Indoor or Outdoor Cat?
 The
most natural for the cat
would of course be an outdoor life, especially because - as opposed to
most other domestic
animals - most of the original instincts and behavioral patterns are
still intact in the
cat.Only, the trouble is that in most of the world it is impossible to provide the cat with the |
environment it was
made for, and in which it would be able to
take care of
itself. That would require vast areas with sand and rocks where it were unthinkable to ever see a car, and where the climate were at least subtropical. In Scandinavia, for example, where this site is based, the cat has only been present for about 2000 years. That may sound as a long time, but evolution-wise it is just a comma, and this is why the cat's biology hasn't yet discovered that it no longer lives in North Africa. |
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Traffic, on the other hand, affect all cats indiscriminately. Even though the cat is an intelligent animal in most other connections, it seems downright stupid in traffic. The problem is complicated by the fact that it may be very difficult to retrieve a cat that has been run over, because by instinct it will hide itself - which is something they are experts in! Then how can one get one's cat a certain amount of outdoor life, if one lives in a neighborhood with a lot of traffic? If you live in a house with a garden, you may build a fenced yard for it in the garden. Most cats can be held inside by a mink net fence about 1,8 meter tall closed on top by chicken net going 50 cm horizontally inwards. When chicken net is called for for this, it's because it will rock unpleasantly, if the cat tries to climb in it. A construction like this will also be able to keep strange cats out. If you live in an apartment with a balcony, it will often be possible to get permission to net in the balcony on the above mentioned principles - that is if it's allowed to keep cats in the apartment, of course ..... Both in outdoor yards and on balconies cats can find an outlet for many instincts and behavioral patterns that are not often at play inside the house/apartment. There will always be insects to |
hunt (otherwise a
dead leaf flying by may come in
handy), you can
train territory surveillance, when people or animals are passing by
etc. Also, changing
weather may be entertaining; my
cats are not only out in good weather,
and especially snow
seems to fascinate them incredibly. I once had a moggie who was so
fascinated by his first
encounter with snow that it was almost impossible to get him inside
again: He had
discovered that this funny white material would turn into water when
touched by a warm
paw, so he sat out there quite absorbed melting snow for half an hour
on end. But would the cat miss anything, then, if it is kept in an apartment without the possibility of getting out on a balcony? - Not if it has never tried outdoor life. One should consider that the cat's demands on space for its home territory are not quite as big as many people think. How large a territory a cat in the wild would need depends on how sparse or dense the occurrence of prey animals is. A cat in the wild will always try to have a territory which is as small as possible provided there is food enough. A very large territory is difficult to survey and defend. You can furnish your apartment wit  h climbing
facilities and dens so
that the cat gets an
equivalence to the rocks and the dens in the sands of North Africa.If the cat also has toys that can act as prey animals, it won't miss anything. Apart from this, you may help out your indoor cat a lot by getting a "colleague" for it: that is some of what it would look for, if it could go outside. Outdoor cats maintain a certain amount of social life, even though they don't live directly in groups, and it is evidently a need in most cats, indoor or outdoor, to have contact with other cats. |
