When I worked at the emergency vet, we saw quite a few HBCs (hit by car). Mostly off-leash dogs (there’s a city ordinance that dogs must be leashed) and cats allowed outdoors. These cases could have been preventable.
Hi Barb, thank you for sharing your experience from working at the emergency vet. It's heartbreaking to hear about preventable cases like HBCs, but your insight really drives home the importance of keeping pets safe indoors. Your perspective is invaluable in helping us spread awareness about animal safety.
Ed makes the case for keeping cats indoors eloquently and wisely. The world in which cats were domesticated, and lived with humans for eons, is nothing like our modern world. What made sense back then does not make sense now.
Thank you, Michael, for your kind words and thoughtful insight! You're absolutely right; the world has changed dramatically since cats first domesticated us... and it's crucial we adapt our care for them accordingly. I appreciate your support for keeping cats safe indoors.
I am an animal lover with a strong penchant for cats. I once bred and showed cats in the cat fancies. Of course, this is something many animal/cat lovers despise. The people who despise people like me totally misunderstand. But that is another subject for another day.
The idea of letting cats roam outside horrifies me. If people truly connect with cats and love them, they will understand to provide their cat(s) with stimulating and protective indoor living ONLY. Cats don’t need to be outdoors and actually are happier indoors. And, everyone is safer with only indoor cats.
Hi Mary, thank you for sharing your thoughtful perspective! It's wonderful to hear from someone with your background. Your emphasis on providing cats with stimulating and protective indoor environments is spot on. It's clear that you truly care about their well-being, and I couldn't agree more about the importance of keeping them safe indoors.
Along with human intelligence comes the proportionate reprehensible potential for evil behavior, including malice for malice’s sake. While animals, including pet cats, can react violently, it is typically due to reactive distrust/dislike or necessity/sustenance. But leave it to humans to commit a spiteful act, if only because we can. With our four-legged friends there definitely is a beautiful absence of that undesirable distinctly human trait.
I grew up around cats and sometimes their kittens, including feral/stray felines, and developed a life-long appreciation and affection for cats in general. As a young boy, finding them slaughtered the first thing in the morning was quite traumatizing. They were lost to larger predators — perhaps even a cat-hating human. I knew about a few guys willing to procure sick satisfaction from torturing to death those naively-trusting thus likely sweet-natured cats whose owners had allowed to wander the neighborhood, even at night.
Many, if not most, people cannot relate to cat owners finding preciousness and other qualities in their beloved pets, including a non-humanly innocence, that make losing them someday such a horrible heartbreak. Even when the innocent animal has been made to greatly suffer needlessly, perhaps before finally being killed/murdered, many will instead think and maybe say, ‘It was just a cat’.
Many also don’t care for the innate resistance by cats to heeling at their masters’ command. Also, their reptile-like vertical-slit pupils and cliché Hollywood-portrayed fanged hiss when confronted, in a world mostly fearful/hostile toward snakes, caused cats to have a seemingly permanent PR problem, despite their Internet adorable-pet status.
The anti-cat complacency and contempt is even felt — and, far worse, publicly expressed — by a few potentially influential news-media professionals.
I came across a newspaper editor's column about courthouse protesters demanding justice for a cat that had been cruelly shot in the head 17 times with a pellet gun, destroying an eye. Within her piece, the editor rather recklessly declared: “Hey crazy people, it’s [just] a cat.” ... The court judge might've also perceived it so, as the charges against the two adult-male perpetrators were dropped.
Then there was the otherwise progressive national commentator proclaiming in one of her then-syndicated columns that “I never liked cats”. In another piece, she wrote that politicians should replace their traditional unproductively rude heckling with caterwauling: “My vote is for meowing because I don’t like cats and I’d like to sabotage their brand as much as possible. So if our elected politicians are going to be disrespectful in our House of Commons, they might as well channel the animal that holds us all in contempt.”
(I search-engined the internet but found no potential reason(s) behind her publicized anti-feline sentiments. I also futilely asked her via her Facebook page. Still, if her motives were expressed, perhaps she'd simply say, ‘I just don’t like cats’.)
Cats can and often do offer reciprocally healthy relationships — many cat lovers describe them as somewhat symbiotic — particularly for those suffering physical and/or mental illness. It’s the pet's many qualities, especially its non-humanly innocence, that makes losing it someday such a heartbreaking experience.
Yet, human apathy, the throwaway mentality/culture and even some societal hostility toward them often result in cat-population explosions thus their inevitable homelessness, neglect and suffering, including severe illness and hunger. As such, the mindset of feline disposability likely goes: ‘Oh, there’s a lot more whence they came’.
Due to general human mentality, it’s likely that only when their over-populations are greatly reduced in number through consistent publicly-funded spay/neuter programs, might these beautiful animals’ potentially soothing, even therapeutic, presence be truly appreciated rather than taken for granted or even resented. Until then, cats likely will remain beautiful yet often misunderstood, prejudged and unjustly despised animals.
Thank you, Frank, for sharing your thoughtful and heartfelt perspective on cats and the challenges they face. Your personal experiences and observations provide a powerful insight into the complex relationship between humans and felines. I appreciate your advocacy for cats and your recognition of their value as companions and therapeutic presences in our lives.
Your points about the need for better understanding, appreciation, and protection of cats are well-taken. It's crucial that we continue to educate people about responsible pet ownership and the importance of spay/neuter programs to address overpopulation issues.
Thank you for being a voice for these often misunderstood animals. Your compassion is truly commendable.
You are welcome, and thank you. I'd just like to add that the city (Surrey, B.C.) neighboring mine, there were an estimated 36,000 feral/stray/homeless cats, very many of which suffer severe malnourishment, debilitating injury and/or infection. That number was about six years ago. I was informed four years later by the local cat charity (Surrey Community Cat Foundation) that, if anything, their “numbers would have increased, not decreased” since then.
Their TNR program is/was the only charity to which I’ve ever donated, in no small part because of the plentiful human callousness towards the plight of those cats and the countless others elsewhere. Thus, I was greatly saddened when told by the non-profit via email that, “Our TNR program is not operating. There are no volunteers that are interested in trapping and there is no place to recover the cats after surgery” without a feeding-station site.
The city's municipal government as well as too many uncaring residents have done little or nothing to help with the local non-profit trap/neuter/release program. And then leave it to classic human hypocrisy to despise and even shoot or poison those same suffering cats for naturally feeding on smaller prey while municipal governments and many area residents mostly permit the feral cat populations to explode — along with the resultant feline suffering within.
When I was a kid, my father insisted on letting the cat outside to roam in our suburban neighborhood (dad grew up on a farm). The cat disappeared for weeks until a neighbor discovered him in their attic. No idea how the cat got up there. He was in poor shape but made a full recovery, only to be killed by a car. Got another cat, again killed by a car. As an adult, I’ve never let my cats outside. My last cat lived to age 21.
Hi Dee, thank you for sharing your personal story. It's both heartbreaking and enlightening to hear about your experiences with outdoor cats. I'm so glad you've made the decision to keep your cats safe indoors as an adult, and it's wonderful to hear that your last cat lived a long and happy life. Your story is a powerful reminder of the importance of keeping cats indoors. Thank you for sharing!
I work in the "lost pet industry" and can testify to the fact that cats allowed outdoors are at risk of SO many things that can happen to them that can threaten their lives and/or displace them from their family. Whereas when indoor-only cats escape outside and typically hide (near their escape point) in silence, when an outdoor-access cat vanishes, it is an ENTIRELY different situation!
And the mistake cat owners make is not understanding that the methods they should use to search for a missing outdoor-access cat are VERY DIFFERENT from how you'd investigate a displaced/escaped indoor-only cat (I've approached lost cat recovery from an "investigative" mode because of my background as a police detective, so that's why my writing sounds somewhat detectivey). Outdoor-access cats have 8 Probability Categories of what might have happened to them: (1) They are trapped and can't come home (2) They are sick, injured, or deceased (from all the things Ed mentions above) (3) They were chased / displaced from their territory by another cat and in which case they likely will be too afraid to come home but might be just 2 blocks away, living in a neighbor's yard (4) They could have been taken by a predator (5) They could have been INTENTIONALLY transported / dumped out of the area (by a cat hating neighbor or roommate, etc.) (6) They could have been UNINTENTIONALLY transported out of the area (by climbing in roofing van, moving van, into engine of a car, etc.), (7) They were "rescued" by someone (often a neighbor!) who thinks they are a "community cat" or that it is homeless or (8) They were stolen (very rare for cats to be stolen, but it can happen).
All of these and other info about lost cat behaviors can be found on our website page "Lost Cat Behaviors" at www.missinganimalresponse.com/lost-cat-behavior/. My point of all of this is that YOUR CAT WILL LIVE A SAFER LIFE AS AN INDOOR-ONLY CAT! If you are too afraid that your cat won't adjust or that he/she will be "too bored" then GET HIM HIS OWN PET--a mouse, a hamster, or a simple Beta fish! I did this, and my two indoor-onlys had a pet mouse named "Squeakers" and another named "Chicken"! You can read the story of how these pet mice enriched my cats lives and actually gave them both JOBS at: https://katalbrecht.substack.com/p/every-cat-needs-a-pet I hope this helps someone!
Hi Kat, thank you for sharing your valuable expertise from the "lost pet industry" and your unique perspective as a former police detective. Your insights are truly instructive. Your enthusiasm and dedication to animal safety are inspiring, and I'm sure your advice will help many cat owners make informed decisions.
Overall, I agree with your article. My father believed our cat Midnight should be indoor only and this goes back to the 80s. However, his wife at the time didn't agree. She thought Midnight would become destructive if kept indoors all day, so Midnight was an indoor/outdoor cat. Unfortunately we only had her for 8 years when she died after being struck by a car.
In the first year we had her she got into a fight and got pregnant, and both times my dad's wife elected to keep her indoors for a period. The dangers she faced haven't gone away, so I wish my neighbors would keep their cats indoors for the cats safety and to reduce the stray cat numbers.
As far as cats & the environment, there's published information that contradicts cats are killing birds in such high numbers. It's reported that many birds die due to poisoning (like Flaco) or colliding with buidings.
I wish local governments would be proactive and start an information campaign to teach the public about the benefits of keeping cats indoors and ways to do it.
Thank you, Abdussamad, for sharing your story about Midnight. It's heartbreaking to hear about her tragic end, but it's clear that your father's instincts about keeping her indoors were well-intentioned. I appreciate your concern for your neighbors' cats and the broader environmental impact.
Regarding the environmental concerns, you're right that multiple factors contribute to bird mortality, and it's important to address these comprehensively. I agree that local governments can play a crucial role in educating the public about the benefits of keeping cats indoors. It's a great idea to promote awareness and provide resources for cat owners to create enriching indoor environments.
Thank you for your thoughtful insights and for being an advocate for cat safety!
When I worked at the emergency vet, we saw quite a few HBCs (hit by car). Mostly off-leash dogs (there’s a city ordinance that dogs must be leashed) and cats allowed outdoors. These cases could have been preventable.
Hi Barb, thank you for sharing your experience from working at the emergency vet. It's heartbreaking to hear about preventable cases like HBCs, but your insight really drives home the importance of keeping pets safe indoors. Your perspective is invaluable in helping us spread awareness about animal safety.
Ed makes the case for keeping cats indoors eloquently and wisely. The world in which cats were domesticated, and lived with humans for eons, is nothing like our modern world. What made sense back then does not make sense now.
Thank you, Michael, for your kind words and thoughtful insight! You're absolutely right; the world has changed dramatically since cats first domesticated us... and it's crucial we adapt our care for them accordingly. I appreciate your support for keeping cats safe indoors.
I am an animal lover with a strong penchant for cats. I once bred and showed cats in the cat fancies. Of course, this is something many animal/cat lovers despise. The people who despise people like me totally misunderstand. But that is another subject for another day.
The idea of letting cats roam outside horrifies me. If people truly connect with cats and love them, they will understand to provide their cat(s) with stimulating and protective indoor living ONLY. Cats don’t need to be outdoors and actually are happier indoors. And, everyone is safer with only indoor cats.
Hi Mary, thank you for sharing your thoughtful perspective! It's wonderful to hear from someone with your background. Your emphasis on providing cats with stimulating and protective indoor environments is spot on. It's clear that you truly care about their well-being, and I couldn't agree more about the importance of keeping them safe indoors.
Along with human intelligence comes the proportionate reprehensible potential for evil behavior, including malice for malice’s sake. While animals, including pet cats, can react violently, it is typically due to reactive distrust/dislike or necessity/sustenance. But leave it to humans to commit a spiteful act, if only because we can. With our four-legged friends there definitely is a beautiful absence of that undesirable distinctly human trait.
I grew up around cats and sometimes their kittens, including feral/stray felines, and developed a life-long appreciation and affection for cats in general. As a young boy, finding them slaughtered the first thing in the morning was quite traumatizing. They were lost to larger predators — perhaps even a cat-hating human. I knew about a few guys willing to procure sick satisfaction from torturing to death those naively-trusting thus likely sweet-natured cats whose owners had allowed to wander the neighborhood, even at night.
Many, if not most, people cannot relate to cat owners finding preciousness and other qualities in their beloved pets, including a non-humanly innocence, that make losing them someday such a horrible heartbreak. Even when the innocent animal has been made to greatly suffer needlessly, perhaps before finally being killed/murdered, many will instead think and maybe say, ‘It was just a cat’.
Many also don’t care for the innate resistance by cats to heeling at their masters’ command. Also, their reptile-like vertical-slit pupils and cliché Hollywood-portrayed fanged hiss when confronted, in a world mostly fearful/hostile toward snakes, caused cats to have a seemingly permanent PR problem, despite their Internet adorable-pet status.
The anti-cat complacency and contempt is even felt — and, far worse, publicly expressed — by a few potentially influential news-media professionals.
I came across a newspaper editor's column about courthouse protesters demanding justice for a cat that had been cruelly shot in the head 17 times with a pellet gun, destroying an eye. Within her piece, the editor rather recklessly declared: “Hey crazy people, it’s [just] a cat.” ... The court judge might've also perceived it so, as the charges against the two adult-male perpetrators were dropped.
Then there was the otherwise progressive national commentator proclaiming in one of her then-syndicated columns that “I never liked cats”. In another piece, she wrote that politicians should replace their traditional unproductively rude heckling with caterwauling: “My vote is for meowing because I don’t like cats and I’d like to sabotage their brand as much as possible. So if our elected politicians are going to be disrespectful in our House of Commons, they might as well channel the animal that holds us all in contempt.”
(I search-engined the internet but found no potential reason(s) behind her publicized anti-feline sentiments. I also futilely asked her via her Facebook page. Still, if her motives were expressed, perhaps she'd simply say, ‘I just don’t like cats’.)
Cats can and often do offer reciprocally healthy relationships — many cat lovers describe them as somewhat symbiotic — particularly for those suffering physical and/or mental illness. It’s the pet's many qualities, especially its non-humanly innocence, that makes losing it someday such a heartbreaking experience.
Yet, human apathy, the throwaway mentality/culture and even some societal hostility toward them often result in cat-population explosions thus their inevitable homelessness, neglect and suffering, including severe illness and hunger. As such, the mindset of feline disposability likely goes: ‘Oh, there’s a lot more whence they came’.
Due to general human mentality, it’s likely that only when their over-populations are greatly reduced in number through consistent publicly-funded spay/neuter programs, might these beautiful animals’ potentially soothing, even therapeutic, presence be truly appreciated rather than taken for granted or even resented. Until then, cats likely will remain beautiful yet often misunderstood, prejudged and unjustly despised animals.
Thank you, Frank, for sharing your thoughtful and heartfelt perspective on cats and the challenges they face. Your personal experiences and observations provide a powerful insight into the complex relationship between humans and felines. I appreciate your advocacy for cats and your recognition of their value as companions and therapeutic presences in our lives.
Your points about the need for better understanding, appreciation, and protection of cats are well-taken. It's crucial that we continue to educate people about responsible pet ownership and the importance of spay/neuter programs to address overpopulation issues.
Thank you for being a voice for these often misunderstood animals. Your compassion is truly commendable.
You are welcome, and thank you. I'd just like to add that the city (Surrey, B.C.) neighboring mine, there were an estimated 36,000 feral/stray/homeless cats, very many of which suffer severe malnourishment, debilitating injury and/or infection. That number was about six years ago. I was informed four years later by the local cat charity (Surrey Community Cat Foundation) that, if anything, their “numbers would have increased, not decreased” since then.
Their TNR program is/was the only charity to which I’ve ever donated, in no small part because of the plentiful human callousness towards the plight of those cats and the countless others elsewhere. Thus, I was greatly saddened when told by the non-profit via email that, “Our TNR program is not operating. There are no volunteers that are interested in trapping and there is no place to recover the cats after surgery” without a feeding-station site.
The city's municipal government as well as too many uncaring residents have done little or nothing to help with the local non-profit trap/neuter/release program. And then leave it to classic human hypocrisy to despise and even shoot or poison those same suffering cats for naturally feeding on smaller prey while municipal governments and many area residents mostly permit the feral cat populations to explode — along with the resultant feline suffering within.
When I was a kid, my father insisted on letting the cat outside to roam in our suburban neighborhood (dad grew up on a farm). The cat disappeared for weeks until a neighbor discovered him in their attic. No idea how the cat got up there. He was in poor shape but made a full recovery, only to be killed by a car. Got another cat, again killed by a car. As an adult, I’ve never let my cats outside. My last cat lived to age 21.
Hi Dee, thank you for sharing your personal story. It's both heartbreaking and enlightening to hear about your experiences with outdoor cats. I'm so glad you've made the decision to keep your cats safe indoors as an adult, and it's wonderful to hear that your last cat lived a long and happy life. Your story is a powerful reminder of the importance of keeping cats indoors. Thank you for sharing!
I work in the "lost pet industry" and can testify to the fact that cats allowed outdoors are at risk of SO many things that can happen to them that can threaten their lives and/or displace them from their family. Whereas when indoor-only cats escape outside and typically hide (near their escape point) in silence, when an outdoor-access cat vanishes, it is an ENTIRELY different situation!
And the mistake cat owners make is not understanding that the methods they should use to search for a missing outdoor-access cat are VERY DIFFERENT from how you'd investigate a displaced/escaped indoor-only cat (I've approached lost cat recovery from an "investigative" mode because of my background as a police detective, so that's why my writing sounds somewhat detectivey). Outdoor-access cats have 8 Probability Categories of what might have happened to them: (1) They are trapped and can't come home (2) They are sick, injured, or deceased (from all the things Ed mentions above) (3) They were chased / displaced from their territory by another cat and in which case they likely will be too afraid to come home but might be just 2 blocks away, living in a neighbor's yard (4) They could have been taken by a predator (5) They could have been INTENTIONALLY transported / dumped out of the area (by a cat hating neighbor or roommate, etc.) (6) They could have been UNINTENTIONALLY transported out of the area (by climbing in roofing van, moving van, into engine of a car, etc.), (7) They were "rescued" by someone (often a neighbor!) who thinks they are a "community cat" or that it is homeless or (8) They were stolen (very rare for cats to be stolen, but it can happen).
All of these and other info about lost cat behaviors can be found on our website page "Lost Cat Behaviors" at www.missinganimalresponse.com/lost-cat-behavior/. My point of all of this is that YOUR CAT WILL LIVE A SAFER LIFE AS AN INDOOR-ONLY CAT! If you are too afraid that your cat won't adjust or that he/she will be "too bored" then GET HIM HIS OWN PET--a mouse, a hamster, or a simple Beta fish! I did this, and my two indoor-onlys had a pet mouse named "Squeakers" and another named "Chicken"! You can read the story of how these pet mice enriched my cats lives and actually gave them both JOBS at: https://katalbrecht.substack.com/p/every-cat-needs-a-pet I hope this helps someone!
Hi Kat, thank you for sharing your valuable expertise from the "lost pet industry" and your unique perspective as a former police detective. Your insights are truly instructive. Your enthusiasm and dedication to animal safety are inspiring, and I'm sure your advice will help many cat owners make informed decisions.
Overall, I agree with your article. My father believed our cat Midnight should be indoor only and this goes back to the 80s. However, his wife at the time didn't agree. She thought Midnight would become destructive if kept indoors all day, so Midnight was an indoor/outdoor cat. Unfortunately we only had her for 8 years when she died after being struck by a car.
In the first year we had her she got into a fight and got pregnant, and both times my dad's wife elected to keep her indoors for a period. The dangers she faced haven't gone away, so I wish my neighbors would keep their cats indoors for the cats safety and to reduce the stray cat numbers.
As far as cats & the environment, there's published information that contradicts cats are killing birds in such high numbers. It's reported that many birds die due to poisoning (like Flaco) or colliding with buidings.
I wish local governments would be proactive and start an information campaign to teach the public about the benefits of keeping cats indoors and ways to do it.
Thank you, Abdussamad, for sharing your story about Midnight. It's heartbreaking to hear about her tragic end, but it's clear that your father's instincts about keeping her indoors were well-intentioned. I appreciate your concern for your neighbors' cats and the broader environmental impact.
Regarding the environmental concerns, you're right that multiple factors contribute to bird mortality, and it's important to address these comprehensively. I agree that local governments can play a crucial role in educating the public about the benefits of keeping cats indoors. It's a great idea to promote awareness and provide resources for cat owners to create enriching indoor environments.
Thank you for your thoughtful insights and for being an advocate for cat safety!
Thank you for writing this article and for your work on behalf of animals.
I like this additional feature “Ask Me Anything” to your blog!
I can't wait to get your first question... lol :-)