Letting Fixed Cat Roam Small Town

[gardenmom5]

1 hour ago, teachermom2834 said:

I am not really a pet person. If I had a cat it would be an indoor cat (of course unless as some of you are saying the cat refuses and becomes an outdoor cat). But my intent would be to keep it as an indoor cat. For starters I couldn’t deal with the anxiety of not knowing where kitty was and if she was safe and when she would be home, if ever. And also, I would just feel so awful that my cat was annoying people.

 

The cats are in charge apparently.

 

yeah - Cats can be *very* opinionated!

I imagine you're familiar with the saying "Dogs have owners, cats have staff."

 

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

I have traditionally had inside only cats, but then we adopted Obama, who was a stray.  We kept him in until he was around six months old, and honestly, he was just being a massive jerk ALL THE TIME.  He desperately wanted outside.  Even with multiple play sessions a day, he was bored and destructive.  We finally let him outside in self defense.  We don't live on a busy road.  There are other cats outside in our neighborhood, but not all that many of them.  The only wildlife he's killed, that we know of, are a few mice and rats.  He's not a terribly good hunter, and he's super paranoid, and reliably comes when he's called.  Going outside immediately made him infinitely more pleasant to live with.  When we adopted the kittens, Aslan saw Obama going outside and was incredibly jealous.  We have a pretty optimal cat environment here, short of making our own raw food, but even with going outside on a leash, we saw that Aslan and then Inky were really desperate to be able to really run, so we're letting them go outside now for a couple hours a day, while being supervised.  In fact, I'm writing this while supervising Aslan's constitutional.  It's not ideal safety wise, and I totally get the environmental concerns, but I think the physical and mental benefits to the cats are pretty big.  

yep.
Never killed a rat, likes mice - will carry live ones around and drop them so he can catch them again . . . . I only objected when he tried to bring them in the house.  No - you may NOT bring your toys inside!
neighbors are thrilled he likes to hunt mice in their ivy . . . 
He's got at least one mole - we're hoping for more.
i've learned (the hard way) to LOOK before I step out on the porch.   I stepped on a bunny . . . ew yuck gross. . . super gross . . .

I cheer for him killing bunnies - I do not like them.  I planted 40 lilies, and they promptly ate them all.

Now - if he'd just chase off this squirrel who figured out I have sunflowers seeds up here for the birds . . .(the feeders are supposed to be squirrel proof. - one isn't, well, that's not going to be filled for awhile.)

1 hour ago, popmom said:

Yes. Your cat loves you. 🙂

Yeah - he likes to take his daily nap on my side of the bed  . .  
he's not cuddly - but he will often nap near where I am.

1 hour ago, Terabith said:

Or possibly he thinks you are a terrible hunter and he's trying to teach you.  

Last fall - in a ten day period, he *succeeded*!!! in bringing in three mice and two baby bunnies!  into the house.  he dashed right past me before I could stop him.  I managed to catch all of them.    I stopped him bringing in another baby bunny, and he was offended I let it go (It promptly ran off and jumped off my deck.  It didn't seem to slow him down.) - he glared at me, and ran off to go catch it again.

[sassenach]

Do people not have outdoor cats anymore? I haven't been a cat owner in years but ours were always allowed outside. 

[Dmmetler]

5 hours ago, Spy Car said:

I'll look again. We do have a "feeder" supply store in the area, but the cost was skyhigh (especially considering how much cats eat vs snakes).

Mice really are the ideal food for cats. Perfect nutrition. I try to "mimic" prey by feeding dark meat turkey (and such) and organs and edible bone, but it only approximates mice. 

Bill

what you want is the snake breeder that breeds mice for their snakes. Usually they need specific sizes for their snakes and end up with extras, particularly during the Fall/Winter when snakes feed less often.

 

Having said that, our cats have never touched our thawing rodents, in years of keeping snakes. 

[KSera]

5 hours ago, ktgrok said:

If someone is going to let a cat outdoors, I REALLY wish they would create a catio or put up cat fencing in order to keep the cat in their yard. The rest of the community does't want to find cat poop in their flower bed, nor piles of bird feathers, nor have their own animals go NUTS because there is a neighbor's cat on the front porch looking in the window. 

 

This. I love cats and can't help but visit with one if it wanders on our property, but at times they have been problematic. There was one for many months that was constantly sitting right outside our door, and it was hard for us to get in and out of the house because it was trying hard to get in (and we had our own non cat-friendly cat inside so that was a no go). It really became a pain. We tracked down the owner and they pretty much shrugged and said he likes to visit other houses. Our neighbor has a cat who can't stand having a visiting cat in the yard and gets upset and pees in their house when the wandering cat looks in the windows. Another neighbor kept having a wandering cat pee on their patio furniture. So I do have an issue in neighborhood situations when cat owners think everyone else needs to welcome their cat to their yard. Unfortunately for the cats, outdoor cats don't have long lives here, so each of these cat problems have not ended up lasting a terribly long time 😥.

5 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

It is funny when the occasional person will post on the neighborhood FB page that they found a cat or that a strange cat has been in their yard for days. The response is usually something along the lines of “yes that is my cat. It isn’t lost. It’s a CAT. Leave it alone.” Like yeah if you don’t want a cat in your yard YOU are the jerk.

I've seen the same. People have posted, "can whoever owns this cat please come get it? It's been living in my yard and staring in my back door the last two weeks and I don't want it here" and the reply is, "That's Fred. He likes to do his own thing." 🤷‍♀️

Again, I love cats so I'd be out visiting Fred, even if he was simultaneously driving me crazy, but it's still kind of an odd thing to impose on a neighbor.

[SHP]

I live in the urban core, foster cats, and am involved with TNR. 

I do not let mine roam, some are leash trained, some do not care about the outdoors, unless I am outside. I do not care if a fixed cat roams. 

Unaltered roaming cats? If they are not chipped I will TNR them or foster them until a family who wants an indoor cat wants them. 

 

Mostly, I do not care JUST FIX YOUR CAT.

 

[regentrude]

9 hours ago, KSera said:

 

I've seen the same. People have posted, "can whoever owns this cat please come get it? It's been living in my yard and staring in my back door the last two weeks and I don't want it here" and the reply is, "That's Fred. He likes to do his own thing." 🤷‍♀️

When a new family moved into our street, their cat showed up in my yard. I can't count how many times I called the owners to come get her, and they did. Then I told them if they ever missed her, just come into my yard. No number of retrieval could persuade that cat to stay with her old family.

We didn't feed her because we thought if we don't,  she'll go back home. After weeks she started acting hungry.  I called the family and asked if I might feed her something.  They told me the cat hadn't been home for weeks.

She clearly insisted that she live here. They missed her but couldn't do anything. She stayed with us for the next 16 years, except for , for the last five years of her life,  she spent two houses down on their porch.

Cats are such stubborn creatures,  and the term "owner" is a complete misnomer. Servant is much more appropriate. 

[marbel]

9 hours ago, KSera said:

I've seen the same. People have posted, "can whoever owns this cat please come get it? It's been living in my yard and staring in my back door the last two weeks and I don't want it here" and the reply is, "That's Fred. He likes to do his own thing." 🤷‍♀️

That blows my mind. (I mean, I believe you that people respond that way.) I don't even know how to describe that attitude? Entitled? The notion that everyone should welcome someone else's pet to their yard? 

I'm sure I would never do this, but I would be tempted to respond, "OK, your cat is causing a problem for me, so since you won't come get him, I'm taking him to the SPCA (or equivalent) as a stray."

Domestic cats are not wildlife. If a hawk swoops into my yard and snatches a bunny for food, yeah that's the way the world works. A pet cat snatching a bunny to use as a toy or gift to their human... no.  

[KidsHappen]

I have owned many cats in my life time and they have all been indoors only without any trouble. My eldest dd has had two roamers/strays slowly but surely move into her house. They would start by hanging out in the yard and on the porches and then visiting the garage and then occasionally running in when the door was open and then finally spending nights before just moving in permanently. And this was with her already having indoor cats. The ones she originally owned didn't seem to mind the visitors and there were never any fights. Two of them have a strong desire to go out but the other two don't really go out much at all. The ones that go out usually stay in the fenced in yard but occasionally stray farther. One went missing for a week once and we were afraid something happened to her but then she just showed up again. Our guess is that someone thought she was a stray and tried to claim her until she got loose again.

[regentrude]

12 minutes ago, marbel said:

Domestic cats are not wildlife. If a hawk swoops into my yard and snatches a bunny for food, yeah that's the way the world works. A pet cat snatching a bunny to use as a toy or gift to their human... no.  

But since we have driven out most natural predators from our surroundings, having cats to keep the population of small furry mammals in check isn't a bad thing. 

I'm still angry about the mice. Never in the years of having an outdoor cat did we have that problem. And I am not crazy about all the rabbits eating everything the deer don't destroy. Rabbits breed like they do because of natural predation, and if you take that away...

[SHP]

17 minutes ago, regentrude said:

But since we have driven out most natural predators from our surroundings, having cats to keep the population of small furry mammals in check isn't a bad thing. 

I'm still angry about the mice. Never in the years of having an outdoor cat did we have that problem. And I am not crazy about all the rabbits eating everything the deer don't destroy. Rabbits breed like they do because of natural predation, and if you take that away...

Wildlife finds a way. There are people working with birds of prey in urban core to acclimate them to hunting around buildings 8+ stories high. I have walked into my sunroom to see the cat sunning herself up the window oblivious to the rather large hawk watching her through the window. Neighbors have foxes napping on their porches like you would see a free roaming cat do, currently someone near by discovered that one made a den under their deck and is raising their offspring. I hear owls every night, and the one near us has an unofficial name. The coyotes tend to stay further away from our block, but they are seen half a mile away. 

Domestic cats are as much prey to them as the rabbits and squirrels. Remove the cats and let the wildlife hunt the rabbits and squirrels to keep those populations in check.

[SHP]

Dp

Edited April 12, 2023 by SHP

[wintermom]

Wildlife are pretty prominent in my suburb. We see foxes, coyotes and coywolves hunting along the highway corridor and into the wooded areas "in town" along with birds of prey. Their food are squirrels, rabbits, mice, rats and domestic pets, as well as birds and snakes/toads/frogs. There is an abundance of 'lost pet' signs and signs warning people of coywolf/coyote in the area. I notice very few cats roaming the streets. I haven't seen the one who used to visit my yard in a couple years.

We can't complain about the wildlife when we choose to live right next to it. People can choose to own a cat, let it roam, and know that it's part of the food chain. Seems pretty bizarre to me, but I gather the people think it's some form of kindness to let a domestic cat suddenly be wild and free with no actual skills. Some of these "kind" pet owners have even removed their cats' claws, so now they have no form of defence. 🤪

Edited April 12, 2023 by wintermom

[Scarlett]

When we lived in the country our cat came to us as a little stray. She had been spayed so chances are she was dumped.  It took about a month of her skirting along our property before she come close enough for us to feed her.  Then we noticed she was spending her nights on our A frame roof top. So she was definitely  smart enough to avoid becoming prey.  Eventually she let us near her……she obviously was just scared not feral…so I took her to the vet to get checked out. She was near starved to death.   So we kept her in the house at night and fed her.  She promptly gained about 6 pounds and was over weight. She is one of those cats you can’t leave food out for because she will eat every bite.  
 

Then we moved to ‘town’.  But it is a quiet neighborhood with 1/2 acre size lots.  The yards are fenced and two of our connecting neighbors have dogs so she never goes in those yards.  Also  we now have a garage and so installed a pet door into the garage so we could keep her  litter box out there.  There is also a pet door to the back door and we got a dog and it is great for our dog but terrible for the cat bringing in bunnies and birds.  Just as often as not she brings them in alive and then just drops them.  When we tried to put the pet door ‘door’ on she would literally rip it off.  I have never seen anything like it. I definitely know this cat will never be contained completely.  She would lose her mind.  

As for her bothering my neighbors…..I have often seen her going over the back neighbors fence. One day the elderly lady there saw me in my back yard and came and asked me if the cat cat belonged to me.  I gulped and said yes and her face fell. She said she had hoped she was a stray so they could keep her.  Apparently every morning after I feed her her rations she will go to this neighbor for pets. I noticed my cat was getting fat again and our neighbor Evelyn admitted to Dh that she gives kitty just a wee bit of food each morning.  🙄 

Our cat is a screamer.  She will scream for food like she is dying.  Sometimes we look at her and say, ‘we know why you got dumped.’  Other times we tell her, ‘Go see Evelyn!’.

So I am firmly in the ‘let cats roam’ camp.  I would much prefer to see a neighbor cat in my yard then listen to the stupid Weims next door bark their fool head off every time they see me in my yard.   

 

[livetoread]

Speaking of snakes and cats, we have a pet corn snake and a foster cat that is a very finicky eater. He has lately settled on a food for pregnant and nursing cats but I discovered the hard way that buying snake bedding and pregnant cat food together will earn you very dirty looks at the pet store. Even the cashier wouldn't look me in the eye, lol.

[Pawz4me]

9 minutes ago, Scarlett said:

As for her bothering my neighbors…..I have often seen her going over the back neighbors fence. One day the elderly lady there saw me in my back yard and came and asked me if the cat cat belonged to me.  I gulped and said yes and her face fell. She said she had hoped she was a stray so they could keep her.  Apparently every morning after I feed her her rations she will go to this neighbor for pets. I noticed my cat was getting fat again and our neighbor Evelyn admitted to Dh that she gives kitty just a wee bit of food each morning.  🙄 

 

One of our neighbors is an elderly lady. She buys canned food and feeds another neighbor's cat every morning just because she likes getting it to come to visit. I think that cat helps keep her from being lonely and helps to maintain her mental health. The cat's owner knows and has given their blessing.

[Scarlett]

7 minutes ago, Pawz4me said:

One of our neighbors is an elderly lady. She buys canned food and feeds another neighbor's cat every morning just because she likes getting it to come to visit. I think that cat helps keep her from being lonely and helps to maintain her mental health. The cat's owner knows and has given their blessing.

Same here.  We love that Evelyn loves our cranky kitty. 

[Innisfree]

52 minutes ago, regentrude said:

But since we have driven out most natural predators from our surroundings, having cats to keep the population of small furry mammals in check isn't a bad thing. 

I'm still angry about the mice. Never in the years of having an outdoor cat did we have that problem. And I am not crazy about all the rabbits eating everything the deer don't destroy. Rabbits breed like they do because of natural predation, and if you take that away...

I hold no high ground in the debate over inside vs outside cats.

We have a cat who adopted us, insistently, though I tried to discourage her presence in our yard ten years ago. She and dd2 fell in love with each other, the neighbors who supposedly owned her provided no shelter, and when she persisted in sleeping on our deck in the winter, I relented, took her to the vet, and provided an electric cat house in our garage. I couldn’t let her in the house, because of severe cat allergies in another family member. So, I’ve had a mostly-outdoor cat for the last decade, even though I worry about her predation. She’s an excellent huntress.

 I know she catches a lot of rodents. I’ve enjoyed having fewer voles in the garden. In the summer, she’s murder on skinks. She catches more birds than I’m comfortable with, too.

So, as I said, no moral high ground here. Dd will soon have her own space, and the cat will be inside with her unless leashed. I’m relieved to get to this point, and dd is glad that her aging cat will be in a more comfortable environment. The cat may disagree.

All that said, I don’t think we can assume domestic cats simply fill the empty niches of native predators. Maybe they do in some environments, but there’s evidence that they have a more detrimental effect on birds as well as rodents and herps.

“Free-ranging domestic cats have been introduced globally and have contributed to multiple wildlife extinctions on islands. The magnitude of mortality they cause in mainland areas remains speculative, with large-scale estimates based on non-systematic analyses and little consideration of scientific data. Here we conduct a systematic review and quantitatively estimate mortality caused by cats in the United States. We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually. Un-owned cats, as opposed to owned pets, cause the majority of this mortality. Our findings suggest that free-ranging cats cause substantially greater wildlife mortality than previously thought and are likely the single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for US birds and mammals. Scientifically sound conservation and policy intervention is needed to reduce this impact.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2380

As the quote says, the biggest impact is from the unowned cats, but family pets have an intense local effect. Another quote, from a different article:

“A tracking study of more than 900 house cats shows when they kill small birds and mammals, their impact is concentrated in a small area, having a bigger effect than wild predators do…. He calculates that cats can have four-to-10 times the impact of a wild predator. Native predators, like jungle cats, also kill a lot of small animals, but their impact is spread out over a larger area.“

https://www.npr.org/2020/04/18/820953617/the-killer-at-home-house-cats-have-more-impact-on-local-wildlife-than-wild-preda

In a time when wildlife populations worldwide have plummeted during our lifetimes, I’m not comfortable enabling a cat to contribute to local decline, even though I’m guilty. So no easy answers here, but we’re trying to move in the right direction. 

I think we need to create habitat for native predators. Coyotes are new here, but historically we had wolves. We don’t have the fox or bobcat populations we should. I’d rather move towards a world where appropriate local predators can fill their own niches than hope domestic cats fill the gap. 

[kokotg]

Good timing on this Vox article that my phone told me I should read yesterday: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/4/11/23673393/pets-dogs-cats-animal-welfare-boredom

Quote

While most veterinarians oppose letting cats free to roam outdoors, largely to prevent more cats from becoming roadkill, only six out of 10 are kept entirely indoors. Whichever side of the indoor-outdoor debate you choose, there are ways to give cats more of what they need. If your cat does have outdoor access, try giving them a colorful collar, which catches birds’ attention, gives them time to fly away, and can drastically reduce the avian body count. You can also try taking your cat for a walk on a leash (even if your neighbors might give you a double take).

“If you decide to keep a cat indoors, then you really have to work hard to compensate for what you’ve taken from them,” Pierce said. “[Your house] should look like a house where a cat lives, with perches and highways that they can walk across high up above the floor.” She recommends the book — this is the real title and author name — Total Cat Mojo: The Ultimate Guide to Life with Your Cat by Jackson Galaxy, whose YouTube channel includes videos on how to cat-ify one’s home.

I don't think there's a great answer here for people who have cats who aren't happy being inside. We do have a "catio" now--or, at any rate, an enclosed porch the cats can't get off of, but my restless cat will still come in from sunning on the porch and immediately scratch on the front door demanding to be let out that way. We tried a leash when she was still young, and she was having nothing to do with it. I don't feel good about her going outside, and I don't feel good about confining her. And I honestly don't know how we could live with her if we did; she would not only be miserable, she would hurt people and literally destroy our house (cat pee everywhere is not something that's easy to deal with). I do think just pretending that cats are all completely content being stuck inside, not being able to act like....cats is setting people up for failure. And that's definitely out there--in particular the idea that a cat who's never been let outside will never want to go outside; IME, it's just not true for all cats (and maybe not for most cats, if we're honest in our definition of "content"). Interestingly, the main reason we have an enclosed porch now is because we had to chicken proof it so our chickens would stop...wanting to come inside and be with us. Can't win! 

The author starts out talking a lot about dogs because he's a dog owner, but he focuses mostly on dogs who are alone for a lot of the day while their people work. That's not my dogs' situation, and I don't feel like they have the same boredom issues as my cats at all. They can be with people pretty much whenever they want for the most part, they have a large fenced in yard they're free to come and go from all day long, and they're able to go on outings the cats can't. I do plan to stick to just dogs once my current cats are gone (for a lot of reasons, but this is one of them), but we'll see how my resolve holds up; I have a hard time resisting kittens who need homes. 

[KSera]

3 hours ago, regentrude said:

But since we have driven out most natural predators from our surroundings, having cats to keep the population of small furry mammals in check isn't a bad thing. 

That definitely sounds like a difference in location. We have lots of predators, both of cats and of smaller furry mammals. It’s very common here for people’s cats to go out one night and never come home again. Coyotes are the biggest culprit. Very, very common, even in neighborhoods. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

We have zero roaming cats right now in our neighborhood. It’s probably been at least six months since anyone has tried to have an outdoor cat. They simply disappear (presumably into the tummy of a bigger feline or canine). Occasionally someone in the surrounding neighborhoods complains about a cat on Nextdoor, but not for long. 
 

We do have some hilarious (imo) exchanges when new people move into the area and want to know who to call to catch a bobcat. Everyone laughs at them, tells them that bobcats lived here first, to build a catio if their cat likes to go outside and not to worry about their children who should be supervised if they are really young and vulnerable. I consider catios the cat equivalent of fencing your yard if you have a dog. Essential in a suburban city environment. 

[El...]

My cat is old and doesn't care to go outside anymore, but she was quite a stinker in her youth. I spent all day opening and closing the back door for her. She didn't roam far. She'd complain to my husband when he came home, as if the day staff around the house was sub-par. 

One time she tried to come in with a kicking lizard in her mouth! I almost opened the door before I saw him wiggling under her chin! But she wouldn't actually do anything about killing it. She would have let him go.

Once, when I was on crutches with a broken ankle, there was a lizard in my bathroom. She yelled at him until I hobbled in. Then she walked away! She looked back at me like, "Take care of it." 

Poor cat; she's 18 and on monthly pain shots now.

[Scarlett]

1 hour ago, El... said:

My cat is old and doesn't care to go outside anymore, but she was quite a stinker in her youth. I spent all day opening and closing the back door for her. She didn't roam far. She'd complain to my husband when he came home, as if the day staff around the house was sub-par. 

One time she tried to come in with a kicking lizard in her mouth! I almost opened the door before I saw him wiggling under her chin! But she wouldn't actually do anything about killing it. She would have let him go.

Once, when I was on crutches with a broken ankle, there was a lizard in my bathroom. She yelled at him until I hobbled in. Then she walked away! She looked back at me like, "Take care of it." 

Poor cat; she's 18 and on monthly pain shots now.

Not laughing at her old age and but at her antics. 

[teachermom2834]

We had a cat in our neighborhood that was living a double life between two families. The original owners just figured she liked to wander. The family the cat adopted thought they took in a stray. When the cat would return to its original home for a few days the new family would panic and go out looking for it and then be grateful when it returned “home” a few days later. The original family finally saw the “missing” announcements and was like that’s OUR cat and she isn’t missing she is just a wanderer. The “new” family insisted if she was well treated at home she wouldn’t have adopted them. They shared custody for awhile but it was kinda nasty with both claiming the cat. 

Eventually the “new” family decided they didn’t like her anymore because she was a hunter and was killing rabbits in their yard and that upset them. They wanted original family to come get their cat. LOL. Original family was like “um…no…you have been feeding her and taking her inside for months. She’s yours at least part time now.” 
 

It was not funny to the parties involved but it was from the outside. The cat eventually started staying around the original home more. 
 

Those people fighting over that cat who did not give a flip about any of the people involved. She just liked their yards. 

[Grace Hopper]

2 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

We had a cat in our neighborhood that was living a double life between two families. The original owners just figured she liked to wander. The family the cat adopted thought they took in a stray. When the cat would return to its original home for a few days the new family would panic and go out looking for it and then be grateful when it returned “home” a few days later. The original family finally saw the “missing” announcements and was like that’s OUR cat and she isn’t missing she is just a wanderer. The “new” family insisted if she was well treated at home she wouldn’t have adopted them. They shared custody for awhile but it was kinda nasty with both claiming the cat. 

Eventually the “new” family decided they didn’t like her anymore because she was a hunter and was killing rabbits in their yard and that upset them. They wanted original family to come get their cat. LOL. Original family was like “um…no…you have been feeding her and taking her inside for months. She’s yours at least part time now.” 
 

It was not funny to the parties involved but it was from the outside. The cat eventually started staying around the original home more. 
 

Those people fighting over that cat who did not give a flip about any of the people involved. She just liked their yards. 

Sounds like the husband of an acquaintance of mine. 

[skimomma]

1 hour ago, Grace Hopper said:

Sounds like the husband of an acquaintance of mine. 

Ok, I have to ask.....  The husband sounds like the CAT or a PERSON in the story?

[Grace Hopper]

5 hours ago, skimomma said:

Ok, I have to ask.....  The husband sounds like the CAT or a PERSON in the story?

The cat. Two families. Long sad story, but when I read about the cat, that man’s face came to mind. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Grace Hopper