AIBU to think cats should not roam unsupervised like dogs?

[estrogone]

AIBU to think that if you dont leave your dog to roam streets unsupervised, then you shouldn't let other pets (cats), for the same reasons.

It blows my mind that people let their cats out because their sleep is disrupted and I wonder why they think its OK, when its highly unlikely they would put Fido outside if he kept the family up.

i don’t think anyone needs the difference between cats and dogs explaining, but I question whether we should be breeding them as pets given their natural behaviours.

All my cats have either been strays/farm cats or rescues. Would you prefer these cats had been euthanised as kittens?

Have you ever met a dog 😂 There’s a reason people panic if a dog gets out the front door. They have no road sense and will probably be run over within 5 minutes. They’re also unpredictable and certain dogs if frightened or startled, or aggressive without an owner to manage them, can do serious harm and even kill a child. Cats ARE roaners, keeping them inside is like keeping them in prison, as someone said a catio is just a big cage. I used to have a cat (died from illness, not a road accident.) I’d rather he went out and was happy (he’d just have perpetually meowed at the door or window if kept in) and lived a happy but potentially shorter life if run over, than lived a life in prison. How would you like to never be free to roam outside? Wildlife attack wildlife all the time. Should foxes be kept in a catio?

When humans domesticate animals over time, we 'design' them to be useful in the way we need them to be.

Horses for heavy work and also leisure and sport.

Dogs for companionship and protection.

We basically invented dogs as we know them now. Would a French Bulldog or a Dachshund ever have evolved naturally in the wild?! No. We wanted them like that so we bred them for those characteristics that were useful or attractive to us.

We needed cats to kill vermin to protect our grain stores. Over thousands of years of farming and agriculture it suited us perfectly for cats to be semi wild and excellent hunters.

Now that in the last 70 years we have supermarkets and packaged food, you want to reverse those thousands of years and turn cats into useless toy pets. Maybe that's possible if you have a Persian cat or some very overengineered vanity breed. But your basic moggy is going to be really upset and distressed if you keep it locked inside. It's not benign negligence to let a cat do what it's been bred to do and comes completely naturally to it.

The relationship between cats and humans is not the same as other types of animal ownership. It's a unique reciprocal arrangement where you both live side by side and one does not dominate the other. (If anything, the cat dominates the human!) Just because you can acquire them as property through legal or financial transactions, does not mean you have the right to - or are indeed able to - control what it does.

If you decide to get a cat, you basically sign up for the attendant risks. When we got our cats I said to the children, you realise one day they will break your heart? That's the deal.

hear hear

Who cares if Tiddles isn't enriched by being kept indoors.

Just responding to this.

My cats had access to a 50m sq movable cat enclosure- moved once a week. At night access to the house and a catio and toys.super, very happy & enriched.

They would go on holiday with us and were extremely outgoing and content. Its possible if you apply the same rules and standards as other pets.

Op I’m not sure why but you are failing to address the many reasonable explanations with your counter arguments. Which suggests you don’t really have any good ones.

if you wanted opinion, rather than a echo chamber, it would be helpful to address the opposing arguments.

Oh yes, stress UTI, a cat weakness. Am glad your boy is happy and healthy now! And it's nice to have a homeboy. Our girl now is similar, always somewhere nearby.

Last year we had to move to London to look after FIL. Cat proofed the garden, put loads of things in for her to do, played with her every night and she had a fish pond! After a month, the stress crept up of no freedom.

Then we walked her around the streets in London (she walks with us, no harness), not great as nowhere to do much but it kept her happy for another week or so. Then she massively withdrew. She stopped eating, cowered from us, sat in the corner of the room. No petting was allowed. Over-groomed and her hair started to fall out which gave herself furballs.
FIL died around this time so I brought her back to our old house. Again, total turnaround, happy, content, eating but didn't stay in the house for a couple of weeks (she has cat houses in the garden) for fear of us taking her away again.

Cats are not dogs!

Unlike the other creatures you mention cats have incredible survival instincts. They are nails.

This is shown that most cats are let out alone and manage not to get killed, this just wouldn't be the case with a dog or a guinea pig.

One of my cats would absolutely hate being indoors or in a catio, hate it. He is from a farm and loves to roam. Yes I could keep in him and keep him "safe" but his quality of life would be awful. In my view I would rather he love his life and face the risks of cars and foxes (who he sees off anyway) than live in a gilded cage.

No, because foxes are part of our native ecosystem and cats aren’t.
Foxes have become great at living alongside us which is great because things that can’t live alongside us become threatened with potential extinction. Foxes have evolved alongside our native wildlife.

Cats aren't in that category. Their populations are artificially supported by humans. They are additional predator that our wildlife isn’t meant to be facing.

I don’t understand why people keep reverting to this argument. It isn’t even slightly relevant.

And my cat made himself sick in that kind of environment and needed daily medication just to function and to prevent him from ending up catheterised in the vets on a regular basis - and even that medication didn't always help.

Do you really think that daily medication and regular hospital admissions gave him a better quality of life than letting him out to roam, medication free has?

Thank you! He does like to roam but always comes when called so he clearly doesn't go far - he also knows which neighbours will feed him and let him lie on their sofas 😂

Our older boy is 13 and only really sits in the garden or on next doors' patio. They're all so different.

I very much adore cats for the record and think the same standards for their care and safety dont apply as with other pets.

Nothing to do with lower standards for their care and safety - quite the opposite. It’s crucial to the mental well being of cats for them to be allowed to do what it is hard-wired in them to do. Cats are not pack animals like dogs, whose owners become their ‘pack’, and who quite happily fit into a people-directed life. Cats are naturally more solitary, territorial, explorative animals who often don’t adapt well to being contained.

YABVU, they’re different species. I feel sorry for indoor cats.

I’m not sure if your thread has been posted in good faith or not. But giving you the benefit of the doubt - the change you have proposed is not a priority and would create division at a point where the population needs to be united.

The most effective way to support wildlife (if that’s what you truly care about) are

1. put out shallow containers of water and refill them regularly.
2. support your local nature charity - wildlife trust / RSPB etc. Suffolk has lost 150 hectares of nationally important habitat to wild fire, Scotland has lost over 2500 hectares.
3. For the longer term, support charities campaigning for more action on the nature and climate emergencies, and write to your MP.

Like with netting across the top? Across from fences that are over 6ft high so the humans can still go in the garden?

What advantage does a 50sqm enclosure give to a cat who wants to be outside? You’ve just given it another room to your house? That’s not going to enable a cat to explore and exercise. Probably fine for cats who are happy to be indoors, that would not satisfy my cat.

So you took your moveable catio with you on holiday did you eh?

Exactly lol. It's just a slightly bigger cage.

We tried cat-proofing and we tried a catio - it just made him miserable in a slightly larger area 😂

It's 100% neglect, you just don't want to admit it because that would make you a bad person.

Now I know you're pulling our legs. I can't imagine anyone taking their cat on holiday. Cats like their own territory. It would be so upsetting for most cats to go on holiday for a week.

I do know some people use catteries but we never have, and to be fair they are (hopefully) totally set up for the comfort of a cat, unlike a holiday home.

I've never even had a cat who was happy in a car!

You're ignoring my point that cats, both domestic and native species, can - and frequently do - live in this country without being dependent on a human owner. Given the huge range of cats - including wild cats, farm cats, feral colonies and domestic moggies, all of which frequently inter-breed, a blanket ban which didn't adversely affect wild, working or stray cats, would be complicated to implement. Owners of specialist, dependent breeds, such as ragdolls, should, of course, keep them in to keep them safe but most moggies are capable of looking out for themselves.

Eh, dont be so close minded. Pet friendly airbnbs are usually fine with cats and my last darling girl always went with us and had a grand old time.

People have such bizarre outdated ideas about cats. My girl loved the car and being near to me, just like my dog.

There are such double standards for cats
Poor buggers really get short shrift.

Humans kill far more.
Destruction of habitat.
Millions are killed by flying into buildings.
Wind turbines kill thousands.
Cars.
Pollution.
Pesticides.
Farming.
Climate change.
Humans, not cats are responsible for many birds becoming extinct.

Cats aren't wildlife, they're domesticated animals. It's like saying that it would be acceptable for dogs to chase and kill wildlife just because they're animals.

Just because your cat likes something, doesn't mean all cats do. HTH.