Can your cat roam outside your garden?

[CroccyWoccy]

If you have a cat that has access to the outdoors, can it get out of your garden and roam further afield? And if so, can it or does it get to a road?

Trying to adopt another cat and one of the objections raised by a cat rescue is that a cat could get out of our back garden, round the front of our house and onto the (very quiet) road at the front.

This strikes me as a perfectly ordinary set up and that most people don't have a cat-proofed garden? Or am I wrong?

Had cats for years now and they have always had access to a cat flap and like to make grand entrances through the front door or window

have only been kept in for a few weeks if moving home

they would be bored out their mind nocking around indoors

I wonder if this is where the PP is getting the 2 year lifespan statistic from? It's an American website, but the claim appears on a few other sites too. One referenced the claim as coming from Here which says (with no source) that cats that live exclusively outdoors have a 2-5 year lifespan. That's very very different from claiming that cats with access to outdoors in the UK live for 2 years on average!

Our girl’s very much a fair weather goer-outer too actually. She prefers to toilet outside (although we do have trays) but eg today she was out to do her business and a quick patrol round, then straight back to her basket by the radiator. In summer she will spend hours watching the wall between us and next door where we see the occasional little mouse.

I’ve looked in to the 2 year claim before - it seems to originate from a study done on largely feral cats in Baltimore, and gave a lifespan of 3-5 years. Which is entirely irrelevant to discussing owned (fed, vaccinated, etc) cats in the UK.

I have a cat proofed garden, but I think I am in the minority!

Sounds like a completely normal set up to me.
Our cats go out and can get out of our garden, fields one side, 30mph village road the other side.
Dont understand the trend for keeping cats inside or in a catio or contained garden.
Try another cat rescue,
Or look for a kitten

Mine can scale up to the roof, walk along, jump off onto the roof of the log shed and off out. No way could I cat proof it!

My 16 yo cat heads out every night after her 10pm biscuits, rain or shine. She's always back for 7am breakfast (with or without a mouse in tow 🤣).

My cats go where they like.
one likes to follow us out for walks, and has been known to walk 10 minutes across the village to my friend’s house, sit in my lap while I had a cup of tea and a chat, then walk me home again.
two new cats from a cat rescue in the autumn, currently indoor only till the evenings are not so dark. They have a microchip cat flap and come and go wherever. No A roads in their territory though, only village and estate roads, house backs onto fields. Cat rescue did a home visit and were happy. Family member keeps indoor cats and they always look fat and miserable to me.

So completely irrelevant to the conversation. There is a world of differences between a feral cat who never sees a vet and doesn’t have a decent meal and bed, and my girl who get everything she needs.

Also, the 2-5 year lifespan is surely nonsense.
I’ve owned lots of cats. The most recent 3 to die were 17, 19 and 18 years old. All outdoor free Rangers.

Toxoplasmosis, treatment-resistant fleas, injuries, secondary poisoning from pesticides, stress caused by territories over-saturated by cats, viruses, death by a car - I'd rather my cat wasn't facing any of these and more. And after some reading, I'd rather not be faced with toxoplasmosis either.

My neighbour's cat is living a truly miserable life after being struck by a car and losing all control of his bowels. The poor kitty is now disabled, in a nappy and will have a life of sitting on the windowsill like a potted plant for the next 15 years of his life.

I'm all for house cats, catios and cat-proofed gardens. Everything else is irresponsible unless the environment is rural and not dense with other pets.

YABU.

Thank you for this, so the nonsensical 2 year average was crappily extrapolated from irrelevant stats!

It is neither nonsensical or crappily extrapolated from irrelevant stats. Do you work in cat rescue?
I do. Two to five years is the AVERAGE lifetime of an outdoor cat.
I regularly see the damage caused. I regularly help rehab the cats squished and then abandoned because ‘they are too hard work for our home now they are damaged’.
Everyone can tell stories about such and such a cat who has happily lived an outdoor life for 13 years. Plenty of other people can tell stories about the cats they have had to lift dead off the road and try and find their families. A few months ago myself and my other neighbours told another neighbour that their cat had no road sense and was at risk of being killed. ‘Cats will be cats’ was the response. I had to use a shovel to lift that same cat off the road three weeks later. A cat that came from a rescue I know only rehomes to indoor homes. I could tell you about the weekly dead animals I take to the vet to try and find their owners but I doubt you will listen.
There isn’t just the car/road situation, there is also the increase in diseases such as panleuk because so many people didn’t bother getting their cats vax over lockdown. That’s before we even talk about the increasing numbers of cats unneutered and that fact that rescues are on their knees as kitten season is now all year round with no break.
But you do you and I will continue to do me by trying my best to help rescue/support as many as I can

You said 2 years and have still not provided evidence.

@Potentialmadcatlady - I greatly appreciate the work that everyone in cat rescue does and I thank you for it. But simply stating that a statistic is true doesn't make it so.

I know one person with a cat proofed “garden” but it’s more a courtyard than a proper garden. The rescue I used asked me whether I wanted indoor or outdoor and I said “ outdoor” and they recommended a particular cat. I would imagine because she was healthy and absolutely determined to get out. There’s absolutely no way we could have kept her in long-term… the house would have had to have been permanently sealed up. I don’t live in a city centre though or area of high density housing.

There are neglectful owners of animals everywhere ….I’m sure there are plenty of sad lonely indoor cats left alone for hours with no enrichment opportunities because the owners got over the novelty of owning a kitten.

My children would be safer if I kept them at home all the time … I won’t be doing that either.

Here is a different view - admittedly from a US based magazine, but this does seem a well balanced article.
https://www.catster.com/guides/how-long-does-an-outdoor-cat-live/

@Potentialmadcatlady - but that’s not our situation. Most people I know do vaccinate and neuter their cats.
Our cat had annual flu vaccine, is microchipped, neutered, etc.

our neighbourhood isn’t infested with millions of unneuter wild cats with rabies either, all the cats are just 1 or two cat max households, who are also taken to vets and neutered. They aren’t wild outdoor only cats. They all have homes with cat flaps they can go inside and eat and warm up whenever.

We live on a t junction side road, so although there’s cars, it’s a single road track (only one car wide), and mainly people who live here or visitors, it’s not a through road. I think for the happiness of cats in general they all have a much nicer like being able to roam the woods behind house, chill in gardens, fussed over by neighbours than being shut in a cat cage or indoors for 10-20 years! We have a large house also, but my cat would do stir crazy in that alone every day

Mine are indoor cats, they are not fat and they enjoy life. They have a catio (with a tree to climb in it and a high walkway).

My cats can come and go as they please. In the winter they don't go out much at all. In the summer they like to sunbathe in the garden. They do go up and down our cul does sac mostly when there are DC about who fuss them.

But you wouldn't let your toddlers out to roam unsupervised and cats have a very similar IQ level.

My garden is cat proofed only because my girl is too lazy to squeeze through the hole in the fence (there for the hedgehogs).

Hmm I think that’s comparing apples with oranges… I’ve seen cats crossing roads and they are a lot more cautious than a toddler would be.

I do agree there are SOME cats with zero sense of danger, sadly they tend to die very young if allowed out. I suspect this skews the average survival age and those cats who do have caution will live much longer.

Haven't got a cat atm but have had them all my life and they were always allowed to roam wherever they wanted to outside, no matter where we lived. Rescue centres are far too strict in some cases and a lot of cats must miss out on having happy lives with loving families.