Outdoor cats should be illegal
Yep, I can’t believe the hypocrisy either, pretty much all major cities require that dogs be on a leash or in a yard. Cats though? Can’t have them on a leash! Are you crazy!?! 😱
It’s almost like cats and dogs are different animals or something.
Yeah, dogs tend to have larger territories than cats when allowed to free-roam, so cats have an easier time adapting a smaller space, hence why they tend to make better apartment pets. Feral cat colonies (which are caused and maintained by non-feral outdoor cats that haven’t been fixed) are also larger on average than feral dog packs when they form, amplifying their negative effects on the local ecosystem further. Free roaming cats also have a huge environmental impact, are a major threat to native wildlife, and are the most invasive species in the world. While free-roam dogs do hunt and do also have an impact on the environment, they don’t kill native animals on the same scale as cats. Cats will kill even if they’re not hungry and don’t intend to eat, and free roam cats eat more often in a day than free roam dogs do (up to ~12 times a day for cats, while dogs might eat once a day or even once every 2 to 3 days depending on food availability). Even more reason why we should keep both dogs AND cats inside.
If you want to give your cat more space to work with then leash training, catios, and cat-proof yards are great options! In my neighbourhood a lot of people tie their cats out on leads in their front yards as well. Everything we do for dogs to give them more space without letting them roam free we can do for cats as well, because even though they’re different animals, they’re both capable of being trained, supervised, or kept in some sort of enclosure.
Dogs kill 25,000 people annually. How many do housecats kill? It’s not a 1-to-1 comparison.
My cat throws herself through the doorway as soon as anyone gets home. She will chew through window screens. She breaks the catio whenever we put it up. If we don’t let her out, she will scream non-stop all night. She will fight with the other animals. She will resent us if we don’t let her out. When, not if, she does get out, she’ll stay away for longer if we haven’t been letting her out. She’ll disappear for days.
Meanwhile, if I let her out, she will usually sit on the patio or patrol the yard at night. She kills vermin such as voles, moles, and rats. She is territorial about our yard such that she has managed to push the colony of feral cats out of my yard. She gets regular checkups along with flea and tick treatment. She is 14 and happier than she’s ever been. I’m going to let her live her best life.
I don’t see what that has to do with anything. I’m not saying dogs should be allowed to roam free while cats are kept inside. I’m saying they BOTH shouldn’t be allowed to wander freely. Dogs being a danger to humans is just another reason why. I’m just listing some of the reasons why cats also shouldn’t be allowed to free roam. Danger to humans isn’t the only reason to keep an animal indoors or in an enclosure unless on a leash or supervised.
Dogs also become destructive when kept inside without being exercised or entertained. Dog owners are expected to provide those things instead of just letting their dogs roam loose around the neighbourhood to entertain themselves. Your cat isn’t some super special exception among cats who never kills any native animals that aren’t pests. You can cat-proof your yard to provide a safe outdoor space for her, or leash train her and take her on regular walks to drain her energy and satisfy her desire to roam, or make her an enclosure that she can stay in outside without being given complete unsupervised freedom, but of course those solutions would all take actual effort. So it’s up to you to decide, would you rather put in the effort to provide an appropriate environment for your pet, including enrichment and training and exercise, like dog owners are expected to do? Or would you rather shrug and toss your cat outside to contend with cars, coyotes, and all manner of toxic plants and chemicals and diseases and parasites, and allow her to continue to contribute to the destruction of the local ecosystem?
Because it’s not really about what makes your cat happy, that’s just the easiest excuse to convince yourself that you don’t have to change things. After all, if you did your due diligence she could be both happy and safe, and living her best life without having to be let outside unsupervised. What it’s really about is whether you’re willing to put in the work to make that happen as a responsible pet owner.
Dogs can’t because they present a danger to humans. That’s the clear difference.
I’m not just being difficult. My wife was a trainer at the human society for years. We know the stuff and have tried to do it. I value my cat more then wild birds and rodents, and my wife does taxidermy for whatever she brings back.
My cat broke her first harness, slipped out of her second, and now she flails whenever we try to come near her with a harness. We’ve tried walking, but she refuses to move. You don’t know my cat, and you don’t seem to realize that this won’t make her happy.
Local ecosystem destruction is a moot argument because we had multiple feral cats in our yard every night when we moved in, and now we have none. We have fewer cats total in our yard.
At the end of the day, she’s 14 and will start slowing down soon. If she dies, she lived a great life. My last outdoor cat was 20 years old. I get long living cats who are happy by just letting them be cats.
You’re right, dogs don’t kill billions of birds a year!
Birds and people are the same, so I see your point
Birds and people are not the same BUT ANIMAL LIVES STILL HAVE VALUE. The life of a bird IS NOT WORTH NOTHING, just because your life is worth more by some metric you can’t explain.
My cat is far more than literally thousands of wild birds to me. It’s either let my cat play outside or put her down. What do you think I should do?
How bad it is depends on where you live, but yeah, for a lot of reasons most of the world probably shouldn’t have outdoor housecats. As the article you linked pointed out though, most of the damage is being done by feral cats, and well… that cat’s out of the bag, so to speak.
Feral cat populations are created and maintained by outdoor non-feral cats. Lots of people who don’t keep their cats indoors also don’t get their cats fixed either.
Created yes. Maintained not so much. Feral cats can make more feral cats on their own just fine. In fact, outdoor housecats are really bad for feral cats, because they hunt prey, fight for territory, and contribute to overpopulation of small predators without having to deal with the constant dangers that an actual feral cat does.
then we should set out a bunch of coyotes,
to keep the feral cat population in check.what could possibly go wrong?
In Minnesota, we let five months of inhospitable winter do the dirty work for us.
I’ve got bad news if you think cats don’t survive winter… And I’m living in a more northern region too…
It definitely culls our local population.
Or there is just more predation in the winter, more starvation, or more car strikes; you don’t know it’s the cold
I don’t understand your point. I’m saying the effects of an inhospitable winter environment does quite a bit of the dirty work for keeping feral cat populations in check. Were you agreeing with me?
let’s arrest cats living as cats!
Alright then, people should be allowed to let their dog be free so they can live as dogs.
Also, people aren’t allowed to adopt cats anymore and house cats need to be exterminated on the American continent and in Oceania.
You know… So cats live as cats historically did?
You are saying my 10 pound cat who avoids people while killing the voles that plague my yard should follow the same rules my 85 pound golden retriever with stranger danger anxiety does?
Funny you should say that because there’s a cat that’s attacking people (including a kid), dogs and cats in a neighborhood around where I live and authorities are saying “Can’t do anything about it, people are free to let their cat roam free and it’s registered so it’s not considered a stray 🤷”
That cat better be the size of a cougar
Are we really getting the indoor cat brigade on lemmy too? Yes, in the US outdoor cats are a danger to local wildlife. Stop pushing this on people who this does not apply to. Outdoor cats are fine in many other parts of the world. The USA isn’t the whole world.
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.
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.
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.
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’re an animal that doesn’t have an adult rational brain?
This was my family when I was a kid. We never had a cat for more than 2-5 years because there were coyotes and pumas out there. Except for one cat who lived to old age. I think we had a dozen cats during my childhood. I remember thinking they were happier with their freedom, even though it meant their lives were short.
I know better now. I still think cats are happier when they can go outside, but it’s not worth the risk to their lives and also the lives of the local smaller wildlife.Mine started life as an indoor cat, but after we put in a dog door for the pups there was no chance. She figured it out by watching them and lets herself out for the occasional prowl (around 4-6 hours a day, she usually goes no farther than the neighbors yard). She doesn’t stay out overnight though, she’d rather sleep inside with her dog.
Honestly that’s really shitty dude. You should figure out how to keep the cat indoors
I think the risk can be weighed and mitigated. Coyotes mainly come out at night, and you can keep a cat indoors at night. If every new cat gets promptly snapped up anyway, maybe it’s just not a safe enough area.
Honest question, how do you keep a cat indoors at night? We used to call them, but sometimes they wouldn’t show up. That meant you might see them the next day, or never again. One little poofy grey cat we had disappeared for a week before turning up soaking wet and meowing frantically. Cats are quick and can make pretty good distance from your house, so when you’re calling them in for the night, they could be literally anywhere. They also like to hunt at sunset, so might just ignore you on purpose.
That’s my experience anyways. I think some of the other comments here are right, that a limited outdoor space that they could enjoy but not escape from would be ideal. I don’t have a yard so my cats are indoor only. I did try to leash-train the smarter one but she was not having it.
edit: we would clang their food dishes and shake the food bags. Calling them in for the night was also feeding time. My experience was that despite this they wouldn’t show up sometimes.You feed them at the same time every day before sunset, and then don’t let them out after that. Most cats will not want to miss dinner.
What the fuck is wrong with people
You just close the doors and windows after they come in for dinner, before they eat their dinner.
It breaks my heart with how many irresponsible pet owners there are. There’s no good reason to let your cat outside. People who can’t accept that shouldn’t have cats.
Not all places in the world have coyotes. Some places are safe for cats. I don’t have cats, but there are several out-doors cats where I live that seems to be doing just fine.
I remember thinking they were happier with their freedom, even though it meant their lives were short.
I know better now.You can be trapped in the most luxurious palace, with your every want attended to, but you cannot leave.
Or, you can be free to go where you please, still have your wants attended to, but there is a chance you will die young and the last hour of your life will be spent in terror and excruciating pain.
Which do you choose?
Honestly a bit of a tough question. I’m not sure, myself.
Interesting concept but cats don’t have the sapience to understand the risk involved with being outside. You could say the same thing about children, but because adults know better we don’t let them do whatever they please.
Just make the coyote to be your pet at this point
