this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2023
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Remember kids, keep your cats indoors. Unless you live on a farm, outdoor cats are either dead cats, or pests.
Oh I got into a "discussion" with my neighbour who's friend said she was cruel for having indoor cats.
I said her friend is thick and should be ignored, because she is and she should be.
Well the neighbour decided instead to give her cats to the Shelter and now has indoor dogs.
I don't like my neighbour, she's stupid with stupid friends, and cruel to animals.
In other news, one of my indoor cats is 19 years old.
It depends on where you live. If you live in a city without predators, then letting your cat go outside in the backyard gives them a very exciting experience. If you live somewhere with coyotes, then your cat is going to die.
Outdoor cats have a shorter average life span in cities, too. One big cause is cars. Also, it's worth noting that house cats are essentially an invasive species and do a lot of damage to bird populations.
It's pretty widely recommended to keep cats indoors.
Dogs have to be put on a leash when their outside, outdoor city cats should be too. Stops them from running away, and killing birds.
If your dog or cat runs away then you weren't meeting their needs.
Or they are dumb and ran away on a whim. Animals aren't always rational.
It probably does happen occasionally on accident, like hunting dogs that pick up an interesting scent and then get lost, but I've never met a good pet owner who's pet ran away. It's always the guy who locked his dog in the backyard 16 hours a day and never thought of them as family, or the cat owner who put the car on a starvation diet hoping it would catch mice.
Well you also haven't intentionally looked into it, this is just your random experience; and since other people here are offering ADDITIONAL experience where those things DID happen, maybe you should fucking take that into account too. Or do you prefer only to learn from mistakes that you make personally?
Or they're an animal that doesn't have an adult rational brain?
The leading cause of death of all birds and mammals in North America is the domestic cat. That's not okay.
The alternative would be to not get a cat at all, unless it can go outside without being in danger or causing damage to the ecosystem.
Or, leash train it and provide appropriate supervised enrichment for the cat instead of letting it run loose, just like dog owners are expected to do with dogs. Cats don't need to roam outdoors unsupervised any more than dogs do.
There are so many cats that would require euthanizing them. They can't be released. At least an indoor cat you give them a nice life.
My cat just sits in my backyard all day
That's good, in that sense your yard is essentially acting as an enclosure. Unfortunately most cats don't only stay in the back yard, and in those cases the owner should either cat-proof their yard to keep the cat inside it, or keep their cat inside their home unless walking them on a leash.
If you're in an environment where cats are not natural and are invasive, don't buy cats. Keeping them indoors isn't a solution. It's cruel for the cat unless you have an environment specifically set up to house them. All these problems come from people having cats in places they aren't native and shouldn't be to begin with.
Name one place where cats wouldn't be invasive lol
Türkiye.
Africa where they come from
Yeah, okay. So much less cruel to just trap and kill them all. Unless you've got a secret cat utopia where they can all go to.
The problem is there already. People adopting and keeping them indoors is not the problem.
A real solution would be better laws and enforcement involving cat breeders and people who let cats roam and reproduce freely. Or all the assholes around the time COVID lockdowns who figured they could just adopt temporarily and then abandon their pets.
Actually yeah that might be needed in some ecosystems. Having cats indoors doesn't guarantee they won't escape unfortunately. It should probably be illegal to buy and breed cats in many places around the world. Laws requiring they all be neutered would also help. I know Spain spays and kills feral cats regularly.
We need to find better, more sustainable, more local animals to replace them with.
As someone living in the Netherlands, I look forward to my pet... err.... pigeon?
Ok but wait that might be kinda cool
That is a thing though.
Humans disgust me
There's no such thing. Cats are a domesticated species, they aren't native to anywhere. Their ancestors were possibly native to the fertile crescent in Syria and to ancient Egypt (among a handful of other places they're believed to possibly have originated from, it's hard to pin down), but even if only people in those places ever owned cats, if they let them outdoors all the time it would still be bad for the environment and cause issues. So instead of expecting something completely unreasonable, like the rest of the world no longer keeping cats as pets, let's stuck with something reasonable, like not letting cats roam freely outdoors.
Keeping cats indoors isn't any more cruel than keeping dogs indoors. You can leash train a cat, or let them out in a cat-proofed back yard, just like we can with dogs. Cat territory size is dependent on availability of resources, they don't have an innate need to wander large distances as a species. Some individuals might have some wander lust sure, but that's what leash training is for. Take them on hikes, you don't have to put them outside unsupervised with the racoons and coyotes and cars and vulnerable bird species.
Outdoor cats have half the lifespan of indoor cats for a reason. The dead cats I regularly see on the side of the highway on my way home from work certainly aren't happier than my neighbour's cat is walking around on a leash alive and healthy. If you learn how to provide proper exercise and enrichment for your cat either indoors or under supervision/on a leash then you don't need to let them outside unsupervised. If you want your cat to be both happy and safe, then there are plenty of options that are better for both your cat and the local ecosystem. This is something we naturally expect of dog owners, there's no reason why we can't do the same with cats.
Eh even on farms they're not the most effective
Sure cats sometimes catch mice, but you know what else also catches mice and is actually native to wherever your area is? Owls.. Owls that are being chased off by said cat.
Let your local raptors do their job people.
I think it depends on where you live. Where I live there's not as many owls because everything is just grassland/prairie, so lots of farms still have farm cats for pest control, but I do think it's ideal to go without if you can.