Yes I'm very grateful for that! And sorry for the cat rant. I actually do like cats...heh. But not as much as dogs, to be honest. And I think your solution is a good one to have an enclosure where the cats can go outside and be safe and as well keep them out of other people's gardens.
We have council by laws for pets here in Melbourne. In our council, cats have to be inside between the hours of 8pm and 7am. My in-laws council do not allow cats off their owner's property at all so they must be kept inside or in an enclosure on the property. I believe our rules are to protect the wildlife.
Remy our huge maine coon, doesn't "do" birds, or climb trees for that matter... I have found him asleep before now in our garage/workshop next to a cooing pigeon. Our swallows divebomb him, and Rem just moves away, not even bothering to swipe them. He does hunt rabbit though (and the occasional deer) but eats them and then leaves a bit for his mates (the dogs) He is also a brilliant ratter, and will spend hours stalking them.
I'm not a cat owner - and I'm not a big cat fan, either. I certainly don't like cats who view my neatly raked veg garden beds as freshly prepared toilets. But I just buy cat repellent, and it works well enough. I once had to cover my beds for a while until a cat moved on. I find the idea of a 'indoor' cat extraordinary. I know this is becoming the norm, but, really? A cat that doesn't go outside or only outside in a run? Dunno, doesn't that create worries about a lack of opportunities for natural behaviour by the cat? No hunting, no patrolling, little social interaction etc.
I do feel strongly about cats kept in a house, they should be free creatures. Girl I worked with had a house cat and when she had to bring him to see the vet he had the most dreadful panic attack from being outside, he nearly died.
A TV show on cats once described them as the closest thing most humans would ever get to living with a wild animal. My Vet said at school he learned cats and pigs are the most likely animals to make a success of living wild and feral after escaping domesticity. Save two all of my cats were ferals and it can be hard to convert them to inside living only. Ferals taken after kittenhood most often never accept people outside their own household. Even though I now keep my 19 year old, deaf, former feral inside, each time I take her to the Vet it takes three of us to withdraw blood to check her thyroid. Cats are treated like garbage. People don't neuter and when they get past being cute kittens some literally throw them out. We are sure some of ours are dumpees who went feral successfully. The most recent is the mother cat we live trapped last spring. She's lovely, gentle, kind, playful, cuddly, a beautiful Torbie and white. How did she end up loose in our backyard, fighting for her life and to keep her four babies alive? It breaks my heart.
I dunno. I guess I'm of two minds about this. I get that people feel like their cats are being deprived if they don't go outside and do what comes naturally - hunt, mate, prowl, pee and poo, whatever. But if those activities are negatively affecting something else, whether that be your neighbours garden which is being turned into a litter box, or their sleep as it is disturbed by yowling cats, or the local songbirds which are being killed off by the cats, then which "right" gets precedence? We restrict our dogs to being on lead or otherwise under control when they are outside, right? Although, unlike here, the UK seems to have more opportunities for dogs to be off-lead anywhere they still have to be with an owner and not just roaming free, I presume. We've accepted that as a reasonable compromise for our enjoyment of having the privilege of living with another species. People who have snakes as pets (??? Why, I don't know!! ) have them in cages, and they don't get to slither around outside doing what they would prefer to be doing. Yet somehow with cats these compromises are almost non-existent.
Well, I would worry though is what happens is the cats suffer. That everyone decides it's "ok" or acceptable for cats to be indoor cats when it's not. (I don't know whether it is or not, it doesn't seem right to me, because I think it's very important for animals to be able to express natural behaviour to some degree and I can't see that indoor scratching posts and toy mice could do that for a cat, really. Although maybe it's ok, it's not something I've looked into - we all had cats when we were kids, and they all came and went as they pleased, so that's all I know.) If the debate should properly be inconvenience to some, vs cat ownership at all for some, then I'd say I would put up with the cats (even though I don't like cats at all) because it would deprive a lot of people from a lot of pleasure if I objected. Is it such a big deal cats pooing in my garden? I hate it, for sure. But, well, you have to rub along with how other people want to live their lives.
My cats are house cats and they are not "suffering" or deprived of the ability to "express natural behaviour". They happily play with a range of toys and chase and play with each other when they wish, eat when they want and curl up on laps for cuddles when they want. When the weather is good they will spend a good portion of the day sunning themselves in their enclosure and watching the goings on in the garden. As cats don't "socialise" with each other but usually actively try to avoid confrontations, I'm not sure what they are missing out on apart from hunting birds (although none of my previous cats were allowed to hunt anyway), the risk of being hit by speeding cars or the risk posed by foxes and badgers. Why would I kick my pedigree cats out the door to fend for themselves all day or night, but not a pedigree dog? Just how much "natural behaviour" is a domesticated dog allowed to exhibit on a daily basis. They are forced to walk on a lead, at a pace we dictate, we decide as to whether they get any free running, but that is usually heavily monitored to ensure they stay close. They get to play when we dictate and what we dictate, they are stopped from running after balls or retrieving other peoples. They eat when we dictate and what we dictate and are not allowed to scavenge for titbits on their walks. Dogs are expected to stay shut up in a pen, crate or room while their owners go to work for 4, 5 or 6 hours a day and may or may not have someone visit during that time. How does that express their natural behaviour? It was pointed out on another thread that pet insurance is a legal contract and that honesty and disclosure is necessary for the contract to be effective. Well strangely enough I have a legal contract with the breeder of my cats which has two explicit terms, one being that the cats would be placed on the non-breeding register and any breeding would only be with the express permission of the breeder, the only person able to update the non-breeding register. The other express contract term was that the cats as, pedigree cats, would remain house cats and not be allowed to roam; I would not of course want to breach such a legal requirement
One of my colleagues breeds cats (or has done over the years). Maine coons, ragdolls and british blues, certainly the most recent. Her criteria in homing her kittens are similar - no breeding and house cats only. I must admit I found this odd, but knowing of all the cats that lose their lives even where I live, fairly rural, I think I understand this.
I do find it an interesting conversation in terms of how we view cats and dogs. When I was growing up, the "rules" about dogs were very much more relaxed than they are now. It wasn't unusual to have dogs roaming around the neighbourhood just as cats do now. But over time (and quite rightly, I think) dogs were restricted more and more, licensing laws came into force, and here, at least, neutering and spaying your animals became the norm (cats too). Now I get that dogs, being bigger, can cause more problems roaming free than cats, not the least of these the danger of someone getting attacked by a dog and being terribly injured or even killed. But that's not to say that cats don't cause problems. Yes, I can put up with my garden being used as a litter box, although I really don't like it. And the yowling, well, whatever. But I will admit to being really disturbed by the decimation of our songbirds here in Canada. I don't know if it's an issue elsewhere, but cats are having a significant negative impact on our local birds. I have noticed a marked difference in the numbers of songbirds here over the last few years. Here's an article from last summer about it: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cats-the-no-1-killer-of-birds-in-canada-1.3130437 So I dunno. Somehow we have to get a handle on this. Cats bring a lot of pleasure to people, sure. I like the idea of an outdoor enclosure rather than letting them roam free, though. It's a compromise that should at least be discussed.
Interesting article @Lisa and I would be devastated if my cats were decimating a bird population. As it is I have a garden with a wide variety of birds visiting and also know that my cats are safe. They were also spayed/neutered at 6 months of age and were microchipped as kittens. In consultation with vets they also do not need so many vaccinations/boosters as some health risks are negligible. It's a win/win for me
We had several family cats when I was growing up, and not one of them ever killed a bird. One brought a frog in once, and another once came home with a whole frankfurter. We never knew where he "caught" that! I know some cats are voracious hunters, but ours never were. They also didn't really roam - we lived in a quiet cul-de-sac and we'd never see them outside of it. I think most of the yowling comes down to intact males standing off against one another - again, ours never got involved in any of that nonsense. That's only a "study" of seven cats, which is obviously completely unscientific. Maybe it's something to do with the type of cat - ours were all pampered rescue mogs. We also always brought them in at night. I would be most concerned about traffic, if I lived somewhere close to a road - so I simply wouldn't own a cat if I lived somewhere that was an issue. There's not only the danger to the cat, but to any road users who might swerve to avoid one. Or hit it. I've been a passenger in a car which hit and killed a cat, and it's not a nice experience.
"The hunting action is an instinctive action. They may not eat the birds, but they will still hunt." ^From the linked article. This is like a conversation the OH and I had when he complained about cats taking small birds and mammals. Mr. Great White Hunter with his freezer full of snow geese and Canadas and some others complaining about poor discarded cats trying to stay alive while he enjoyed his "sport." At least all OH's did get eaten. I agree though, that killing song birds is distressing. Any critter, any bird, not just song birds. Just yesterday OH ran out to save a mole one of the ferals had caught.
I'm a bit unconvinced by the article that just states "indoor cats live longer'. Well, they might, that doesn't say anything about the quality of that life though. Sure, a life lived without risk may well (on average) be longer - that might be true of humans too, I suppose. If everyone gave up driving, rock climbing, skiing.... I suppose I worry that we impose more and more restrictions on dogs and cats in order to make them "fit" into our increasingly densely packed human environments, and might be suffering from cognitive dissonance in claiming those restrictions are actually better for them if you see what I mean.
Yes, it is a question of balancing all these things, for sure. And when you have a situation where competing "rights" are bumping up against each other then there has to be a way to sort out which ones get precedence. Sometimes we do a good job of this, sometimes, not so much. "Quality of life" vs "length of life" to me is a bit of a moot point. It's a hard one to judge because we really don't know the answer from the animal's point of view.
Oh, no, gosh - I don't think it's a moot point at all. I think it's the critical point. It's the point that - if we fail to pay attention to it - allows us to enjoy killer whales in displays, elephants in zoos etc. because we forget that our restrictions on animals to make them fit in with us might not be ok for them. Just because the elephant can't tell us it is absolutely miserable in a concrete enclosure, even if it lived longer than it otherwise would, is, I think, irrelevant. Same with cats (or dogs, etc.). It really very well might be the case that in 10 years time no domestic dog is let off lead in a city ever, for example, and in 20 years time when people no longer keep dogs in a city we'll look back and think "why did we ever think it was ok to keep on keeping dogs like that".
But then again it might prefer life in a concrete enclosure to being hunted for it's ivory tusks, or hunted to extinction. Would Karen Pryor be the renowned trainer she is if she hadn't spent time capturing dolphins and other sea mammals and training them for their Sea World in Hawaii and working with the US Navy to train dolphins. I'm sure the dolphins would have preferred to live free if they had been asked and not trained to perform for the paying public.