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.

Cats are the biggest killers of wildlife. Everybody should keep their cats inside and under controle. If you can't or won't do that, don't take a cat 🤷🏼‍♀️

www.gardensillustrated.com/features/wildlife-gardeners-own-cats

There are cats who will die if they are locked indoors, though. My youngest is one of them.

He got so stressed that his bladder spasmed and he needed hospital treatment so that he could pee. We tried catios. We tried cat-proofing our garden. He still ended up at the vets. Ultimately our vet said to us we could keep on as we are until one day, the spasm blocked his bladder and killed him, or we could let him out to roam.

We let him outside the next day. He's never, ever been back at the vet for bladder issues since.

Tell me you don’t own a cat without telling me that you don’t own a cat…

Trust me, we have tried harnesses in the past when we’ve moved or had kittens and they’ve needed fresh air. Most cats really cannot be walked!

And cat wheels, which should apparently be 43-48 inches in diameter…where exactly are people in small houses (many houses in the UK) supposed to be putting these?!

tell me you haven’t read my other posts in the last hour without telling me

Your theory is wrong.

Are you unable to take a joke?

I agree!

during breeding season I would love cat owners to possibly adhere to the not letting them out during dusk and dawn. This is when the newly fledged birds generally fledge.

Just to give a bit of perspective, fledglings such as our beautiful robin and blackbird, can’t fly initially when they fledge. Instead they search for ground cover, while their parents still feed them on the ground. Over those critical first few days of fledging, they gain strength in their wings which enable them to eventually fly!

What boils my piss is your cat, full on their lunch, being let out and they piss about playing with a weeks old robin fledgling, which is newly fledged and trying to gain that strength to be able to fly, therefore never having a chance to do that! Same with blackbirds and many others!

I spend so much time in my garden watching birds courting, pairing up during spring, care for their young, see off magpies, Sparrowhawks, all kinds of natural predators, they work so hard raising their young! It’s heartbreaking when your domesticated cat comes along and takes a youngster, who is newly fledged, can’t fly but is trying to survive! It’s fucking shit tbh!

Nature is harsh but domesticated Tibbles is a fucking Twat!

You lost me at this point @estrogone . That is a ridiculous assertion.
The best estimate I can find (and there are no global stats for cat deaths) is between 10 times and 60 times as many humans die as cats per annum. And that's without considering the fact that a cat's natural life span is about a fifth of a human's.

Also you seem determined to ignore the very obvious point that many people think it is cruel to keep a cat caged up. Even in a 50m sq
cage ... and I can't imagine many people would be able to set up a 50 x 50 metre cage, let alone move it!!!

Do you just worry about cats killing hedgehog babies? I think they are more likely to be killed by cars.

We adopted a young stray cat. He’d been outside for some time when turned up in our garden (now he enjoys food water treats and our sofa , he’s had his vaccins and has been neutered) there’s no way we can keep him in all the time. We try at night for his own safety but it would be cruel to imprison him 24 hours a day.

it seems cats are preprogramed to return to food source, dogs just keep walking

Thats so lucky your cats are like that. My ragdoll was suposed to be indoor loving cat but is totally outdoorsy.

Quite. I wouldn’t like to locked up all the time either. Dogs are walked ( or should be) you can’t do that with a cat.

Oh, people will be along in a minute to tell you you can...

What would you do about stray cats? Cats that were born outsude?

No-one forces cats to go out though. They could stay home if they wanted. They choose to wander off.

They are not.
Combine all human activity - humans are.

The government recognises the need that cats have to roam and there are laws giving them the rights to roam, we domesticated dogs, cats domesticated us not the other way round

But what about my crocodile? 🐊
Do I have to keep her in too?
She can get a bit snappy if confined to the kitchen.

I have no skin in the game, as I am not a pet owner. However, my local Facebook page is full of missing cat posts, instructing us all to look in our sheds and garages. There are also loads of posts about cats getting run over / name-calling toward the drivers involved, and the dog owners are always on hand to remind them that the same laws don’t apply to cats who are run over. It gets pretty spicy.

Facebook (like MN) isn't representative of any kind of rational thought or logic, though!

Because cats are not like dogs.

One cat was out late and killed by a coyote. Devastating! We tried putting Apple AirTags on their collars and only letting them out during the day when we were home. But then our male cat wandered a block away and was hit by a car.

No more outdoor cats! We finally got an outdoor catio. It gives us total peace of mind and the cats absolutely love it! 🐾

Cats are much harder to contain as they can easily climb over fences, jump down from windows and roofs. If you sit in your garden a dog will happily stay with you, whereas a lot of cats want to explore the neighbourhood, You can curb their need to roam by having them neutered but if a cat really wants to get out, they will. They are very unlikely happy to be walked on a lead. Cats are solitary animals, dogs want to please their owners, which makes them much easier to train.

Domestic cats outnumber stray cats by 12 to 1, so I dare say that’s a bigger issue in terms of impact on wildlife.