Cats
I don't have cats myself but our street is 'cat city'. Almost every house has a cat and they all have cat flaps and wander free. Some are very exotic breeds and come and 'talk' to me when I don't have the dogs with me. It's a very quiet cul-de-sac where kids play so no danger from cars.
I was interested to read this on another thread.
As far as I know I indoor cats are not a thing in the UK.
What do others think?
What about Germany? My son lives there and is about to get two kittens.
I was interested to read this on another thread.
Cheery Gardener wrote: »@Boogie we've kept our cats in at night for over 20 years to try and help the wildlife a little bit, however when we moved to a new home with direct access to native creatures on tap, I decided that wouldn't be good enough. I'd not seen them catch anything at the previous house, but know studies of cats indicate they have a wide range of travel and they hunt even when you never see them do it. Many new suburbs are designated as cat containment areas, how successfully that's adhered to, I am not sure.
Cats were very cranky when first leashed and walked, I was hissed at each time for a couple of weeks. Now they know the door opening sound (screen door is kept closed as a secondary barrier), and rush to the door to be leashed (one wears a small dog harness) and know they will have their wander around the garden, a roll in the gravel, a good sniff of everything and then they are perfectly happy. I don't always achieve doing it daily, depending on weather and other commitments, but we make sure it happens several times a week. They have cat towers and scratching posts and have not rejected me as official chief cuddller, so I think I'm ok and so are they.
As far as I know I indoor cats are not a thing in the UK.
What do others think?
What about Germany? My son lives there and is about to get two kittens.
Comments
It's not just small mammals also lizards and birds too. We have a number of beautiful birds that come to our garden and I want to enjoy them for as long as possible. I know there are roaming cats in our area and I debate whether to get a council supplied trap or not, as we are not in a cat containment suburb. I do think there might be a more recent rule that allows old cats to continue to roam, but not younger cats, but I need to check that.
I know there are those in Oz who would like cats to be completely eliminated from our lives and environments. I do understand their perspective, but do think if they are provided for and managed properly, they can be a source of joy and companionship for many people. It is almost impossible to police people doing the right thing by the environment and their pets as well.
When we lived in London, we were three floors up and right next to a busy road. There is no way we could have let a cat outside, and it wouldn't have been possible to build a 'catio' where we were.
Thanks to the Mayhew Centre, dear Spikey came into our lives, 17 years old and deaf. Her previous owner had to go into a nursing home, so fortunately she had been well-loved and not mistreated. We had three happy years with her. Since she was older and reasonably placid, we were able to put a harness on her and take her to the park, for what we euphemistically called a walk. In reality she was mostly carried or sitting, but she did like to sniff around!
She became something of a fixture in a local cafe, where she liked to sit in the window and look out at the world. We would always sit at the front table so we could hold her lead and let her sit there. On one occasion we popped in and someone else was sitting at that table, so we started to move towards another table at the back. The owner immediately came over and asked the guy if he would move so the cat could have her place!
After Spikey, Cookie came into our lives thanks to a friend who was offered a council house and wasn't allowed to take the cat with her. Cookie had always been an indoor cat, so our flat wasn't a problem. When we moved to our present house, we've still kept her inside as there is a busy road in front of our house and no pavement.
However, we are about to move into my parents' old place, which has a small garden at the front and the back, and much less traffic on the road. There are already several cats living nearby (and yes, we know them by name!) So it may well be that eventually we let Cookie explore outside, once she's settled down.
which they promptly christened Lola when they found out.
Most of the cats locally, however, roam, which is something of a source of friction when I discover a freshly deposited turd whilst gardening. See also predating on our nestboxes (any cat trying that now has to deal with pyracantha trained over the lid to stop the bastards from sitting there waiting for a bird to emerge). On the other hand one of the arch-roamers has been seen to emerge from the bottom of our garden carrying a rat, so it's not all bad.
You wouldn't believe reading that that I am actually quite fond of moggies, would you? It's the turd landmine that I object to...
*my granny briefly had one, which she referred to as her "pussy parlour". We didn't enlighten her...
There are strategies you can use to reduce predation by a cat you also allow to go outside. I think there is a lot to be said for keeping your cat in overnight - it is also safer for them with respect to traffic.
But, the publication of the absolute numbers of prey the cat population kill a year is less informative than it might be. To take a random example, say cats currently kill 500,000 starling fledglings a year (hypothetical number I couldn’t find numbers by species). Imagine I wave a magic wand and they kill 0 next year - what do you think would happen ? Likewise if they suddenly stopped killing mice ? What percentage of the hatched fledglings is that number ? In countries without significant cat predation what percentage of similar species make it to adulthood.? If cats didn’t take them, would this simply result in other predators, weasels for example, filling the gap ?
We would almost certainly, within a year or so start talking about whether there needs to be a cull program or similar. A lot of the pressure on species in the uk is about habitat loss, and indoor cat culture can’t solve that.
Have you tried lion’s roar products ?
Basically, if a cat thinks a lion lives in your garden they’ll steer clear.
Lemon juice sprinkled round the flower beds works a treat to keep cats off. I use one with added potassium which is good for the plants.
How much Mochi goes out varies as she is quite timid and would prefer to accompany me in the daytime. But this spring she has been going out by herself more and occasionally goes out at night too. We live in a terrace with big gardens and she has plenty of room to explore out the back, the road in front of the house is not busy but she has little interest in going there as they are mostly paved drives. She has brought 4 birds into the house, luckily she does not kill them. Last week I rescued a robin in the kitchen. Once I sat down in my study one morning and 2 dunnocks started flying around my head. On the upside, there are no mice around.
There are numerous cats in our street and I’ve seen at least 6 in our garden recently. Our old neighbours had 2 outdoor cats but our new neighbours have a ragdoll cat which is kept inside; though we found it on our patio a few weeks ago and returned it to them, so it has obviously not got the memo. It was very docile and tried to get in our house.
He immediately started supplementing his expensive low-protein diet with high-protein birds and mice.
We reverted to his previous diet and he stopped hunting.
Our last cat, Elizabeth, was ten when she came to us and not particularly interested in going outside. She'd follow me out if I was hanging up washing etc, but generally, she was an indoor cat.
Like Doublethink, I think cats should be kept indoors overnight.
Our first cat was an indoor/outdoor cat; she was a stray or abandoned cat who “adopted” us when she was around 2 or 3. We let her go outside because she was so used to it. All of our cats since have been indoor only. That said, we do have a mesh backpack cats can ride in while we take a walk, and one cat in particular is amenable to a leash.
My mother fed out half a tonne of various types of birdseed every winter for 35 years and would not tolerate cats hunting her precious birds. We fed our barn cats but they knew their place, and never approached the house.
I read @Cheery Gardener and thought "what a lovely activity for them, and how considerate of the birds". Cats are cats, and they don't discriminate. Prey is prey, you can't blame them, but you can still reduce risk for local songbird and foraging bird populations.
AFF
A friend has an indoor cat who used to be a feral farm cat - so keeping him indoors is the only way to ensure he won't wander off (which he did once, for several days). He's pretty elderly now, so he doesn't seem to mind being inside all the time.
He wasn't an indoor Cat exactly, but the Church Of My Youth had an elderly organist, whose daughter had a number of mental health issues. The family owned a Cat, which the daughter would carry up the hill (their street was quite a steep one) before walking it down - on a lead...
The coat which she invariably wore when airing the Cat sported some magnificent tatters, caused by carrying the animal (quite a large one IIRC) under her arm.
Apparently, the poor girl (she was in her 40s by the time I knew her!) had had a Cat when she was much younger, and was greatly distressed when it was run over and killed in the street.
Our indoor cats have been perfectly happy, and likely healthier. Research shows that in the U.S., at least, the average lifespan for an outdoor cat is 2-5 years, much shorter than the average lifespan of an indoor cat. Traffic, toxins and predators (of which there are more than a few in my part of the world) are just some of the challenges that endanger cats outdoors. The one cat we did allow to go outside was the only cat we ever had to take to the vet because of a fight with another animal. A fight with a stray cat almost lost her an eye.
A competent cat-owner will make sure that an indoor-only cat has plenty of things to do, play with, safely climb on, etc. Thinking that it’s cruelty not to let a cat wander outside is confusing romantic ideas about wandering, carefree cats with what is actually better for the cat.
Cat distribution system works as intended.
AFF
A long time ago, my kitties were allowed inside and outside at will, except for night time when the cat door was locked. My mom had done that because she felt bad about keeping any animal, or pet bird caged or housebound. (Her parakeets had the freedom to fly through the house all day!) One of her cats was eaten by an alligator. One of mine died from snakebite; either rattlesnake or water moccasin.
I determined that I would always keep my cats indoors after that. Some were escape artists, however! But they always came running home when they got hungry.
My daughter has two Ragdolls who are pretty, indoor itties! But they only share one braincell between the two of them. If they would get outside, they would have no clue how to survive. Lots of gators and rattlers there, too.
eta: I suspect @Enoch has no gators or venomous snakes in their neighborhood, although I could be wrong.
Most foxes would give cats a wide berth, I think, and I'm not aware of any issues with birds of prey. Mostly, though, the UK has long since wiped out any predator likely to be a threat to cats, and we don't have the issues with rabies other places have, so the risk profile is rather different from the US.
I do agree the UK and US are very different - here cats generally do go out and it is usual for people to have non-indoor cats that make it into their teens. I think this is mostly a difference in wildlife.
But he will not sleep alone. When she goes away another friend stays over. The cat sleeps in the bed with her!
coyotes are almost ubiquitous.
Meanwhile, a coyote killed a dog not too far from us a month or so ago. There was also small dog attacked by an eagle not too long ago.
When I was living in a condo community in the middle of Charlotte NC, I remember seeing a neighbor's little yorkie on the awning covered upper terrace of her condo. The next minute, a red tailed hawk had just dived under the awning, snatched the poor little critter and flew away before anybody could get to it.
Same neighborhood, there were two large stocked communal ponds and our neighbors had a koi pond right on the edge of their ground floor terrace. One day there was a terrible kerfuffle from their terrace, and I saw a great blue heron flapping majestically away with three of their koi. That was like a $900 heron lunch.
This is the neighborhood I walked my cats on a harness, I wasn't taking any chances.
AFF
Really, if I left a cat to roam in this neighborhood, I wouldn't count on having it for more than a year, tops. And we're in an inner-ring metropolitan suburb.
Not that that it is much of a problem. Just like my prior cat, this one has Zero Interest in going outside. Just like my last cat, I can leave the door wide open and she will not even go near it. This is her house and she has made it quite clear that if anybody is leaving this house, it is me, not her.
One thing that has amused me has been the visiting of a yellow wattle bird to our garden. We also had one in the garden at our old house which delighted in taunting our poor old chunky black cat, Harry. Harry would sit on the front verandah and look out at the garden and this bloomin bird would perch on the verandah railing and just give him the firmest talking to ever. Harry was so placid and showed no interest in anything other than cuddles and food. We still miss him, he was such a good boy.
I think the reason that many are opposed to cat ownership in Australia is that they are an introduced species, and many of the species that have been introduced here have become real pests and managing them costs money and has varying degrees of success.
It's a cultural norm in the UK to let pet cats free-roam, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing. Preventing cats from free-roaming protects your cat, other cats, and wildlife. I have been a cat owner my whole life, and although I don't have a cat at the moment I fully intend on having my next cat as an indoor + catio cat.
No they aren't. At least, domestic cats aren't. See
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestication_of_the_cat - they were domesticated originally in the Near East and are descended from the African wildcat.
Our native wildcat species (Felis silvestris silvestris) is critically endangered as a result of interbreeding with domestic cats.
I do appreciate that cats give people a lot of pleasure as pets, but they are having a catastrophic effect on wildlife. Some urban areas in the UK have more than 200 cats per square mile - they don't need to be good at hunting to make life impossible for ground-feeding birds.
You question what the ecological effect of stopping pet cats from hunting would be. Well, first of all it would remove a distortion to the ecological balance. Usually, an increase in predators decreases the amount of prey available to individuals: some predators (the worst hunters) starve: the prey populations recover: rinse and repeat. This doesn't happen with domestic cats, because their owners feed them, so they can keep on killing prey until the prey have been wiped out.
Secondly, the populations of other small predators who also eat birds and rodents would recover. I haven't seen a weasel in years. Perhaps our native wildcats would finally get a chance to expand their range.
It was killed outright, perhaps fortunately, but I recall being quite distressed about it. I laid the body carefully on the grass verge, as I had no way of knowing which house the Cat had come from.
I have a good friend who keeps their cat indoors all the time and whilst that doesn't sit well with me, I understand the reasons for it.
I'd love a cat here but have hung fire on getting one for the sake of the birds. My next door neighbour's cat used to crunch the heads off baby blackbirds in front of their shrieking parents. What a bastard.
I was quite fond of him as he was a real character and very cheeky, but can't say I was too sorry when he went off to cat heaven at a ripe old age - or to cat hell perhaps for his vicious crimes.
I don't know many indoor cats here and the average lifespan seems to be well into their teens. I've known some very venerable cats.
I like cats a lot but there are loads of them round here already and I like the range of birds I get in my garden.
I do get mice and I don't like poisoning them or putting down traps so I need to find some way to deter the little devils without harming them. I know of devices that emit sound or light or some kind of mouse deterrent mojo but people who've used them tell me they don't work.
Any suggestions?
Quite possibly foxes and hawks, but a British fox is the same size as the average UK cat and hawks tend to go for pigeons of which we have a plentiful supply. I say this as foxes frequent my city centre housing estate and peregrines nest within half a mile.
Humane mouse traps have worked well for us. We quickly learned that you have to release them a considerable distance away, or they will be back. We found this out when I started to recognize the colouring of a particular mouse that must have reckoned the night in the trap was worth it for the free meal. Other deterrents (peppermint oil was one) seemed completely ineffective. We have garter snakes around here: I don't know if they discourage mice, but we never see them at the same time.
I once saw a sparrowhawk in my parents' garden tackle a very plump pigeon. So plump, in fact, that the hawk was unable to take off with it and had to eat its fill on the ground, leaving a bit of a mess as you might imagine.
I suppose part of it is that it can be very difficult to keep a cat inside, and if they are not used to being outside, accustomed to traffic etc you are worried because they are more at risk being both outside and not streetwise. Also, because a thousand documentaries about cats with behavioural problems seem to suggest a much higher risk of that with indoor cats.
In theory you can spend a lot of time playing with cats - but if you are at work/commuting 10 hours a day - getting up dressed washed prepping food doing chores another 1-2 hours a day and then asleep yourself 7-8 hours a day, that actually leaves 4-5 hrs a day if you have no other commitments, like partners, children, hobbies etc.
I can’t say I’ve ever encountered much difficulty keeping a cat inside.
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I will say that can certainly depend on the cat. I have a cat (named Trouble) who had a deep urge to go outside. He kept trying to get out and succeeded sometimes. (We have a household of 7 people, 3 of them children.)
So I got him a leash and I walk him for a few minutes each day. It isn't hard, probably sounds like more work than it is in fact since it means he doesn't need much indoor play from me. (He also has a brother to play with.) He just comes to me for snuggles. But he's not my first cat, just my first cat who asked to be outdoors, so I suspect he has more drive to go outdoors than normal.
We did have one cat who would occasionally try to slip out the back door. We could usually keep that from happening as long as we checked where he was before opening the door. Our other indoor cats have never tried to slip out.
That happens a fair bit in my neighbour's garden. It's what sparrow hawks do. They only fly off with sparrows, blackbirds and small birds.
Meanwhile, despite what everyone's said, I still can't imagine having a cat that lives indoors all the time. Does.not.compute.
I know, I know ...
But there it is.
Ut d
You could say the same thing about caring for any pet that has social needs (so, not reptiles/insects/arachnids/fish - but even they need caring for) - why get a pet if you're too busy to care for them? Surely your pet is part of your family? Nobody would suggest that it's unreasonable to expect dog owners to walk them every day.