Indoor vs Outdoor Cats: Pet behavior and owner responsibility

FWIW this is probably what we would do if our yard was (or could be) fenced in completely. Cars are like 75% of my concern about letting them out and other animals are like 20%, so eliminating the first and almost eliminating the second (hawks are still a potential problem, I guess) would make me feel a lot more at ease about it. As it is we've tried taking them out on leashes but they either sit there like lumps because they don't like it or slip the leash and make us chase them around for a while.

One of our cats makes a break for it if we aren't careful, and when he gets out I pretty much just panic and we bring him back in ASAP. I don't doubt that he'd come back probably by the next mealtime (if it were ten days I'd be a wreck, jesus), but who knows what might happen before then. Also our cats are in their adolescence, the golden years of bad decisions in any species, which sure doesn't make me more confident of his chances in the wild.

One of my cats frequently makes a conscious choice to eat old, dusty leaves tracked in by our boots until he throws up.

I'm cool taking over some of his decisions for him.

Certainly. But why pet welfare starts at "feeding and warmth" but stops at "prevented from being run over/diseased/etc" is the distinction, along with the ethics of more control over their lives versus less.

They get free healthcare at least!

I should also probably mention that my glib response is because I have approximately that much time in my life to think about the ethics of letting my cats outside or not. I'm 100% morally good with "I'm the boss, they do what I want, end of story" when it comes decisions like this and my pets.

Now, I also buy into "responsible pet owners have to do XYZ" which includes providing attention/entertainment, health care, proper food, spay/neutering, etc etc etc. But the question of letting cats go outside is so far on the "eh, whatever" side of the line that I just can't be bothered.

Last year we lost our first cat to a coyote. He was mostly an indoor cat but he'd sometimes dart out and go on an adventure. Sadly, he did this one too many times and didn't make it back. There's pretty much no way I'd let either of our other two cats out unsupervised at this point, although we do occasional take them for walks on a leash so they can get some outdoor exposure.

We have a house in the country and all our cats historically stayed outdoors 100% of the time. I'm not happy when they kills birds but them hunting mice, rats and other rodents is the reason we keep a cat in the first place. And all these cats were strays who just decided to stay with us one day and get some food/water/petting. When they die or disappear a new cat claims the place in a matter of weeks.

I appreciate this post as the funny post that it is, but it does raise an important point about another risky behavior cats do unthinkingly, which is eat dangerous things. Cats have generally pretty good instincts about not eating things that are bad for them (unlike dogs who will eat any damn thing they get their mouth around), but there are exceptions. Alliums for example are poisonous to them, but they'll eat them plenty, and they're pretty common; I have at least one kind growing in my yard and four in my garden. Is that guaranteed to be a problem? No, and there's an outdoor cat that lives in my neighborhood and hangs out in our yard all the time without eating them. On the other hand I have to continually push one of our cats away from my plate any time I'm eating something with scallions in it, because all he wants to do is eat all the scallions in the world. So it's a big risk that I don't feel bad about preventing my guys from taking, to whatever extent I'm able to.

Well, at that point it seems more like tending to a feral cat rather than the usual pet arrangement. Not necessarily a useful distinction from your end, but I think it does entail different responsibilities and a significantly different starting point for any ethical considerations.

I'm really glad that my indoor-only cat is absolutely terrified of everything. He's escaped from our last place (pushed out the window screens) a couple of times but he always got agoraphobic I guess and just hid under the wooden porch, when we then would have to partially disassemble in order to retrieve him.

Our outdoor-under-supervision-only has been on a harness since she was a kitten. She knows she's not going outside without her harness and collar, and when she made the rare escape she was really good about not leaving the fenced-in yard (and often would come right back in when called). There was only one occasion where she made it past one of the gates but I was able to scoop her up and get her back in just a few feet past that. We were lucky in that the house we were in sat pretty far from the road and there were enough scary things (chickens, horses) between the house and the road that she wasn't inclined to wander very far.

The only reason she gets to go outside at all is that she requires a lot more stimulation than the indoor-only cat. Our place was far too small for us to give that to her, so she got supervised walks. The place we're looking at moving into now is about twice as big and without a yard, so she's going to be indoor-only while we're there. Will she still stare fondly out the window wishing for a trip into the grass? Sure. But I don't think she'll be depressed over it. She's happy enough right now in a tiny hotel room, so I'm sure she'll be happy when we're in permanent housing where she can get to all her toys and her cat tree again.

Besides two cats, I also have 2 dogs. A couple of months ago, I was walking both dogs when I heard a meow under the street. The dogs and I were both pretty concerned. We tracked the sound down to a storm sewer opening. There was a cat down there! Thinking the cat couldn't get up, I called Animal Control. I got both dogs back to the house, then went to the street where I'd heard the cat. No cat. I looked more carefully at the storm sewer opening and found that it wasn't that deep, and that there was a ledge that a cat could use to get back to the street. I also saw a couple coming out of the house directly across from the storm sewer opening. It turned out that this was their cat. The cat really liked the outside, so they didn't have the heart to keep it inside. They knew it went into the storm sewer, and they really hated that the cat did it. They got in their car, drove off, and I cancelled Animal Control coming out.

However, I was appalled by their attitude. A storm sewer is incredibly hazardous! We often have heavy rains. A cat in the storm sewer could be anywhere under the street when a flood would wash the cat along. Drowning would be terrible! And even though I've never seen a rat in our neighborhood, I've seen rats swimming in some of the drainage ditches flowing into the storm system. There is no place in North America where there aren't rats, and storm sewers would be perfect homes for the rats. I'd hate for my cat to run into a rat. Sure, the cat might kill the rat--eventually--but not after being severely injured and exposed to all sorts of yucky diseases. And finally, storm sewers are not sanitary by anybody's standards.

Me, if my cat wandered into storm sewers, I'd get more cat trees for the house, catify my house with all sorts of platforms the cat could use, and play more games with the cat. I just don't like the risk factors of letting my cat continue to play in storm sewers.

My first cat was run over. He was allowed out of the back of our house but not the front, even though we knew it was easy enough for him to find his way round.. He darted out the front door when we opened it one day and we couldn't convince him to come back in.
With my next two cats they were much more wary, I'm pretty sure that they picked up on our fear of the front door being open and stayed well away from it. They were allowed into the back garden at will but were pretty much housecats, they certainly never went over the fence (sometimes sat on it but went no further). Both of them ended up obese, although the one that is still alive has lost a lot of weight since her sister died.
Charlie roams much further than the girls ever did, but he too is scared of the front door and sticks to back gardens (we have a very noisy road out the front which helps). I am pleased that he roams as it gives him good exercise. We only have a small house so the back garden gives him a good romping area. He spends most of his time indoors though. The only other predators in the area are dogs and foxes. Charlie stays away from the dog (loud and barky) and I have watched him stare down a fox before, it's not really a concern. He does fight with some of the neighborhood cats, and gets injured occasionally (when Dan hasn't managed to chase off the other cat in time!) but this is about him asserting his territory and it doesn't bother me. He also plays with some of the local kittens.
I know that he kills things, but don't know the extent of his killing. I am pleased that he is a mouser as it means we are unlikely to get an infestation (very common round here- I grew up with mice in the house before we got cats. My aunt's cat died recently and now has a rodent problem). He gives us kills as presents - the first kill he brought in was on my birthday last year. He is so proud of being able to bring something for us, as if he is returning the favor, and he tells us stories of his epic battles chasing them around the house (it's hard to shut this cat up sometimes). A live bird was a little bit much for me though, I must confess.

Cats are strange, and sometimes do shit like the storm drain addiction. Adding new toys doesn't always help, but it is the reason most of them shouldn't be left outside without any form of supervision.

I used to have a cat that would hang out by the edge of the pool. Cat hated water. At least once a month I'd hear a horrible howling after a splash, and run out to find my cat in an inch of water on the first step of the pool, howling like it was being murdered. Fucking thing refused to just get out of the pool, and insisted that I come remove it.

My current cat used to do this as a game in the loft. At night she'd climb up into the loft, then HOWL until I found a ladder and got her down. At which point I'd lie down and she'd repeat the entire process again for laughs. This cat also locks herself in the bathroom the minute you take the shoe out of the doorway. Move the shoe? *cat pushes door closed, begins to cry about it*

TL;DR: Fucking cats, man.

edit: and basically, we treat pets like children, which is why we're okay with making them indoor or outdoor or outdoor with supervision. They're smart, but that doesn't mean they fully understand all the random technology we have lying around the world that can hurt them.

Yeah, I shouldn't have posted in this thread.
This is pretty much how I feel, but better expressed.

I'm not too concerned with cats disrupting ecosystems in north america, as the ecosystems are already pretty disrupted by our presence, so the things they eat tend to be pests to humans, and sponging off us already. Moles, voles, rabbits, rats, mice, and really annoying starlings (who aren't native anyway). I don't think I've ever seen a cat get a crow. They eat lizards and snake too, which are probably more helpful to the ecosystem but my wife is scared of them.

Cats get abandoned fairly often (sadly, this is a big problem with foreclosures in our area; many owners drop them off at the pound in hopes of a new family, but some just leave, perhaps due to abrupt evictions). Not at all unlikely scenario, although a flyer at the local vets or pound might have been reasonable. It sounds like it was a gradual process though.

Cats can be fickle bastards. We had a neighbor who would constantly leave food out to feed stray cats*, and one of our cats decided they liked it over there better, and just hung out over there from then on.

*I hate people who do this btw, we had an annoying person who would leave small piles of catfood at the bases of trees at our local park to 'feed the poor stray kitties'. We couldn't believe their stupidity, all they were doing was feeding all of the wildlife, like the local rat population.

I'm not Marlin, my pet isn't Nemo and this is a bunch of over-the-top nonsense.

Yes. Fortunately, nowadays many pet owners chip their pets, although that does require a trip to a shelter or vet to get it scanned. I tend to think no chip no tags means "please take care of me. they may not have meant to lose me but for right now you're my best shot", especially if the animal seems to be unhealthy or to have been out there for a while. No harm in asking around, though, or putting up signs, but I expect those things become less successful in more densely populated areas.
One of my dogs was abandoned or lost near a heavy foreclosure area, and given that he is a miniature poodle the fact that he was alive long enough to get the most ridiculous set of dreadlocks they'd seen in a while made whoever found him comfortable with turning him over to the shelter. Somebody used to play fetch with the guy, though, so it is strange to think that he had a whole other life before we got him.

That poodle was hardened by a life on the STREET, yo.

You have no idea. He's a sweet little guy but he takes no shit from anyone, regardless of size. Also he wakes himself up howling like a banshee in the middle of the night sometimes, which we attribute to his hurt locker caliber PTSD. It could also be existential angst at being an indoor dog, who knows.

I think my attitude toward cats (domestic animals in general) is 75% fanatical pet lover and 25% rational actor. My dad lived in a rural area when my mom left him, so we spent weekends there for years. He had cats. They weren't really pets, although he left food out for them and let them sleep in the garage. They were, more or less, barn cats. They had an atrocious birth rate (this was before "fixing" your pets was close to universal among responsible pet owners) and he was up to 16 or so at one point. However, they also had an atrocious attrition rate, since the area was packed full of hawks and coyotes. And so although we thought they were cute and got lots of educational time with newborn kittens and such, we also didn't get too attached.

Probably because of this, my attitude toward random feral cats is not nearly as mushy as you would think, despite the fact that I adore cats. If they have to be euthanized, I'm not too upset. They only exist because we humans have acted irresponsibly, and most cats only live a few years in nature anyway. Trap-neuter-release seems to actually work better at controlling populations, so I'm in favor of that, but god damn there's a lot of feral cats in the world.

Now as a pre-teen I fell in love with my cat. And when we moved he ran away and it broke my heart. (I'm pretty sure it was the trigger for my first major depression and the fact that mom didn't bother too look for him is still, 30+ years later, a source of deep seated resentment.) So as an adult I've always been nervous about letting my cat out after we move.

But on the other hand it never occurred to me to keep a cat indoors full time. Until it because a common meme, it never crossed my mind. They so plainly belong outdoors. They adore going out, especially the males. So the cats I've had as an adult have all been indoor-outdoor. My first cat lived to be 18, which I know is extremely lucky for an outdoor cat. Most of his life was in coyote-free but car-rich suburbia, and after he got to be about 4 he stopped hunting.

Now we have two cats, brother and sister, 6 years old at this point. They are indoor-outdoor cats. The female rarely goes further than the yard and occasionally brings us a live frog or lizard. The male roams and routinely brings us dead or half-dead rodents. Both sleep indoors every night; we have a cat door that we set to "indoor only" around dusk and it works well.

Disadvantages:
We live in suburbia along the edge of farmland, and coyotes and foxes are not common, but not unheard of.
We're on a cul de sac, so cars are slow and infrequent, but we are only a block away from a busier, faster street.
The male is a keen hunter, getting lots of rodents and occasional birds. While distasteful, considering that we live in a farming area, this is basically the purpose for which humans domesticated cats (or vice versa) in the first place. We plant tasty crops, a bumper crop of rodents is born as a result, and a bumper crop of rodent-killers is part of the (unnatural) cycle.
The male routinely has to be treated for worms because nom nom mice.
I've seen him in other neighbors' yards. No one has complained, but I am sure that it is annoying, especially to the neighbor with an elaborate Asian style garden who is very particular.
Added: while he's not very aggressive, the male does occasionally get into fights and has gotten a couple of infected wounds as a result.

Advantages:
happy cats in the sun. Happy male cat in any weather (he goes out in the rain, comes back soaked to get toweled off, then goes out again). Energetic male cat gets plenty of exercise. Both get the chance to scratch trees instead of furniture. Both cats hang out with me while I garden, so happy garden girl. Both cats act like kittens chasing bugs, and how cute is that??

I'm fully aware this is a tradeoff between safety and pleasure, and I'm a fretter, so with all that in mind, if it were just me, I would probably keep them inside. I don't think it's cruel or unhealthy, as long as you make an effort to play with them for exercise and outlet. As they get older, I want to transition them to indoor only. Mr W and I slightly disagree on the need to keep them inside -- he comes down a tad heavier on the "cats' nature demands outdoor time" side -- and it's not something I consider cut-and-dry enough to create a controversy over.

I've always kept my cats outdoor, only letting them in the garage for the night when it's winter, and in the summer the doors are open when somebody is at home, so they can wander in if they want. Intuitively, I think it's much better for them than being kept indoors forever, but I could be wrong - I'd have to see studies or something to be convinced otherwise. And ultimately I don't really care: sure, outdoor cats tend to live less (usually 5-10 years), but while they do I keep them well fed, healthy, neutered, and perfectly happy as far as I can recognize. There are no predators capable of hunting cats where I live, and very few (and slow moving) cars; as for the cats' preys, mice and rats I'm sorry for, but I'd have to set up traps or something to kill them anyway; birds are a pity, but the cats don't catch that many of them, and the species around here aren't in any danger of extinction.
I never bought a cat btw, there are a lot of people who don't properly sterilize their own, and then, when the inevitable happens, they give the kittens away for free. If they can't find anybody who wants them they often either kill or abandon them, so it's not like my cats would have been better off had I never took them.
As I figure it, the way I treat my cats is well beyond what my moral obligations as the owner would require as a minimum. Theoretically I could treat them even better - though I'm not convinced always keeping them indoors would qualify as such - but I'd rather spend the mental and economic resources on other things I consider way more important.

I do think outdoor cats will cost you a lot more in vet bills over time. Most of Max's bills have been cat bite related. With a steady background rate of worm meds.

I should have put "cat fights and other minor wounds" in the disadvantage column, I forgot about that.

Uh, good point. It's not frequent at all, or costing me a lot of money, but the male cat does rarely get into fights that will require disinfectant or even antibiotic meds. And yeah, the damn worms, always creeping back - though the pills for those are quite cheap.
Still, the primary reason I keep the cats outdoors isn't to save money, but because I like the arrangement and I honestly think they also like it fine.

Speaking of the chip/tags thing... I am being reminded that I need to get my wandering cat a microchip like my (shiny new) dog has, because dear god, she has managed to slip so many collars I've stopped coughing up another $20 each time for a new collar and tags. I don't know how she does it, or where she's depositing all of those collars, but they last about three days on her, tops.

You readily admit that outdoor cats have lifespans upwards of ten years shorter than indoor cats, but you'd need to see some studies to be convinced that it's better for them to be kept indoors?

I think I posted this in Post Your Pet but I can't find it now. A few months back (after a neighbor informed us that she thought our male cat was a stray and was about to take him home) we got Max a collar. He actually kept it on for a few weeks, then (like every collar we've ever gotten him) it disappeared. About 6 weeks after THAT, we got a phone call from someone asking if we had a cat named Max. "Why, yes we do, is something wrong?" The caller was a neighbor from several streets over who had found the collar while doing yardwork.

Our cats are chipped -- definitely.

"Outdoor cat" vs "indoor cat" life expectancy seems like a leading setup here given the indoor/outdoor situation a lot of people are talking about here. I've no doubt that the averages start skewing the moment the sliding door opens - a cat getting hit by a car at age 3 will move the needle - but it's not barn cat average vs. indoor cat average, checkmate.

That's one of the nice things the SPCA does here. They will spay/neuter/chip any animal before giving it up for adoption, free of charge. If you're adopting cats, you usually get a 2 for 1 deal because A) Cats like company for the most part, B) Nobody really wants cats.

Cats are anatomically designed for squeezing into and out of small places, with nifty features like detached collarbones and all that. Also, magic!

He's talking about quality of life, not life expectancy.

That part A isn't true. Cats are solitary and territorial animals by nature. They can bond with other cats and will form colonies in some circumstances (usual if forced into a group) but that is atypical behaviour. If you want two cats you should have a good amount of space so they can be alone should they want (and they will want).

Another reason indoor-only cat stays indoors: Hermes won't wear tags. I know it's easy for cats to get out of their collars, but Hebe seems to enjoy wearing hers (probably because it's associated with her getting to go outside) so that's a requirement for outdoor trips.

Additionally, if Hebe was out without her leash while I was doing yardwork, I could at least hear her at all times even if I couldn't spot her immediately. She's too clumsy to know how to move in it without jingling.

Which is an interesting poser. To one person an indolent indoor cat may seem like the happiest thing around, to another person a cat's surely happy murdering things.

(As a non-vegetarian I find it hard to get any queasier about a cat killing for enjoyment while larger, bigger-brained creatures are killed under eviller circumstances for my enjoyment.)

Neither of my cats are lazy. If they were, I'd actually be getting decent sleep right now, lol.

I believe the solitary life is more common in feral cats, but I could be wrong. The first cat I had mentioned above was mostly solitary, though we had a stray move in for a few months and tended to get along for the most part. My second cat, who also was adopted solo, was cantankerous by nature, but she co-inhabited with my sister's cat when we had to adopt him in just fine. The current two are supposedly brothers, and they do cool things like check on each other or the more timid (yet larger and more muscular cat) will let the smaller cat investigate something before working up the courage to do so itself. However, at the local SPCA, you will sometimes run into cats described as better off being the only cat in the house. Usually they give a reason, but I'm blanking at the moment.

Yes, I believe moment-to-moment quality of life is much more important than life-length, especially for animals that live in the present, and don't spend time reflecting on their own mortality. I tend to think that being able to wander around as they wish, interact with other cats and animals, freely act on their instincts and so on (while also being kept well fed, healthy and warm) beats living 10 more years confined in an apartment. If they are hit by a car or something they'll be in pain for a relatively short while, and then they'll die, having led better lives than those of 99.99% of other animals. It's not like the cancer or the kidney failure that will kill their indoor equivalents would be much better. And indoor cats will pay their extra years with less opportunities in their daily life to express their instincts, which afaik, beside significant physical pain (that my cats very rarely experience), is the main source of suffering for animals --or discomfort, if that's too strong a word for a well-kept indoor cat.
Of course an indoor cat can also be a happy animal, but yeah, intuitively I'd say outdoor is better.

To be clear, I'm not queasy about things dying in this instance, nor was I making a broadly pro-bird welfare or anything statement. My initial point was simply that you should expect killing and or the death of your cat if it is an outdoor cat, and that it is primarily a choice the owner makes. Also, I'm not sure it's a logical equivalence to make between literally killing for entertainment (which humans do, but probably not you) and killing for your "enjoyment" as food. The former seems a closer analog to the cat hunting, although of course I don't hold the cat responsible for it in the same way that I do the human.