Are your cats Indoor, Outdoor, or Both?

[redhen]

Trust me..my cats WANT to be indoors. lol
They pushed my window screen out a couple of times...
And when we found them..they ALWAYS wanted back IN the house.
One even went to my bedroom window and cried so i would hear him and let him back inside..
Little wimps...

But they arent stupid. They dont want to be eaten by the coyotes... They know they are safer IN the house.

 

[Louieandthecrew]

I have 4 cats... Three at my moms and one at my dads. The one at my dads is both and my moms are all outdoors

 

[sunflowerenvy]

right now i have 6 cats. the 4 n/males cat have no interesting to go. 2s/female go in n out one hang around me while outside so so go in an out with me but stay out for about two hours in afternoon. the other female cat go out about 4 hours a day but runs to the house if a strange dogs walk by. we have 3 dogs they are mostly inside during the summer anything above 80 and winter below 40 they are out about 6hours total two hours in morning 1 hour mid morning 1/2 hour around 4 6to8 outside if not raining in a pen .
laura

 

[Campine Lover]

I said give them a chance to get away, it doesn't always work. But that is how predators have kept down populations for milenia.

 

[redhen]

Quote:
Not true here...
As i said..my ex-neighbor used to have a bunch of cats outside.. (until i started getting rid of them for her..)
We used to see hawks circling them... and also foxes chasing them through MY yard a few times... (that was horriable to see)
Poor things... what a way to die. ugh...

 

[Campine Lover]

No foxes around here (Thank God! We DO, however, have coons.

They dont bother the cats, though) I guess it depends on how hungry the hawks are.

 

[AngieChick]

Quote:
There is a difference between keeping populations down and what is happening to our nation's songbird population - in which cats are playing a role. The real problem is that they are not native here, they are a recent addition. If they were native, the birds would have developed a wariness to them and probably a resistence to the bacteria carried in the cat's saliva. It would be a bit like plunking a wild tiger in your house with you.

 

[Campine Lover]

My cats have yet to catch songbirds in my 12 years of keeping the cats (yes, the SAME ones) indoor/outdoor. They mainly catch mice, gophers, rats, and our HUGE over populations of annoying fat brown birds that sound like something dying when they cheep.

 

[justbugged]

Mine are all feral rescues, that are altered and have their shots. They have access to the house via a dog door. They are not real happy with the Yorkie puppies that live in the house right now. But as winter comes again they will spend more time indoors with us. In the mean time they are keeping down the population of rodents, and that works for me. My parents have a shelter cat that they keep indoors because he wants to beat up all the neighbors cats. He is 20 lbs of bullying tom cat with an serious dose of cattitude. So my mother keeps him inside, and only allows him out side on a leash. Baraid spends a lot of time looking out the windows longingly to be able to go and kill some birds and beat up the neighbors cats. I am looking forward to visiting them with one or two of my Yorkies to see what he makes of that. lol

 

[Mama C]

Many years ago when we lived in the city we adopted an old tomcat that was found on the streets downtown. He was incredibly affectionate. He loved me carrying him around like a baby, but man - he was tough! I've never seen a cat with skin so thick. More than one needle was bent trying to vaccinate that cat over the years.

He hated – HATED – to be indoors. That cat would YOWL and claw the door if you had him inside more than half an hour. All the tenants in our building (including us) went away one holiday weekend so we decided to set him up in our bathroom to keep him safe – or we thought. We came home to him on the front porch of the apartment building giving us the “Where were you?” look. He squeezed through the 2-3 inches we had cracked the bathroom window, shredded the screen and jumped the 2 stories straight down to the parking lot. When I say the cat would risk dying before he would stay inside I am not exaggerating.

When it got really cold his first winter with us we tried to bring him in at night. We soundproofed the hall and bathroom (the most isolated areas of our apartment) as best we could, but he howled for HOURS – even with us holding him - until we let him back out.
So we decided to call the local shelter to ask if they could give us any suggestions – beyond what we had already thought of - on keeping him comfortable and warm outside. After explaining the entire situation in detail the girl who answered told us quite snottily that if we loved our cat we would keep him inside. So much for helping people.

We set him up with an insulated feral cat house that, of course, he refused to use. He stayed outside that winter, just as he had for all of his previous winters. It was safer than having him jump out another window or being forced to turn him in to the shelter for causing a disturbance.

We moved to the country a few months later. He lived out the rest of his life a very happy outdoor cat.

Our current boys are exclusively outdoors because that is what makes them happiest and we live in an area where this isn’t a problem, but our previous three were indoor/outdoor. If someone lives on a busy street or has neighbors who don’t appreciate visits from other people’s pets they might not have a choice, despite what makes the animal happy. We feel lucky that we can provide our pets with an option.