A resolution for cat people

[mike_c]

100. well, your experience obviously differs from mine....

Last edited Thu Jan 12, 2012, 09:55 PM - Edit history (2)

Of the fifteen cats that have lived here with me over the years-- as well as others elsewhere-- all but one are either still living and quite healthy (oldest is currently 13+) or died at well advanced ages (generally greater than 15, one lived to be 19). Now I do know that with good care, indoor cats sometimes do outlive that, but at what cost, and an equivalent number die statistically early too, just like indoor/outdoor kitties. Again, I've done it both ways-- I HAVE occasionally lived places where it was patently unsafe to let my cats outdoors and as noted above, I occasionally have to confine a sick one or all of them when out of town for extended periods-- and I can say unequivocally that they are indeed happier when the cat door is open than when confined. Cats are very good at letting you know when they're not pleased, LOL. What gives me the right to take that choice away from them? Just to make me happier or more confident that they're safe? When they are entirely capable of choosing for themselves?

The one exception died of kidney failure at seven years old, very tragic. Search for my post about it here and I guarantee you'll weep along with me. There is some possibility that her kidney problems might have been caused by something that she got into outdoors-- perhaps someone's stored antifreeze-- but we'll never know and there's no reason to assume a priori that she wasn't simply predisposed to kidney disease. She was a rescue kitty who had metal shot in her abdomen, so she'd lived a hard life at the beginning anyway. Her last five years were spent laying in the sun wherever she chose, sitting in laps, and sleeping in the pile o' cats on our bed at night. All her choices.

So my experience has been that properly cared for indoor/outdoor cats don't live short, brutal lives at all-- just the opposite, they live plenty long, and love their freedom to choose where to be.

on edit-- I forgot one other early death, a purebred Siamese male who died of FUS at 18 months, but his problems were quite obviously genetic. He was, in fact, a completely indoor kitty because he was not neutered yet. One of the current herd is his son, which was why we hadn't neutered him yet. He was a gorgeous cat, and we bred him with the (then much younger) current grand dame of the house, that 13+ year old Siamese I mentioned above.