Do most owners of outdoor cats provide a litter tray indoors?

[SylvanMoon]

I was just listening to Sliced Bread on Radio 4 about kitty litter. The woman who was being introduced as wanting to know which type of litter was best to use said that she was new to having to deal with kitty litter as this was the first time she'd owned an "inside cat". The implication was that she'd previously owned "outside cats" and didn't ever provide a kitty litter for them. I was quite surprised by this and wondered how common it is that cat owners just expect their cats to defecate on other people's property. My neighbour has two cats who roam around outside, but have a litter that they use inside. (They also poo outside.) I don't have a cat or dog, but I do have a front and back garden where I grow fruit and vegetables. And it's cost me quite a lot to cat-proof my soil with scat mats and netting so that the neighbourhood outside cats don't use it as their toilet. Are cat owners comfortable with that or do they think their cats are considerate and only poo on wasteland rather than in their neighbours' gardens?

Yes, but there are just way too many pets. Families seem to have sometimes three dogs, while everyone is out at work or school. Same with cats, if there weren't so many, wildlife wouldn't be decimated and people wouldn't be sick of all the cat shit on their gardens.

People need to rationalise pet ownership.

Net the area. That's what I have to do to keep the pigeons off my strawberries.

Seeing as you are posting your cat hate in the Litter Tray, have you considered going to Jewish Mumsnetters and criticising Israel? Or going to SN Children and telling the parents that you think there's no such thing as ADHD and it's just bad parenting? Or perhaps you could post the Rivers Of Blood speech in Black Mumsnetters?

Cats can be trained to use the human toilet so they aren’t stupid!

CatOfHate is my first cat and is a neutered rescue cat, as every cat I ever have will be. I can't do more to reduce the UK's feline headcount.

I’m the neighbour with a lovely garden, two cats the other side go out in the morning jump my fence and shit and piss in my garden daily.. drives me nuts! I’ve tried everything to deter them.

Yes I do have a litter tray, they use it occasionally, but one prefers the border outside my kitchen door and the other under the rose trees. My last cat went in one of my flower beds or whichever pot I'd just planted up.

There's no equivalent comparison with racism or anti-semitism, don't overreact.

It is a choice to have animals. Cats and dogs are lovely, and they bring much needed companionship to some people, but the numbers, and the neglect, is impacting on our environment and other people. Dogs and cats both eat tons of meat, they produce harmful waste, and dogs are frequently dangerous.

If it were possible to thoroughly screen pet owners it would be an improvement to the lives of neighbours and the pets themselves. But as you can tell from the comments on here, people just think it's their right to get pets without having any thought of their responsibility to other people or their property, and everyone else just has to put up with it.

Never had a litter tray. All my cats have crapped outside. In fact, if I had to have a little tray in my home, I wouldn’t have cats.

Yeah I’ve always yelled at my cats to Get Down whenever they’re on my kitchen worktops. Somehow that works. Maybe also because they know the kitchen is where food comes from.

There was a study done on cats and birds. They don’t decimate them half as much as you think they do. Rats and mice, you really feel sorry about their population being decimated?!

My cats are free to outside but we don't have a catflap (just a human who works most of the day by the back door and offers door opening services). I also keep them in at night.

So we do have a litter box but they don't use it much - they prefer to go outside.

Its laughable to think you can control where your cats go to the loo unless they are solely "indoors cats". Don't bother shouting at me - I don't care.

Cats pooing in the human loo is not recommended and causes all kinds of problems - have a google.

If you get any delieries that use wool packaging it is fabulous to line the ltterbox with.

Oh and my current cat catches mice and most recently rats. Never birds.

If you put your cats on a 100% meat diet their poo is much smaller and doesnt smell anywhere near as bad. I could not believe the difference it made. Most of the stink is from non-meat filler in cat food they can't digest, which makes sense as theya re obligate carnivores.

Also use wool packaging to line the litter box - its anti-odour & makes a massive difference.

I wasn't replying to you, but to OP, who has chosen to start an anti-cat thread in The Litter Tray. Her thread is calculated to be inflammatory, just as posting "I've just found out about blah in the Middle East. Do Jews feel comfortable knowing their homeland's govt is doing this?" in Jewish Mumsnetters would be.

Outdoor cats but indoors at night and the cat flap is locked. Litterbox is used sometimes, sometimes not. Rare for them to do anything more than a wee in it and one I’m quite sure holds it till the morning. If you’re going keep them in at night you need to provide one in case of emergencies. If they really need to go and there isn’t one, they’ll find an alternative (blanket/plant pot/bath tub/ bath mat)

Yes ive had people tell me their cats poo doesnt smell but I don’t believe that, it’s poo, it smells.

Yes, I know you were responding to the OP. She posted in a forum for people with pets because she wanted an engagement from pet owners. This is not comparable to an inflammatory statement directed at Jews or PoC.

Yeah but I didn't say that did I?

Here's a report from 2022. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204621003017#b0135

Cats "are believed to be the primary threat to 8% of critically endangered mammals, birds and reptiles" .

Our cat uses my garden and there is a circularity to it as I give her kibble each day.

Ditto. Mine stopped using it as a kitten.

Hasn’t Australia banned outside cats? So you have to cat proof your yard or garden?
Our cats don’t poo in other gardens because we have cat proofed our garden!
Before we had a cat the neighbourhood cats use to poo in our garden.
But our cat is a rescue and isn’t allowed to roam. Which I agree with, too many get run over and the cat owner’s complain! What do you expect?

Our dog chases the guilty shitter out of our garden - it's brilliant. Hopefully said cat is now shitting its owner's garden instead.

I have a litter tray in my spare bathroom , cat has not used it for months .
We are rural with not many homes around but I’m not actually sure where he’s having a poo .. hopefully in a field somewhere

I'm trying to prep my garden to kill back the grass and move my plants from my old garden as my ex if planning on ripping out everything i have done out.

I have laid down cardboard, compost and bark, and it has now become the local litter tray for all the neighbourhood cats (several with multiple cats) I'm really upset, it's not even hot (8C) or sunny today and in stinks out there, it is disgusting.

Roaming cats should not be allowed, your cats sh*t is should not be my problem to deal with. If i wasn't new to the road i'd scoop it up and delivery to all the cat owners houses to return it.

I think i may just have to glyphosphate the rest of the garden and only disturb the earth where I am planting, because i'm really not sure how else to do it. I've just had to tell DD(8) that she now can't use the garden going forward.