Outdoor cats

Red Hand

We have a cat at home that has been with us for about 2 years. We have adopted her, I guess. Before that she must have been either hunting full-time or scrounging food off neighbours.

We feed her twice or three times a day. She's friendly and often wants to come indoors, but indoors is off-limits to her cause my mother doesn't like animals indoors. So, the cat sleeps outside, in a garage we have. It's a closed garage with only a small open window for her to come in and out, and she sleeps at the other end of the garage in an old box of clothes or else on a car seat.

She used to sleep here years ago too, before we adopted and fed her full-time.

Is this enough? Should I be worrying about her in this cold weather and maybe built her a little place to sleep?

The Sweeper

Jeremiah, she's either your cat or she's not. If she's not, you need to hand her off to - best case scenario - a no-kill shelter, where she will live her life or be rehomed.

I only say this because unless she's the luckiest cat on the planet, at some point she will become ill and require veterinary care. Will you pay for the vet care, or will you be reluctant to pay because she's not really your cat?

Additionally, because she's an outdoor cat, the law of averages states that one day she may not return. If she doesn't come home one day, will you put up 'Lost' posters in the neighbourhood? Will you ring the vets, the pounds and the shelters to see if she's turned up at any of them?

She's either yours or she isn't. If she's yours, but indoors is not a viable option, you need to take on a couple of bits of basic cat care:

1. She needs a trip to the vet for a check up. You need to know what you're dealing with - has she been neutered, are her teeth in okay shape and has she got any diseases.
2. She needs to be innoculated against all the bad things that outdoors cats can catch from fighting with each other.
3. You need to worm her every three months from here on out.
4. She needs a secure, warm place to sleep - it doesn't have to be a specific pet bed, just somewhere that's hers - sounds like the spot she has is quite sheltered, maybe look at giving her a permanent box bed in there.
5. She needs access to fresh water 24 x 7, so a water bowl that gets changed regularly needs to go into that shed.
6. She needs to be fed as good a quality food as you can afford, and given regular worming treatments, as well as being de-fleaed if required.
7. She needs you to own her, and to do right by her, right up to the end of her days.

If she's an outdoor only cat, she runs a high risk of disease, injury and simply not coming home one day. If you accept the above list, then she'll have a better life than she would as an uncared for stray, but you need to accept the risks of ownership with a cat that has unrestricted outdoor access.

It's vitally important to make the mindshift in your head as to whether or not the cat is your cat. Not saying you'd do this, but I've seen it - people adopt a local stray cat, they feed it and sometimes they might even throw it a worm tablet, but they don't accept ownership of it. Then something happens - I've seen a cat lose an eye to an ulcer, because the carers didn't want to pay the vet bill. It started walking about with one eye closed, and they left it be in the hope the injury would resolve ('after all, it's not our cat'). When it lost the eye they panicked and disowned it completely, and it wandered about with one empty socket, no longer allowed in their garage, no longer fed or stroked by them. I don't know what was worse, the injury (curiously common - a scratch on the eye leads to an ulcer, which if untreated can cause the eyeball to burst and the cat loses the eye) or the obvious painful confusion of the animal that could simply not understand why it had been spurned.

Red Hand

The Sweeper wrote: »

Jeremiah, she's either your cat or she's not. If she's not, you need to hand her off to - best case scenario - a no-kill shelter, where she will live her life or be rehomed.

I only say this because unless she's the luckiest cat on the planet, at some point she will become ill and require veterinary care. Will you pay for the vet care, or will you be reluctant to pay because she's not really your cat?

Additionally, because she's an outdoor cat, the law of averages states that one day she may not return. If she doesn't come home one day, will you put up 'Lost' posters in the neighbourhood? Will you ring the vets, the pounds and the shelters to see if she's turned up at any of them?

She's either yours or she isn't. If she's yours, but indoors is not a viable option, you need to take on a couple of bits of basic cat care:

1. She needs a trip to the vet for a check up. You need to know what you're dealing with - has she been neutered, are her teeth in okay shape and has she got any diseases.
2. She needs to be innoculated against all the bad things that outdoors cats can catch from fighting with each other.
3. You need to worm her every three months from here on out.
4. She needs a secure, warm place to sleep - it doesn't have to be a specific pet bed, just somewhere that's hers - sounds like the spot she has is quite sheltered, maybe look at giving her a permanent box bed in there.
5. She needs access to fresh water 24 x 7, so a water bowl that gets changed regularly needs to go into that shed.
6. She needs to be fed as good a quality food as you can afford, and given regular worming treatments, as well as being de-fleaed if required.
7. She needs you to own her, and to do right by her, right up to the end of her days.

If she's an outdoor only cat, she runs a high risk of disease, injury and simply not coming home one day. If you accept the above list, then she'll have a better life than she would as an uncared for stray, but you need to accept the risks of ownership with a cat that has unrestricted outdoor access.

It's vitally important to make the mindshift in your head as to whether or not the cat is your cat. Not saying you'd do this, but I've seen it - people adopt a local stray cat, they feed it and sometimes they might even throw it a worm tablet, but they don't accept ownership of it. Then something happens - I've seen a cat lose an eye to an ulcer, because the carers didn't want to pay the vet bill. It started walking about with one eye closed, and they left it be in the hope the injury would resolve ('after all, it's not our cat'). When it lost the eye they panicked and disowned it completely, and it wandered about with one empty socket, no longer allowed in their garage, no longer fed or stroked by them. I don't know what was worse, the injury (curiously common - a scratch on the eye leads to an ulcer, which if untreated can cause the eyeball to burst and the cat loses the eye) or the obvious painful confusion of the animal that could simply not understand why it had been spurned.

Oh, don't get me wrong, we treat her as our pet. Like, she injured her paw (presumably from been scratched by another cat) last year and she was limping about the place, so we took her to vets. This year, her front paw had a bone broken in it, so again she was carried to the vets, and she was given treatment for it and we temporarily let her inside the house on both occassions until she was recovered. She is neutered and the vet said she is healthy.

We feed her every day a variety of cat food, not the cheapest and sometimes fresh meat, give her cat-milk as a treat and we used to provide her with a water bowl, but she prefers drinking rainwater out of a pot that we have in the yard (yes, I clean it every so often).

My question was really about her been outdoors and what other people do with outside cats. We live in the countryside.

The Sweeper

Apologies for the preachiness. '

If you can't keep her indoors always, or with restricted outdoor access, then she needs a secure 'bolt hole' she can get to for safety if you're not available, with 24x7 access to fresh water. It's not vital to have constant access to food - and in fact it's better not to, as a constant food source appeals to other animals.

Other than that, if she's outdoors, she needs her jabs up to date to provide defence from all the things cats can spread when they fight and she just needs you to keep an eye out for her really.

Dee_animallover

My cat survived stuck up a tree one night 2 years ago and it must have been -5 :eek: So dont worry about them being cold. She's not really outside anyway as such -she can get into the garage and make a warm spot for herself. You could get her one of those covered in cat beds so she would be a bit cosier. Or have a nice chat with your mother and maybe compromise letting her in for even a few hours on these really cold nights?

Personally I have my 3 in the house but can go out if they want but I dont have any one telling me what to do as its my house

Red Hand

Dee_animallover wrote: »

You could get her one of those covered in cat beds so she would be a bit cosier. Or have a nice chat with your mother and maybe compromise letting her in for even a few hours on these really cold nights?

Yeah, I might try one of them, though I made her a small house (bout the size of a doghouse) with a lined basket in it and stuck it in the garage but she won't use it, preferring her own places. I can't exactly push her into it cause she will probably scratch me! Is there any way of encouraging her to use it or any other covered cat bed that I would get-any way of encouraging her to go in of her own accord?

Personally I have my 3 in the house but can go out if they want but I dont have any one telling me what to do as its my house

I don't live at home, I visit at the weekend and buy the cat her week's food, but if Mom doesn't want the cat indoors, then I can't exactly insist on her coming indoors (not unless she's sick). If it were up to me, she would sleep in the kitchen.:)

The Sweeper wrote:

Other than that, if she's outdoors, she needs her jabs up to date to provide defence from all the things cats can spread when they fight and she just needs you to keep an eye out for her really.

Yes, the vet gave her shots the last time she was in to him with her paw, but I'll take care of her now as soon as the vet is taking appointments again.

She does take off for 2-3 days every month or so...I guess she goes hunting and roaming? Do yer cats do this?

The Sweeper

Mine don't disappear because they're indoors with restricted outdoor access. I used to allow them to roam a few years ago, when they were young and stayed near the house, but the fact is that it cost me a fortune in vet bills. I came around to the way of thinking that says cats shouldn't be permitted to roam freely - one got hit by a car and cost me nearly $800, another got bitten by a snake and cost nearly $2000 (not my cat, but she was in my care at the time so I paid the emergency fees and got repaid by the owner), another was climbing the wood pile and a log rolled and the whole lot came down and she tore her cruciate ligament and had to be penned for six weeks.

The worst part of it was the one who got hit by a car - he got hit at 6pm and the lady who hit him picked him up and took him home with her overnight, then took him to the vet in the morning. That was very nice of her, but I was out at 3am with a torch searching for my cat, with a sick feeling in my stomach that I'd never see him again or know what happened to him.

I did a lot of reading about it, and realised that I could keep my cats indoors and they wouldn't suffer for it. I watched my tabby run a panicked figure eight on the road in front of a B-Double (like a big dump truck with a big trailer on the back) and just thought 'I can't let them wander about any more, they have no sense. I'm the one responsible for looking out for them - they really can't do it for themselves'.

At the time I was living in a rural area - on an acre, with 12 acres behind me, acreage properties to my left and to my right and a protected nature reserve of hundreds of acres across what was a pretty quiet road. In that situation you wouldn't think your pets would come to much harm, but it just goes to show, if you don't restrict their roaming you really have no control whatsoever over what happens to them.

I made the transition to indoor only and they thrive. I moved house and the move was easier I think because they were indoor only cats. I'm working on cat-proofing my back yard, so that I can give them access to that and they can't physically get out of the yard (so no risk from the road, or dogs, or people poisoning them - unless they throw something over the fence). They like the outdoors, but to be honest they also like the indoors.

The domestic cat sleeps for hours every day and has bursts of energy every so often. When you look at it like that, you realise that it really doesn't matter where they are for the 18-20-odd hours a day they spend asleep - indoors is just fine. For the hours they're awake, it helps if they have toys, scratching posts etc. I have the added advantage that mine entertain each other too because I've got five of them. I'm on a block of 1/3 acre now, so there's a lot of garden for them to play in once I cat-proof the fences, but could you imagine if I allowed them to roam free here? Five cats, suddenly unleashed on a residential street? My neighbours would be fuckin demented.

Dee_animallover

Jeremiah 16:1 wrote: »

She does take off for 2-3 days every month or so...I guess she goes hunting and roaming? Do yer cats do this?

One of mine (the female) used to do this but not in the last 6 months or so. She might be gone for 2 days at the most, she's spayed so no idea why she would go when she knows she can just lye by the fire and get fed!

You could try putting catnip in the new house? Or move the bedding that she's using now into it so she gets her smell on it.

Red Hand

Might try catnip alright, thanks. Have never bought it, so may give it a go to encourage her to sleep in the shelter.

I don't think she will come to harm here, honestly. We do live near a major road but she doesn't go near it, doesn't even like going towards the front of our house. Which is great. There aren't any nearer roads here...she sticks to our side of the road which is farmland, ditches and two neighbour's properties. One has a dog but he's locked up. She's very quiet and doesn't do anything like a young cat will do like climbing trees or taking risks. Though I still don't know how she broke that bone in her paw.:pac:

Thanks for the advice, will try and get that catnip.

Adventure Pout

Just in case the catnip does not work, as not all cats react to catnip (like mine!!), you can try to put valerian (i think it is a bit like catnip). Some cats go mad for valerian, just like mine!!

Red Hand

Thanks for cat-drugs tips!:pac: