AIBU to feel too anxious about my cat being late home?

[catsoutthehouse]

We have a lovely cat and love him so much. He's one year old. He's a big mouser and goes out overnight, returning like clockwork at around 7.30am. He has not been home yet, so is now 3.5 hours late. I worry so much that something has happened to him! I've been out shaking a bag of his favourite treats, he is nowhere near. AIBU to think I'm too nervous to have a cat??

Nope, mine is home all night. I don’t like him out when he’s dark as he’s black
he sleeps soundly in bed next to me and isn’t a hunter

We always kept our cats in overnight. When they came in for dinner the cat flap was locked and they were in til my Dad got up, he gave them breakfast and opened the cat flap.

The above is pure scaremongering! From the Cats’ Protection League -

The "2-5 years" figure is heavily skewed by the high mortality rate of feral kittens in their first year of life. If an outdoor cat survives kittenhood and is spayed or neutered, its chances of surviving into double digits increase significantly

Naturally, as the figures include feral cats living in harsh conditions, then of course a lot are sadly going to die young. It is not natural for cats to live their lives indoors, Also ‘outdoor’ is often used in the context of entirely outdoor cats, rather than cosseted felines who are allowed the choice!

A cat flap that recognises the microchip is around £100 I think 🤔 then you either install yourself, find someone who is handy or pay a local handyman to put it in.

I really don’t agree with keeping cats in, they are in no way like a dog.

Any cats I have ever owned have had free access at all times to a cat flap. They would go mental if I ever tried to keep them in at night. All have lived to at least 12-14 years.
I just wouldn’t want to keep them in, they need to be running, climbing, hunting.

We have microchip cat flaps, about £60-£80 on Amazon . We have fitted them ourselves, just like a normal cat flap Only tricky bit is catching the cat and holding it near to active the chip ! They are very good.

That does seem expensive. We have a SureFlap cat flap that works off his chip. I think we paid about £80 and my husband fitted it himself. It’s fairly straightforward. My son has the same one and he too fitted it himself.

Jeez that’s a lot of, we’ve just paid £300 to have one put into a glass door, and that included a new pane of glass as it needed to have a hole cut into it. Plus we bought the cat flap. My husband usually puts them in, although the last one was very difficult to cut the door neatly as it was a panelled door. Bit of a bodge job unfortunately..

Yes £450 is very expensive - I had one about 12mths ago which cost £400 and that was because we had a whole new door panel fitted to replace the glass that was there previously and the local Window and Door company did it.

I also had one put in my previous house about 4 years ago - cost me £60 for a local handyman to come and cut a hole in the UPVC door panel!

Then someone else is feeding them. End of.

Only one poster has even mentioned keeping cats indoors all the time. The rest of us are saying keep them indoors at night. They’ll live longer, cause less havoc to wildlife and it’s cruel to not allow them shelter as op doesn’t have a cat flap

I'm so pleased! I remember my mum used to sing me a song from a cartoon about a cat that this guy couldn't get rid of 'but the cat came back..he thought he was a goner but the cat came back'.

They are always doing mad stuff like that. It's true another family could be put food out for him.

My skinny black moggie with a bite off his ear loved hanging out in the street and everyone would be convinced he was a stray or starving?! I'd find someone had left cat food outside my house before. He didn't touch it, wisely! He was just a happy streetwise fellow with lots of fans! ❤️

I remember that song. Don't remember the exact words but I loved it.

Last year we had someone near me whose Bengal went missing for about a week. They posted the ring doorbell footage of it walking back up the path at 4am very cross noone opened the door instantly.

Quite. My first cat lived to 17: my second to 15, the current two are nearly 4. 24 hour cat flap access.

Air tag on collar or a tracker - I have both
My cat is a wanderer and can stay out for 3 days - I worry less when I know where he is even if not home