Nope! Just decided to be a disappearing asshole for 36 hours and come back like nothing happened.
edit: thanks to all for the different perspectives. he is fixed, has all of his shots, and has his own temperature contolled kitty condo (aka the laundry room) that we put him into every night. we have a pretty good network of neighbors and pieced together his activities via security cameras. he’s a mouser for sure and that is his job until he decides to retire.
I’m glad the fool is ok.
But if you allow the cat outside, don’t. Free-roaming cats, statistically, will die somewhere out there, and live a much shorter life.
Cats are also an invasive species basically everywhere. A cat outdoors, off a leash, is a danger to itself and everything around it.
Transitioning an outdoor cat to indoor life is tricky, it’s basically been allowed to be a part-time wild animal, so becoming full-time pet can be a challenge. But it can be done, though it will require lots of actual playing with the cat to replace the entertainment it has been going outside to get.
But they will live a longer life, with fewer health risks. And they will learn to come to you for play and/or cuddles, instead of killing time by murdering the wildlife and risking their own in fights/traffic.
No one considers an unleashed dog outside on its own ok. Cats were never any different.
Do you have any resources on the how for transitioning?
Ours is indoor/outdoor. We do a lot to mitigate the risks, but I’d love to have an option to slowly bring him in.
For my cats we were lucky enough to live somewhere that had very little traffic at the time, so we’d let the cats out only when we were out.
Then slowly let them out, but only in the garden area, and then only with a leash. Eventually we stopped letting them out. We’d distract them before opening doors.
I don’t have personal experience of taking an outdoor cat indoors. It might be worth talking to a cat behaviourist if there’s something in particular that’s causing trouble.
But based on what I know, I’d imagine outdoor cats have the option to hunt whenever they feel like it, and have the option to be alone whenever they feel like it, and taking those two things away might be the main source of discomfort for an ex-outdoor cat.
It’s important that a cat have its needs met, and so in your home there should be secluded/hidden/out of reach places for a cat to go and be in. You likely already have this covered, but the point is to give the cat the option to retreat and disappear from constant company.
Play, which has to replace hunting, is a little different. I keep some hard plastic too large to eat toys out at all times, but these only entertain when my boy is extremely wound up. Most of the time for it to be engaging, he needs to be playing “against” me pretending to be prey with a wand toy or laser pointer. Bouncing balls with their unpredictable movement also work really well, but he will chew and swallow those so the play has to be supervised.
I also keep sticks of matatabi (a plant with the same compounds in it as catnip) for him to chew. They’re not toys, but another thing for him to do.
I also never cover the windows completely, just so he can see outside. He likes people-watching. Yet more for him to do.
When he wants to play, he will let me know, there’s a certain meow, or he’ll stare at me while sitting next to drawer with the toys.
So maybe try playing with your cat instead of letting it outside? Basically addressing the probable cause for it wanting to head out in the first place, which is boredom. Maintain as many things for it to use to kill time as you can, and help with it personally whenever you can be asked.
Also it doesn’t take that much. Even outdoors, cats will doze most of time, they sleep several hours more each day than us.
If it seems like your cat doesn’t like playing with you, look up videos of people playing with their cat. Every cat has a predators instinct, but the way to entice with play can be extremely varied. Mine goes crazy for the fluffy ball of a wand toy sloowly being pulled behind and corner and going out of sight, (like a mouse or something trying to sneak away) but won’t give shit if I just wave it around in front of him.
In my experience, the best ways to modify behaviour have been changing something he wants to do so that it’s unpleasant to do (sticky tape on furniture he likes to scratch, setting a metal measuring cup atop the toilet paper so it comes down clattering to the floor if he unrolls it), or distracting with play (making the cat stop what it’s doing by starting a play session). A cat doesn’t understand punishment, but if you change something so that an obvious consequence that a cat won’t like occurs when they do something you want them to stop, they will quickly learn.
We don’t really have that problem in the UK. Where there are gardens the cats are mostly fine, they are usually neutered and most without owners are often adopted quickly by mad British people.
Those without gardens generally get cats to live indoors from the outset. The outdoor cats do affect bird populations but I would have to look for good evidence it’s to any extremes or even particularly bad. I suspect birds are affected much more by decreasing insect numbers.
They do catch a lot of mice but they don’t seem to be dying out, there’s always more of them. No, the likelihood of our cats dying in the wild is quite low compared to the US and other parts of the world where they aren’t an apex predator. About the worst animal encounter here is the fox and it’s rarely fatal.
They do get hit by vehicles and that’s probably one of the biggest causes but, again, it’s not affecting cat numbers much.
Of course the other reason they don’t come home is that they are stolen. That’s seen a big increase in recent years.
All my evidence is anecdotal and/or pulled out my arse. Any good evidence offered for correction gladly received.
We have yards here in the USA.
Most responsible pet owners spay/neuter their pets.
If you bag your dogs poop then you already understand how cats can be invasive.
One dog pooping on the ground is whatever, everyone’s dog is gross.
One cat killing a bird is whatever, everyone’s cats doing it day in day out…. A problem.
The issue primarily is that your cat is the invasive species
Cats also kill for entertainment. Kaia got out one time for about 2 hours and piled up 10 lizards and 2 birds in the yard.
I don’t know that you can equate dog poop with bird kills by cats. One happens all the time as a necessity, but surely cats aren’t out there killing birds all the time. They have other things to chase, they have places to go, things to smell, stuff to eat that’s easier than birds. Then there’s all that sleeping to do, that thing that needs to be knocked off onto the floor, you get the idea.
Poop, cats are doing that everywhere. A lot more than killing birds, I reckon. Like I said, I’m a learner. I love finding out I’m wrong, it means I’m not wrong anymore.
Freeroaming house cats successfully kill approximately 2 small game animals a week. That’s a 104 kills a year, 1560 kills in a lifetime of 15 years. Lets say they stay indoors during their kitten year. With 90 million pet cats in the US that’d be a killrate of 90 000 000 000 small game animals a year, if they were all allowed outside.
Yeah there’s definitely a disconnect here. It’s obviously much worse in the US and as there’s no scientific evidence to link cats to declining bird numbers in the UK, I didn’t think there would be such a big difference.
I stand corrected on that and thanks for adjusting my knowledge.
Does it really need to be researched and peer reviewed before the fact that your cat, allowed outside, will be an invasive species that will kill small game animals that wouldn’t otherwise have been killed, and that that is one of many reasons to keep it indoors?
Yes, if there are few enough, the impact won’t be consequential, but humans making decisions assuming such things is why our streets are covered in cigarette butts and why we have to have trash cans along forest trails.
Even if the situation in the UK is fine, just that idea in itself can cause things to quickly become not fine, as a thousand people can each think to themself “one more cat won’t be a problem” while together adding a thousand cats to the environment, not one.
You forgot the risks of spreading feline diseases and parasites.
Are you saying outdoor cats in the UK are just as long lived as indoor ones, and don’t do any irreparable environmental harm? I don’t think the stats will back you on that one.
Which part of all this is supposed to make letting your cat outside seem fine? You basically made list of reasons to keep a cat indoors if you care for its health, but started off with “it’s fine if you have a garden” which makes no sense. Unless it’s enclosed in a cat-proof way?
Don’t listen to them OP. Share your cat with your neighbours.
You could replace the word “cat” with “human” in your comment and it’d make much more sense.
Where I live, cats provide an invaluable service of keeping pests away. So until they start meowing about unionizing I’ll let them roam free, with the dogs.
The difference between a cat and a human is that you can teach the human stuff like, “don’t kill birds for fun”, or “pick up trash”, etc. Humans are shit, but we’re smart enough to know when we went too far and stop. Not that we always actually do.
Lets not pretend that every cat owner in New York letting them outside and onto the streets is a good idea. That would be a lot of cats.
It’s nice that you can employ cats for their original domesticated purpose, but what does that change? You’re a minority among minorities. In most places everyone letting their cats outside would be more like you having a literal thousand of them to take care of pests in the same amount of land that you use whatever amount you have now for.
And even then the cat is still an invasive species, unneutered/unspayed, one too many of them will get you a feral population no local ecology can handle, so stay on top of it.
I’d actually be interested to know what would happen in the new York situation, there is probably enough rats to sustain this new cat population comfortably.
I’m not against getting cats spayed/neutered, or having cats soly indoors, I’m not sure where that came from? It’s just irksome when people insist on locking them up, especially unsolicited.
“One too many, no local ecology can handle”…Are you implying we are on verge of a stray cat doomsday? Lots of countries have feral cats (and dogs),and while not ideal, they haven’t collapsed society (yet).
Regardless, if you are able to sort out some other issues, like global warming, or micro plastics first, I’ll wholeheartedly listen about the cat apocalypse, deal?
Here are some species that cats helped drive to extinction in Australia alone.
Whataboutism? Really? People aren’t allowed to care about multiple problems, but only the big ones first? I’m frankly insulted that you’d attempt such a bad faith arguing tactic, as if you’d not immediately get called on it. Fuck you, no deal.
And yes, cats breed fast. I didn’t say they’d collapse society, I said ecologies. That’s something they have already done in many places around the world where feral cat populations got out of control.
In any densely populated area, you just need two idiots with fertile cats letting them outside for the area to soon have a problem. How exactly does things being under control where you live change that simple truth? Letting cats outside cannot remain the default way of thinking.
Your uneducated guesses on New Yorks cat population vs rat population, is hilarious. Stop seeing the world through your narrow anecdotes, and look this shit up.
And nevermind all that… Unsolicited? Statistically certain health issues and early death isn’t enough of a reason for you?
To add on, cats have contributed to many many species extinction. Here are some examples just from Australia alone.
Whoa, I didn’t make up the ridiculous new York cat doomsday story, chill out. I didn’t realize in your head this was a (likely?) possibility, I’d assumed common sense which is my bad. I though it was more of a “XKCD what if” question.
You’re accusing me of whatabouism?! Your argument is literally “WHAT ABOUT if everyone in new York let their cats out???” Im flabbergasted. You can focus on whatever issues you want, I’m just saying cats are pretty low on my list.
And yes, unsolicited - unless I greatly missunderstood OPs intentions for the post. At least I’ve learned that being indoors is statistically safer than being outdoors though, so thank you for that insight.
Making up a scenario to illustrate a point is not whataboutism. I do not consider it likely, the idea was to merely illustrate that in high density areas (you know, where most of humanity lives), the number of cats is such that allowing them all outside is simply not an option.
And if solicited advice is the only advice we are allowed to give, how exactly are outdoor cat owners to be dealt with? Do we just sit around until they randomly look up how long their cats could be living?
The note about the unleashed is not true in many countries.
Such as?
Where in the world, can you let a cat outside unsupervised, and have there be zero chance of it finding a way to kill something, get killed, or catch a disease/parasite?
Sorry, the word “dog” got lost. What I meant was there were countries where you’d find unleashed dogs everywhere and nobody cares.
A cat on a leash isn’t any better. If they stop and won’t want to move, they will slip out of anything you put on them. There isn’t a vest they can’t escape if they want to.
Are you suggesting we should let cats free-roam because they’ll escape and do so anyway no matter what? Or that leashes serve no purpose because some cats refuse to move in one?
I’ve literally never had this problem, with leashes or otherwise. Not that my particular cat almost ever goes outdoors even in a leash, he hates the outdoors. I live in a city and the bustle of everything around scares the shit out of him.
You don’t need to walk a cat in the first place, they’ll be perfectly happy with play sessions indoors, being ambush predators that even in nature get their exercise in bursts and resting most of time. Going outdoors is something you can do with a cat, not something you have to do, like with dogs.
What’s your point? Aside from the fact that you either don’t know what a proper cat harness looks like or how to put one on.
I’m saying a cat that has a leash on is as dangerous to be outdoors as if they didn’t have one. The “not moving part” what I meant is when dogs or cats refuse to sometimes move for reasons. They’ll be stubborn about it and “stand their ground”. With a dog, you can kinda pull on the leash / vest. If you do that with a cat, you pull the leash off, and they’ll go running if something spooks them (or are just assholes).
Cats should be kept indoors all the time if possible. It’s extremely risky to walk them.
Don’t be condescending. I know what a “proper harness looks like”. Just because you didn’t encounter this problem doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
A cat on a leash outside is FAR better than one without one.
Some people will insist on taking their cat outside, and some cats will insist on going outside. If this is the case, leash them.
Obviously, if you can’t keep it on the leash, something you can and should find out before going outside, don’t.
It’s like you aren’t reading my comment at all and just saying what you want. You can’t keep a cat on a leash, period. They can get out of it at any time. They can squeeze into any hole that is their head size. Well, guess what size the hole for their head is in the cat harness.
Apparently I need to explain cat harnesses and how to secure them.
Cat harnesses don’t hold the animal by their neck. The neck loop is only there to prevent the abdominal loop from slipping back so the cat can’t slip forwards through it.
The part that makes a cat harness secure is the abdominal strap, which needs to be so tight around the cats abdomen and up against their front legs, that the cat can’t pull backwards through it.
This together makes the harness impossible to slip out of either forwards, or backwards.
If you have cats slipping out of harnesses, they are either incorrectly designed, (for example, the connection between abdominal and head loops can be too long, allowing the head loop to be escaped, and thereby allowing the cat to pull its ass through the abdominal loop) or you didn’t set the abdominal loop tight enough.
Like talking to a brick wall. No. That’s not the case. There is no such thing as a harness that makes it “impossible to slip out”. There is no engineering that can make the cat stay in it when it doesn’t want to. Go and actually check it on the internet. Plenty of people with tight, well fitting, “correctly” designed harnesses, and the cat just falls through them like nothing. If still stubborn, show me a cat harness that is impossible to escape.
This has got to be the dumbest hill to die on but please keep going lol.
Alright, I’ve looked it up, there is no such thing as a completely escape-proof cat harness.
Does that make me agree with your apparent stance of “no cat should ever be allowed outside in a harness, ever, because it’s the same as letting them free-roam” ?
No.
Harnesses are perfectly secure way to safely taking most cats outside. Obviously, if you’re dealing with an escape artist, stop doing that.
Dude. Have you ever had a dog? Every had a dog harness? The designs are very similar.
Cat harnesses can absolutely be made so that the cat doesn’t slip out. My cat’s harness is designed so that not only can he not slip out, it will also not Choke him if he gets hooked on something.
Some cats like wearing harnesses.
By comparing dogs to cats and the harnesses they wear, you just show how little you know about the topic.
Dude. Why are you being so rude?
Why are you throwing in your 3 cents when you don’t know anything about the topic?
I know a heck of a lot about it as I’ve had indoor and outdoor cats my whole life, using different harnesses. How about you?
You claim that yet you also claim it is impossible for your cat to ever slip out of the harness. Which means you don’t know anything and you try to be the expert with years of experience doing something wrong.
Grow up.