Outside cats

[Augusta2012]

I have four cats who I love. I live in a rental, bren here 18 years and the cats from 13-9 years. They really have trashed the place, destroyed the furniture and ripped curtains into pieces and spray a lot.

I’m hopefully soon moving from the rental to a place I will own outright and will be spending a lot of money on. It is not a fix up, it is immaculate, and obviously I don’t want it to get trashed.

I have always believed that once you get a cat, you are committed to that cat for life. But I am really struggling to see how we can combine the cats with an unwrecked house. I don’t want to give them free access to it.

The house has a bit of land with it. We could fit s couple of cheapish summer houses in there and some heating in each. You can also buy self heating outdoor small outdoor cat houses. We could have a couple of them too.

We would let them in the house while we were there and could monitor to make sure there was no damage.

Do you think that might be a happy situation for the cats?

No. It sounds awful.

Would you want to live in an outhouse?.

Has the vet done urine tests for uti? Are they on cystease? Extra water mixed into their food?.

Your cats sound incredibly stressed and unhappy. Work out why and address that.

No. It sounds awful.

Would you want to live in an outhouse?.

No I wouldn’t.

Has the vet done urine tests for uti? Are they on cystease? Extra water mixed into their food?.Yep. I adore cats.

My cat is both indoor and outdoor (no cat flap so whichever it is, that's where she stays). In the summer she prefers to be out at night; in colder months she's inside overnight but shut in the kitchen where her basket, litter tray, food and water are all at one end, far away from surfaces/cooking area. If I go out, she goes out too - waits at the door if she sees me put a coat on. She's nearly 14 and it's always worked ok.

I don't think the solution is to shut them in a summer house.

Are they neutered? How many litter trays and cat scratch toys do you have?

It took me a while to figure out what made our house cats happy and since then apart from the huge amount of fluff that seems to accumulate on the carpets all our curtains and furniture have gone unscathed.

We also don’t have a cat flap, and in summer our cat will stay outside all day, often having to be bodily hauled in at bedtime. In the winter she would be furious, and utterly miserable, at being outside any longer than it takes to have a sniff round the garden and a wee. I’m at home sick today and she is currently curled up in her basket, by the radiator - the thought of her being in an outhouse makes me laugh because it’s so preposterous.