both sides” of a topic about objectively shitty animal care that is backed by science and statistics
Cats were bred not necessarily domesticated to be pets, for most of history, they have been used to hunt pests and be working animals. I have seen so many statistics for both sides of this issue, and I am so tired of arguing about it. There are ways to supervise your cats time outside and I have known so many cats in my (small, relatively secluded) neighborhood and I have never, not once seen a cat killed by any means that you have mentioned. My cats are indoor and outdoor animals and I am honestly very offended by the notion that I do not love or spend time enriching my cats lives just because I let them out. My cats enjoy going out. They follow me on walks and stay clear of roads and only ever hunt mice. They also love being inside, played with them cuddled and pampered. There are environments where cats cat thrive outdoors. There are also environments where it is dangerous.
Also please stop comparing cats to other animals and especially small human children. Cats posses countless evolutionary instincts and advantages that human children do not possess and it is a completely different matter. But on that note, children are capable of playing outside without getting harmed? I was always going in the woods when I was a relatively young child. I was perfectly safe and immensely enjoyed those experiences.
Cats have the reasoning power of a *toddler*. This is an animal that will not use a litterbox to pee in of it has a uti because it begins to associate the box with the pain as in “box makes me hurt.” they are not creatures with large abilities to reason or find the true correlations between things. cats happily munch on toxic plants all the time. They get eaten by neighbor dogs all the time. They get run over all the time and every cat that was run over was “smart enough to avoid cars” until that one time it got turned into hamburger.
If your cat is ever out of your direct supervision while uncontained outside you cannot claim that they never go in the street. You cannot claim that they only eat mice and never lizards or birds.
Congrats that you’ve not seen any of this. I’ve never seen anyone die in a car crash, therefore car crashes and driving safely aren’t important because they don’t happen and can’t possibly happen to me or anyone I know.
If you want your cats to spend time outside, build a catio or leash train them. Then everyone is safe.
My cats bring home everything they catch and are never far from the house, so it stands to reason that they only catch mice because they have never brought anything else. I am outside a lot, I observe my cats, very rarely do they approach the road (one doesn’t go near it at all) the vast majority of their time is spent lounging in the sun. Your logic of car crashes does not really apply, it moreover just proves my point that some places are safer than others. Car crashes are less common than cats getting hit. Also as a vet tech, have ever considered that maybe you see injured outdoor cats very often is because… that’s why you bring them to the vet.
I am all for keeping cats inside, I don’t really approve (in most cases) of leaving cats outside unsupervised 24/7 but my cats without fail come when called, and it never takes them more than a minute or two. Most of the time when I look outside I can see them perfectly.
Also, I am not trying to say that cats are by any means smarter than human children. They simply possess instincts and abilities that human children do not, because they are animals that have survived and evolved that way, whereas human babies live much more sheltered lives.
Also would like to note that a fair amount of people do not get cats because they want a cuddly lovable pet, they get a cat for pest control
Working animals don’t get to do whatever they want either. Terriers were bred to hunt small animals, that doesn’t mean its ok for them to run around mauling whatever they please. Working animals still need human supervision! Working animals stay in a specific space where they work. What kind of dumbass are you to think that being a “working animal” means just leaving it to its own devices? Not to mention cats were not purposefully bred to be pest control, they were animals that liked to hang around people because there was food and ended up somesticating themselves. But even so, cats make shit pest control. This is documented and studied. The harm they do to native species outweighs their rodent control.
And, dude, I’m sorry but “they have evolutionary instincts” is one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard. There is no evolutionary instinct to look both ways before crossing the road. Theres also no evolutionary instinct to not fight other cats because they do that ALL THE TIME. Or one to know when a mouse they’ve hunted has ingested rat poison and therefore ingested it themselves. And also, sheep have evolutionary advantages to avoid predators, that doesn’t mean I’m going to let a wolf in sheep pasture.
And also, you have NO IDEA that your cats bring you everything they catch. You have NO basis to say that. Cats don’t bring home everything they hunt. Sometimes they eat it themselves or just leave a headless body where they killed it. Cats kill a LOT of animals because they hunt for sport. It baffles me that you guys claim to know whatever your cat does outside when it’s not where you can see it. You’re like weirdo parents that claim to know everything about their kids and there are no secrets. You don’t. It’s dumb as hell to claim so.
I still have yet to see an even slightly reasonable argument from outdoor cat defenders. Everything is just the most wackadoodle shit that’s just reaching for a justification and ignores everything we know about animal care and treats cats like some magical exception. Every outdoor cat owner thinks their cat is so special. When your cat gets hurt or sick or killed because of something that happened while it was outdoors you will have NO RIGHT to be upset because people warned you and you didn’t listen but instead created a fantasy full of excuses. Don’t you dare cry. You willfully chose those risks when you didn’t have to
Saw this on a local missing cat page. Imagine having two cats killed by cars in the span of a few months and still letting the remaining cat free roam. This is just pure negligence
I know that often the blocks of text concerning outdoor cats can be a bit mind-numbing, so I made this. feel free to use it :)
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A picture with two cats, one wild and one domesticated, with the following text:
Spot the difference? To kill a bird, there isn’t one.
Every year, outdoor cats kill between 1.3-4 billion birds. Be a part of the solution.
By keeping your cat indoors and spraying and neutering, you save lives.
[[ End of transcription ]]
Would it be ok if I got a yard sign of this made or something? We’ve been trying to find something that works for a yard sign format for ages to try to convince our neighbors to bring their cats inside.
That would be awesome! You’re welcome to do that, print it out, repost it, whatever you want.
Also reminder that they kill more than just birds. Lizards, frogs, insects, etc. are all targets.
Sorry to drag up the topic of outdoor cats again, but this is a pretty good example of the attitudes to outdoor cats in the UK. People either refuse to believe that cats do any harm to wildlife, don’t care or even think it’s a good thing, claim any kind of criticism of outdoor cats is just lies made up by cat haters, or use whataboutism to ignore the issue.
Are there other issues affecting wild animal declines beyond cats? Of course, but that doesn’t mean cats aren’t a big factor, or that the issue of outdoor cats can be ignored just because some things are worse. The cat issue is so easy to solve if people would just keep their cats indoors. Besides which, the issue IS a human caused one. We are responsible for bringing cats here and letting them decimate wildlife. No one is saying cats are bad for killing wildlife, they’re saying cat owners are bad for letting their pets roam free. Even if a cat isn’t killing much/any wildlife, just the presence of outdoor cats in the area can affect the breeding success of many bird species. Cats also spread diseases like toxoplasmosis to wildlife.
I honestly don’t know what the answer is. The UK is classed as one of the most nature deprived countries in the world, and while cats are far from the only issue, they still play an important role in the loss of wildlife. Most cat owners in the UK just don’t want to listen to the facts and refuse to keep their cats indoors (around 90% of cats free roam in the UK). Many vets and popular animal welfare charities support and encourage outdoor cats. Most shelters wont even let you adopt a cat if you want to keep them indoors. It’s so ingrained in the culture, and I can’t see that changing anytime soon, sadly.
Not to bring up the same argument that I feel like I constantly have, but I genuinely cannot understand how someone who cares for an animal is just ok with them roaming around outside unsupervised. I really can’t understand it. I live in one of those areas that people like to say is magically ok for cats to free roam because it’s pretty rural and I still see dead cats on the road or super sick/injured cats found outside and brought to my work all the time. And I just. I love my cats so much I can’t even imagine just leaving them outside without any protection or supervision and justifying it as “enrichment” when catios and leashes etc are so easily accessible. Just the fact that it’s just accepted that your pet could just die traumatically outside somewhere and you might never know what happened is so insane to me.
And if I decided to do this with my dog or ferrets or literally anything other than a cat, I would be cited by animal control. Not to mention the backlash I’d face for doing something so stupid and reckless. But if I just let my cat outside? No one would bat an eye. I genuinely cannot understand how you can own and care for a pet and just be ok with knowing that they could just be hit by a car or eaten by a predator or poisoned or whatever and that’s just a normal part of owning said pet.
And because someone will inevitably jump in with their own unwanted opinions on their “outdoor cat that lived to be 25 years old” or whatever, I can guarantee my sample size is much bigger than yours. I really don’t care about a random person’s anecdote about their childhood cat or whatever. This is my job. I see these animals all the time and one person with a cat that didn’t happen to die a traumatic death doesn’t erase the dozens of others that I have to see that are super sick, injured, or dying. For real though, shout out to the people that pick up these super sick outdoor cats and pay out of their own pockets so they can do their best to make them comfortable, even if that means euthanasia. And screw the people that let them outside in the first place. Although to be fair, the overwhelming majority of outdoor cats I see are for sick exams or injuries so it’s not like I even get to see that many that are old and healthy and in for just a wellness exam anyway.
