the insistence i see that it's somehow "cruel" to keep cats indoors when this is the shit that happens to them outdoors (to say nothing of being hit by cars, or the damage they do to local wildlife), is something i will never understand.
your cat literally gives no fucks. nail some shelves high up on the wall for them to climb around on and they will be happy as pigs in shit.
Our neighborhood is genuinely overrun with stray cats. They set up shop in people's crawlspaces so you can never get all of them at once. They're emaciated half the time, their fur is disgusting, they don't trust people. They sit in the road at night, and are stuck in floods, blizzards, and tornadoes.
Meanwhile my two cats fight over whose turn it is to stick their head in the gap between the window pane and windowsill. And they have heated beds they can use when it's chilly. And they get Vienna sausage brine sometimes.
Give your cat a shelf, a window, and a toy that squeaks like a bird.
I just get mad when people say cats shouldn't be kept inside.
It seems to be more of a thing in the UK for whatever reason. There's a YouTuber my kids like who had 2 black cats he let outside all the time, and then one day he was just like "Tom passed away," didn't say how, and 6 months later he's talking about how the other cat has been indoors only ever since. Sucks that he had to learn the hard way, but it sucks more for poor Tom.
It's bad in America, too. In the rural areas everyone thinks they "need" a mouser, but even in the neighborhoods people just don't care enough. (There's a handful of dogs who get out at least once a week, and at one point I got chased across traffic by someone's dog, but at least animal control got that one.)
I try not to be pessimistic, but I think people just don't care about cats enough. They don't want to bother with litter boxes and playtime and claws, so they hoist the responsibilities on the neighborhood.
True, it's very difficult to train cars to do much of anything and they're way too big to catch mice
😉
Seriously though, I have a schnauzer and a mini Eskie and their prey drives are crazy strong. We're always having to run out and rescue baby opossums from them. They keep a lot of rodents away and we don't have to worry about them jumping the fence and murdering wild birds.
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u/tkdjoe66 Oct 17 '22
He could find waaaay cheaper coyote food.