Should cats be allowed outside?

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HashRouge

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Sorry, I don't know if this is the right place to post this!
We've always had outdoor cats, and so has everyone I know. Our first cat (my mum rescued her in the early 80s) lived to a ripe old age and lived her whole life as an outdoor cat. Our second cat, who is nearly 11, has also always been an outdoor cat but she doesn't roam very far. We live in a very rural area and there is only one road near us and it is a quiet country lane, but she never goes anywhere near it and sticks to our (large) garden and occasionally the fields out back. 4/5 years ago though we got another cat, our first male, and he roams a long way and often crosses the road to reach the fields/ woodland on the other side. He occasionally comes home with scrapes (I think from forcing his way through hedges rather than fighting) but I've always assumed he was safe as an outdoor cat because our other two have never had any problems.
But something happened last week that has really made me question our decision to have our cats as outdoor cats. I live abroad (only for this year, I'm a language student) and my mum phoned me on Thursday evening to tell me that our male cat had been hit by a car :(. He has been incredibly, incredibly lucky, suffering a badly broken leg but no other injuries. He was hit on the quiet lane, and managed to drag himself into a neighbour's garden.
This has really shaken my certainty that it is better for cats to be outdoor cats, and I don't really know where we go from here. Our female cat never, ever goes on the road and we always know where she is (if she's not in the garden, on our track - which is a dirt track and access to our house only - or in the fields, then she's in the house) so it isn't really an issue with her. But I don't really know what we are going to do about our male cat. He is a very outdoorsy cat, and can break out of the catflap when it is locked (if we need to keep them in for the vets or something) although i don't know how he does it. When he was a kitten he set of the burglar alarm trying to climb out through a window (it wasn't actually open, but he had a good go!!)! I can't see him settling to an indoor life, but I'm now so scared about him going near roads again. I feel like, we got away with it once, can we really expect to get away with it again?! I feel really stuck! I'm actually glad that he's going to need a good few months to recover and will have to stay inside during that time, because it means we don't have to make a decision.

So what are your thoughts? Are your cats indoor or outdoor cats? Has anyone's cat gone from being an outdoor to an indoor cat (I'd be especially interested if they were very outdoorsy, adventurous and energetic cats who didn't like staying in)?
 
Outdoor. I don't think it's fair to keep them in. Life is risky. We all face risks, being indoors will reduce the risk but sadly also lifes enjoyment!
 
I know people will disagree with me here, but it puzzles me why domestic cats are allowed to wander where they like.
If my dog poops on someones front garden I HAVE to clear it up, but do you know where your cat poops?
If my dog gets out of the front door on his own, (which is not often thankfully!) I will not rest until I have found him. But people let their cats out in the morning and wont see them again until the evening. Just seems a bit odd!
We have cats fighting out the back of our house quite often, we hear them during the night.
I have absolutely no idea if there is any way to stop cats wandering, but its just got me thinking!
 
I believe that they should be able to go outside, and that's why I don't have a cat now. I think the roads on our estate get a bit too much traffic. :-(
I think cats do learn to get canny about cars, and it's really unfortunate that your cat got injured. I think it might be hard to teach him to be an indoors cat now though. Maybe he will be more wary in the future? You could hope, maybe?
I've found that female cats don't wander quite so far, they seem to go only a couple of gardens distance away from home. I think boys are more likely to go off on adventures further afield, don't know what others think.
Whatever you decide, I hope your little man makes a good recovery.
 
If the cat is litter trained from a kitten, it's less likely they will mess outside, not certain, but I think a lot less likely. Mine have always been litter trained, and judging from the clearing out I had to do, I suspect they didn't do a lot of toilets outside!
 
SusieT said:
Outdoor. I don't think it's fair to keep them in. Life is risky. We all face risks, being indoors will reduce the risk but sadly also lifes enjoyment!
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See I used to say exactly the same thing, but I suppose it really makes you question your beliefs when one of your cats is actually hit by a car!
I don't know, I think he will go back to being an outdoor cat but it's going to be much harder for me :(
 
mmmmmmm ok yep cats will poop in gardens - i have my own cats do it to me - but i believe cats should be allowed to go out if they want to. all my cats over years have been able to and sadly that brings the risk not onl of cars but poison to - i held fluffy cat - boy she was ugly but sweetest loving cat going - as pts from poison but would never keep a cat in if wanted to go out :) xx
 
SusieT said:
Outdoor. I don't think it's fair to keep them in. Life is risky. We all face risks, being indoors will reduce the risk but sadly also lifes enjoyment!
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^^^^This^^^^^

Unless they have known no other life than to be indoors i think it is bordering on cruel to keep them inside all the time when they are used to being able to roam.

As for them crapping everywhere, i bet none of us go round picking up after our horses when they have a dump out hacking?!
 
HashRouge said:
See I used to say exactly the same thing, but I suppose it really makes you question your beliefs when one of your cats is actually hit by a car!
I don't know, I think he will go back to being an outdoor cat but it's going to be much harder for me :(
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One of my cats was hit by a car when i was younger, still would not want the ones i have know living in all the time.

Know how you must be feeling though, i hope he has a speedy recovery :)
 
I have had cats killed and injured on the road, not since I live where I currently do as it's country, but on busy roads, yes and I would choose not to have a cat to prevent it getting killed/injured near abusy road if I still lived there.
I would say if your very concerned, keep him in as much as possible during the day (often most cats prefer to be in then). there is less traffic at night. But would you ratehr live in a sterile bubble (with books etc.) than out in the real world?
 
Hiya, i've have 2 male cats, and i've currently got two lovely girls!

First male cat was lovely for the first year but like you we live on a very quiet lane next to woodlands, so he was quite wild, sometimes would go 'camping' in the woods for a few days and came back with mice, rabbits, cuts and bruises! Typical boy! Then we got him 'gelded' (hahaaa!) and he was alot more homely then, only stayed in the garden.
But when we moved house our collie was older and just wanted to play with him, also he didnt know the area, and was a bugger for escaping if we tried keeping him in. He ran away a few times and we found him after a week.
But then one day he never came home, looked everywhere, even at the old house and no one had seen him :( still hasn't came home. But i presume someone else has started feeding him. Near enough the same happend with the other male, but he was alot younger.

I wish i'd kept them both in now but its so hard! I think male cats are naturally more 'wild' than females. Has he been chipped and chopped?

All the best for your broken cat :(, i hope he gets better soon! Maybe this will make him want to stay in more!
 
It's difficult but def outdoor. My cat, was only 6 mths old, and went missing for 3 days, was down the stables on the evening on the 3rd day, and heard a faint meeow from behind the stables. eventually found her, she had jumped up into a hole in the wall. (neighbours dogs had chased her), and she'd fallen through the cavity blocks. had to sledge a hole to get her out. broken pelvis in 2 places and so de hydrated she was nearly dead. 300 euro later she came home and had to be caged for 6 weeks but is perfect now, still spends all day down the stables, sleeps inside at night. the hotpress is her favourite hide out. She loves been inside but also loves going out too. I think she'd become destructive if she had to stay in all the time.
 
Allover said:
Absolutely! And look how much grief some get about that!
I know when I was riding there were a couple of times someone shouted at me because Benson had done one in the road outside their house and they wanted to know if I was gonna pick it up! I did explain I couldnt carry a bucket with me! It was years ago and cant remember if I went back to clear it or not. Probably not!
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My cats are all indoor cats..... They have the choice (catflap open 24/7), and choose to be a bunch of slobs - most of the time
My old cat never goes out, so has a litter tray. The two middle cats pop out round the neighbourhood but are usually in shouting distance, the youngest (semi feral) who was rescued from a country lane In October having been dumped the week before is currently an indoor cat and is not showing any attempts at the catflap - I can't wait for the day cos I'm sick of cat litter trays (1 for the old cat as she never goes out, and another for feral kitty)
She loves the middle boys, but just accepts they go out, and goes off for a snooze when they're out - think she found being dumped very traumatic.
I think every cat is different. Your boy sounds like he prefers being out. You never know, being hit by a car may make him much more wary of the road in future
 
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ellieplatt said:
I wish i'd kept them both in now but its so hard! I think male cats are naturally more 'wild' than females. Has he been chipped and chopped?

All the best for your broken cat :(, i hope he gets better soon! Maybe this will make him want to stay in more!
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Yep, he's chipped and chopped and has a collar (well, he loses his collars a lot, but he normally has one!!).
Me and my sister are having this discussion on facebook atm - we're both terrified of him going out again, but he loves it so much I don't know if he'd cope being kept in (or if we'd cope making him stay in!). I'm really glad we've got a grace period of at least two months where he will have to stay in (his leg was broken in 3 places and he had a metal plate and metal rod put in on Friday to hold the whole lot together).
 
benson21 said:
I know people will disagree with me here, but it puzzles me why domestic cats are allowed to wander where they like.
If my dog poops on someones front garden I HAVE to clear it up, but do you know where your cat poops?
If my dog gets out of the front door on his own, (which is not often thankfully!) I will not rest until I have found him. But people let their cats out in the morning and wont see them again until the evening. Just seems a bit odd!
We have cats fighting out the back of our house quite often, we hear them during the night.
I have absolutely no idea if there is any way to stop cats wandering, but its just got me thinking!
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That's not really an issue with ours because we're very rural, so they either go in our garden or in the fields. Our only neighbour has tonnes of cats (she used to work with the cats protection league) and they do use my mum's vegetable patch as a toilet but our neighbour, bless her, goes and picks the poos out!
 
I think it depends strictly on circumstance. I got my current cats when I lived in very big cities. In the first cat's case (he's purring beside me right now), it would have been problematic letting him out: cat diseases were rife, and there were constantly cats being run over in the neighbourhood. The second cat was a rescue, and I had to sign a contract saying he would be kept indoors. Now, I'm living in a much smaller city, and it's quiet enough that I would feel comfortable letting them out. However, neither has ever been an outdoor cat (since being a kitten, anyway, in the rescue's case), they are not currently vaccinated against FLV etc. (only rabies, to keep passports up to date), and I live in a rented flat, so am not at liberty to install a cat flap. They will likely remain indoor cats: the older is 8, the younger turning 6.

Our yard cats are both rescues as well. They were taken on with the express purpose of pigeon and rodent removal, and obviously have to live outdoors to do that. They've become quite friendly, and seem like very happy, healthy cats (as well as very competent cats). They will likely have shorter lives than my two in my flat, but I can't say that they won't have a better quality of life, as cat lives go.

If I got more cats in the future, I'd be inclined to let them out, and live with the worry of their getting run over. However, they would, of course, be neutered (current cats are too).
 
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Hmm its a tough one, I do think they should be allowed outside so they can hunt and play and be cats....we (as in my parents and I, when I lived at home) have always had cats and they have always been outdoor cats. We were also incredibly lucky in that none of them ever got into any form of 'trouble'....we recently lost the two eldest, aged 17 and 21, due to old age.

Anyway, I digress, now I have my own place with my own two cats I couldn't possibly face the heart ache if anything happened to them (and we live on a busy road), so I invested in cat netting for our garden - they have a cat flap and can access our garden whenever they like, night or day, but cannot get out of the garden so are safe. I put it up in a way so they can still climb a couple of trees safely without escaping too.
 
I would love my cats to be able to go outside but we lived in the States for many years and had two happy outdoor cats. We then got two kittens and, when old enough, they were allowed outside too. But then we lost three of them within the space of 8 weeks .... not to poison or cars (we were in a very rural area), but to coyotes. There had been newspaper articles reporting small dogs and cats being taken, but we never believed it would happen to us.

So, our remaining cat was kept strictly indoors after that before moving back to the UK a few years later, and he's remained that way ever since. He would simply have no road sense, as we live on a very busy road (we lost a dog in a road traffic accident a few weeks ago :(). We also have a 9 month old kitten who lives indoors to keep our older one company. They are both very happy and healthy, but it doesn't mean to say I wouldn't let them out one day if we moved to a quieter area.

The jury is out for me ..... if my cats were constantly yearning to get out I might think differently, but they are content and have each other and a dog to play with.
 
I have 2 cats. I have a cat flap so they can go out when they want. One of the cats has not been outside for 3 or 4 years, she is 12 years old and has probably gone outside for about a total of 15 hours in her whole life. The other cat used to go outside a lot, every day for a few hours per day, but she hasn't gone outside for about 9 or 10 months now. I have a farm and no near neighbours or roads so there's no worry about them being run over. It's their choice, if they want to go out they can, if they don't then they don't have to.

One beef I have with some cat owners is those who put the cat outside every night, why? That I cannot get my head around lol!
 
Spring Feather said:
One beef I have with some cat owners is those who put the cat outside every night, why? That I cannot get my head around lol!
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I never really got that either - it's much simpler just to have a cat flap! Both our cats seem to like coming in at night to sleep when we do and Stan (the one who got hit by a car) always sleeps on my bed when I'm home from uni.
 
HashRouge said:
I never really got that either - it's much simpler just to have a cat flap! Both our cats seem to like coming in at night to sleep when we do and Stan (the one who got hit by a car) always sleeps on my bed when I'm home from uni.
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Same here. My cats sleep on my bed all night. Maybe I just have lazy cats :D as they seem to be asleep on my bed all day too!
 
My cat Tom was killed last week, hit by a car. I have five other cats, two elderly 15 & 17 and Tom's three brothers. His loss has made it very difficult to let the others out and we seem to be calling them back after about 10 minutes! I won't let them out after dark as that seems to be when bad things happen. They have a litter tray overnight and seem happy to be in. I don't like them going out of my sight but I think it would be unfair to deny them the freedom to play and hunt and climb trees which they love. Tom was a very big bold cat and I think this was his downfall as I'm sure he was tempted across the road because he was seeing off one of the local moggys and defending his patch. I wish I had'nt let him out that day but hindsight is'nt going to bring him back:(
 
I think cats should eb able to come and go as they please. We have a cat flap and our 16 year-old moggy has always used it. We're surrounded by our own land so the cat using other people's gardens etc isn't an issue. Of the five cats we've had over the years only one has been killed by a car, and she was rather a scatty little thing, bless her. The others have all stalked across the road, if they use it, like traffic wardens on the march. She was a bolter.

I can't stand it when people keep their cats in all the time. Whatever they fondly imagine, litter trays smell. I was working with someone in their (home) office the other day, and their cat was c******g in the litter tray beind the door. I was nearly sick.
 
Cats are by default very independent creatures, and I would never confine a cat. I live in the middle of the Cornish countryside: so far lost three cats in 15 yrs to car accidents, but I would prefer they lived their outside/inside independent life as long as it lasts than to confine them. We have one cat left: Tigger, aged 11. I am not getting any more cats, as much as I love them, for I hate losing them, but would rather they roam. IMO cats kept indoors is just not natural.
 
Should they be allowed outside? Yes, even if it is only in an enclosure.

My cats would love to be indoor cats, they sneak into the basement as often as they can. I would like them to be allowed indoors, but OH is allergic to fur and although he can cope with it outside, if a cat or dog has been in the house then he is reduced to a weepy eyed, snotty, sneezing wreck.

My cats, therefore are barn cats, they have three barns to choose from, the stables has a heated workshop complete with ad lib grub, heated water bowl and a couch, various cushions etc.

Sometimes I don't see them for days on end, as I see it, I feed them, provide them with somewhere warm and safe to live, and they keep the rodent population at bay, fair deal, I don't own them, the population is floating. They are quite happy, they come and go, as, when, and where they wish, sometimes they go and don't come back, for whatever reason, better digs, RTA or a hawk or coyote has got them.:(

If they do meet an untimely end then I can only hope it was quick and that they didn't/don't suffer because I don't go looking for them.

Here are five (I think) of them:

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They should have the choice. I did a longterm cat-sit (18 months) for friends who lived at the crux of three busy South London roads, and the cats luckily never came to any grief. They were healthy and hardy. Another friend lost a beloved cat that liked to roam and had a fatal fascination with a certain road in Cambridge...
Even with the risk, I'd hate to dictate to a cat in that way. They are much more their own beings than dogs (if that makes sense). Dogs get to go on walks and cats, as a rule, don't. It would be like keeping a horse in a stable for its entire natural life.
One friend here had to keep her cat indoors for a few years for various reasons, but when she moved to a place with a garden and access to a big courtyard, the cat was transformed. I remember spending an evening chatting to my friend and the cat would race in, purring, and rub itself all over her, then race out again to get on with hunting/scrapping with other cats, then run back in twenty minutes later to show my friend some love :) It was pretty clear how happy the cat was, even if her ears are slightly more raggedy now than when she was a house cat :rolleyes:
 
I think cats should be able to go outdoor

That said, one of mine wouldn't care at all if she wasn't allowed out, yet my tabby in my sig would go demented. She just couldn't cope with being penned up indoors. So I think it depends on the cat, but I would never try to keep mine in if they didn't want to
 
Yes absolutely.

We live in the country, on a quiet single track country road. Unfortunately it is National speed limit and idiots belt along at 60mph right past the house.

We've lost four cats in the last 23 years to RTAs, and it is really sad and absolutely devastating, but despite that I'd never keep them as indoor cats. They love to be outside, to roam and hunt and play - and I'd much prefer they had a really quality life with risks, than a long safe one kept indoors all the time.
 
depends where you live - i run a pub and my cats are now 16 nearly 17yrs old, we have had them since kittens and we have always been near or on a main road so they have never ever been outside. They have always been healthy (few old age issues now)
If they went out i would worry constantly.
if i lived in middle of nowhere with no roads i may let cats out (not these ones they too old now)
 
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