Getting 2 kittens - is it cruel to keep them as house cats?

[tootiredtothink]

Our old cats died on main road close to our house. 6 years later and I'm finally coming around to getting another after years of nagging from children (and seeing 2 gorgeous little brothers).

Would it be cruel to keep them indoors forever?

Mirror pants- my vet also said that cats are better off kept indoors as did the breeder we bought him from. My cat 'hunts' the dog for sport, he hides all over the place and plays with the children - he is lively, active, happy and healthy.

oh and my cats have never sat and cried at a window to get out, they have not been out they don't know there is outside, they are not that clever.

Mine are indoor cats by their choice. All efforts to coax them outside have been miserable failures. It had never occurred to me cats could have panic attacks until I saw the state my two got into when taken outside. No amount of treats/playing/reassurance/gradual build-up/company has helped. They have only ever been outside when taken out by [one of] us & spent the whole time clearly wondering why on Earth we had dragged them into this awful place.

We have a LOT of fox activity in our garden & there are some HUGE cats fighting over to whom it belongs atm so I assume to my little moglets it smells of Danger.

They are terribly people-focused, my cats. Well, mostly me-focused, in fact. They quite like watching what's going on outside but sadly that's not translated to their being willing to venture into the outside. The only time they've ventured out independently is accidentally overshooting as they've leapt joyfully at me when I entered the house...

I think after a few more tries I am going to accept they are definitely Indoor Cats. It is cruel to keep putting them through going outside if all it does is upset them. They adore playing with each other & have the run of the house & plenty of toys. They certainly seem happy to make their own fun inside: in the last couple of minutes Nijinsky has pelted upstairs; leapt onto my bed with a triumphant "meOW!"; headbutted me in an affectionate fashion; jumped onto the top of my wardrobe; stealthed about atop the wardrobe; jumped onto the coathooks on the back of my door & padded about there; made the leap from the door to my bed (impressive distance) shutting my door in the process; done a balancing act on the rail at the end of my bed & then decided he fancied hanging out on my windowsill for a bit. What I'd always thought of as bookshelves are apparently climbing-frames for felines, apparently...

Lots of cats are unhappy if kept inside. However, plenty of cats are very happy as indoor cats. It's not as simple as X is cruel and Y is not. Entirely contingent on the cats in question.

It is all down to environmental enrichment if you get this right cats can have as full a life indoors as out doors. In certain parts of the world e.g northern Australia it is illegal to let your cat out and others such as Colorado unwise (cougars). Many people keep cats in these environments. FAB have a huge amount of information on environmental website for indoor cats. The most important parts are various heights the cats can sleep and sit at and getting them to hunt for their food.