Are domestic cats truly nocturnal animals...

[WildRosie]

...or is it an urban myth perpetuated by the old tradition of putting the cat out for the night ? Does anyone still do this ?

Cat's are crepuscular- active at dusk and dawn. I suspect it was a lack of understanding rather than a myth, but I expect people do use it as a reason to put cats outside at night.

• Cats 🤦🏼‍♀️

Cats aren't nocturnal and are more active at dawn and dusk. Mine do spend a lot of the day asleep but get up if they think food is on offer!

Cats were put out at night because litter trays weren't a thing until recently.

Cant think of the correct word but they are Dusk and Dawn hunters.

Mine sleep through the night and are awake asking for food from about 6am.

Crepuscular is a new great word for my vocabulary. Thankyou.

Mine have a catflap so they can let themselves in and out whenever they want.

Having lost more than one cat to a RTA, I was advised by the vet that most cat fatalities happen at night. I heeded that advice and not allowed my cats out overnight. Fingers crossed no more fatalities up to now 👍🤞

My cat sleeps all night on the end of my bed.
Now she's older she likes a lie in and a lot of the time doesn't bother to move when I get up.

Ours have open access to the outside day and night via their cat flap. They are nearly always asleep at home on a sofa / bed during the day. They go out in the evening after 5pm dinner (just to do their business in the winter before spending the evening by the fire, but stay out longer in the summer months). They usually get fed a snack at 10pm ish and tend to go out when we retire to bed. If the weather is ok, they seem to stay out most of the night as they're rarely around if I get up in the night for the loo / a drink.

I live in south London and the Croydon cat killer is definitely still at large - there was an incident last week a few roads over and we’ve had letters through advising to keep cats in over night. My two never bloody come back when I call them in - they don’t reliably come back at night, so I’ve been making sure they’re out in the day and feeding their dinner later at 7 so they’ll come back, then keeping them in. They’re usually asleep by 8 and up again in the morning 😂🥰

@GorgeousLadyofWrestling same! occasionally they manage to escape but we try to keep them in at night.

Mine goes out around 10:30pm then I call for her at midnight and she comes back. During the summer she's up all night wanting to be out. My other two are confined to the garden as they're vulnerable and I can't risk them getting lost. They tend to be active during the day - with naps - and then sleep all night.

@Ladyofthepeonies same as in south London? It’s bloody awful, isn’t it.

Not south London. The cat killer.

yep. The 3 phases

Diurnal - awake during the day
Nocturnal - awake at night
Crepuscular - awake at dawn and dusk

It seems there's a lot to be said for keeping cats indoors at night, unless they're absolutely hell bent on being outside, in which case be prepared for them to pester you!

Our old cat would please himself. Generally speaking, he'd disappear to spend a penny at bedtime and come back inside anything up to ten minutes later. However, he was often happy to spend the night (asleep) in the greenhouse during warm weather and request/demand re-entry at about 7 in the morning.

We think of barn owls as being nocturnal birds but perhaps they too would be more accurately described as crepuscular. I often see them flitting about at work when I'm on nights but not carrying any prey.

My cats sleep on the bed with us all night 😁

I have just given in and started to let my almost year old cat outside at night. He was waking me up at 4-4:30 every morning, desperate to get out. I would get up and let him out when not be able to get back to sleep. So...he is now on the second night of being able to roam freely and he has slept all day and been out all night, from what I can tell. He has a cat flap. We are in the countryside.

Mine generally comes in at night, she will often go out from 7pm-11pm and then come home, but occasionally she won’t come home when I call her.
She stayed out all last night, she stays close to our house when she’s wondering and is very nervous of cars and roads so I’m not worried about her when she decides to sleep out, she has a few sheltered areas in our garden where she can sleep if she wants. I don’t deliberately leave her out overnight though, I always try and bring her in if I can.

Cats will always need to spend some time outside at dawn and dusk in order to collect presents for their grateful staff.

Given mine seem to decide to treat home like the Grand Prix circuit at around midnight - I think so!
but it might also coincide with the time I get home and dish up dreamies. …

My Madam has no routine whatever. She can be outside hunting, playing and wrecking my catmint most of the day, and sleep on my bed all night, or the reverse, or alternate her naps and short trips outside at any time. She enjoys mousing (my garden backs onto barley fields) and will bring in trophies to disembowel on my kitchen floor for my delectation in the morning!

My cat hasn't understood the cat manual, he's sleeping on the kitchen chair now and it's nearly 8pm. Not much activity going on there. He'll move to the sofa later and wake up around 6am and that's only because it's the time I get up on a working day, which is only 3 times a week.

He has recently been traumatised having got himself trapped again for 2 nights.

I tried keeping my cats in at night by locking the catflap but the fiends battered/scraped at the catflap repeatedly (usually starting around 11.30pm!) and generally attempted to noisily break it. I tried barricading the catflap every night with bins, chairs and other heavy objects, but they still attempted to get at the flap, usually knocking stuff over the place. Since I sleep next to the room where the catflap is I gave up in order to get some sleep!