There are two reasons why cat guardians keep their cats inside all the time or restrict the movement of their cats. The first reason is the obvious one: to keep their cat safe and healthy. The second is to keep control over the situation.
Control means peace of mind; less worry about your cat not coming home. That means a lot of anguish and searching; time and effort which are in short supply. Or it means less worry about your cat getting a disease from another cat or fleas or any of the other nasty parasites that infest cats. Then there is trauma of any sort. So easy to happen outside. These require vets visits sometimes and treatments. Treatments can be expensive and they can harm a cat too. You can avoid a lot of these problems or reduce them to more manageable proportions if you keep more control over your cat. This is peace of mind. This is about the caretaker not the cat. This is for us.
Restricted cats are more liable to become stressed or bored. Neither of these are automatically the case. But there is a potential downside when we try and satisfy ourselves. There are other ways cat caretakers exercise their idea of control over their cat when the objective has little to do with cat welfare and a lot to do with what the person demands or desires. Declawing is the obvious example.
More and more people are doing more and more in their lives generally. People are juggling a myriad of tasks. Often women both work and manage the family home. There is a lot of stress. There is a need to reduce the stress, control their lives. Easing the burden of care of the family cat seems a good idea. A bored cat sleeping much of the day suits some cat owners.
It is obviously a balancing act. There is nothing wrong with wanting peace of mind and keeping the vet bills down. That said, if a person is particularly house proud and tending towards being a control freak – and their are lots of those in the world nowadays, moreso than in the past – they should at least own up to the reasons behind their decisions. If they keep their cats in because they don’t want their cat to ‘bring disease into house’ then admit it.
A lot of people are very health conscious; about their health, primarily. Some people are unclear on what diseases can be spread from cats to people and the risks involved. In order to shut out any possibility of their cat bringing disease into the home, affecting animal and human alike, they have a lock down policy. This is a decision they make for their benefit. They should admit it.
Are you aware of any personal reasons why you do certain things in relation to your cat or is everything you do altruistic, totally for the benefit of the cat?
Note: I am being deliberately challenging in the tone of the article.
What treatment do you give for URI? Just curious, since I’ve discovered some natural treatments in my research to avoid vets.
CeeCee,
Thanks for sharing about the things you do for Salem, to prevent boredom.
Putting a bird feeder in the tree is a wonderful idea. I have one hanging from my porch, in addition to a bird bath, and a hummingbird feeder.
Mitzy loves to watch the birds, but can’t get at them. I never did this with my other cats, because of circumstances, and mostly they were indoor/outdoor.
Thank you again for sharing!
Yes, control is equal to peace of mind and, as Sandra wrote, being responsible.
The environment for my indoor cats is more easily monitored and managed than the outside environment where my indoor/outdoor, outdoor, and colony ferals spend time. My stress level is much lower with the indoor ones, most of which have no idea that there is any other world. They can’t miss what they have never seen nor experienced. And, the semi-ferals that I bring in to socialize and adopt out never go outside again if I can help it.
The outside environment here is very unsafe. I’m skepical that a catio even made of steel and concrete could keep out some of the dangers like venomous snakes. I’m opposed to the use of a lot of wood because that contributes to the destruction of natural habitats along with all of the “controlled burns”.
Because of what we have done to our national forest here, we now have coyotes and even some black bears marching through our neighborhoods. A month ago, a man reported that his leashed dog was taken from him by a pack of coyotes in his own back yard. A woman I spoke with last weekend had her cat killed by a neighbor’s dog that had gotten loose and crashed through her chicken wired patio.
For folks who don’t live in areas like this it’s hard to imagine the fear we have for our cats. I must do 15 head counts per day, easily. Panic is a common state of being.
I have little concern about rabies or fleas. One of the biggest issues that happens here is when a cat has been exposed to an URI. It’s impossible to contain when there are multiple cats inside and out. Therefore, all exposed cats must be treated. It’s a very time consuming and costly venture.
I thought you’d answer like that. You’re are a top cat guardian. I don’t know of a better one.
There has to be some sacrifice. Perhaps the degree of sacrifice (to one’s own preferences) is the way you measure the quality of a cat caretaker.
CeeCee you sound like a very sensible person to me. I am sure you’ll do the right thing.
Thanks for all the great suggestions! Salem will be an indoor cat for now. I certainly won’t leaving him outside while I’m gone all day. He’s really pretty and very friendly. A few people cautioned that someone might steal him.
I want to make sure he’s happy and healthy, and I’m not limiting his quality of life for my own emotional benefit. As usual, I’m probably overthinking it. As many of you have said, he sleeps all day even when I’m there. In fact, he still has bed head with his little lion mane smushed up on one side when I get home from work. He also knows how to get toys out of the toy box on his own if he gets bored. I leave a little bit of water in the tub since he likes water so much. His tree is in front of a big window, and I might put a bird feeder outside.
I did learn that I was misreading his behavior during our first year or so. He can be quite demanding for attention, usually when I’m doing something that doesn’t involve him like reading or working. When I call him, he ignores me. I open a book, and here he comes. If I ignore him, he starts knocking books off the shelves. Apparently these aren’t necessarily behavior problems due to boredom – nope, just him being a cat.