Readers Respond: Should I Leave My Cat Outside?

Should I leave my cat outside? Apparently, she is in danger - and is a danger herself. Alicia Burton, Shrewsbury

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Reader Response

Outdoor cats kill songbirds and small mammals. They use neighbors' flower beds and children's sandboxes as litter boxes and spread disease. Cats should be kept indoors. PAModerate

Where I live your cat could get eaten by a coyote, so no. Plus, they're terrible for birds. If you must, create a cute catio for outdoor fun. I think cats that have never been indoors/outdoors do well indoors only, but transitioning from indoors and outdoors to indoors only is difficult. martimart

Cats are outdoor creatures - if you can't let them outside, for whatever reason (and there may be good reasons not not do it in some places), you shouldn't have a cat. Keeping a cat indoors means you've put your wants before theirs. I don't have a dog because I can't give him what he needs - same goes; it is selfish and cruel. It's no different than people who declaw (everyone who does should get the same done) - if you don't accept the risk of damaging furniture etc, don't have a cat. We have always had a cat flap so please know that the cat chooses to live with us – he can leave at any time but does not. I'm not sure it's healthy to keep a trapped animal with you against its will. bobbitygobitty

My cat was a rescued feral kitten, he barely survived starvation on a Miami street before I rescued him. He loves my screened porches and porches, where he can be "safely" outside without actually being outside. I left my front door open by accident and he walks away. He knows what's out there. He sees them (wild animals) from his screened porch and he wants nothing to do with the outside world. Slinger

People tend to have very emotional responses to questions about pets, so this particular debate tends to heat up pretty quickly. My general take is that it just seems odd that we have this weird exception when it comes to cats. If I chose to keep a dog or other animal and let it roam around other people's yards unsupervised while defecating on the lawn, they would rightly be angry with me. But if it's a cat, it's okay for some reason.

My preference in general is for people to keep their pets on their own property, or otherwise under control (e.g. on a sinker when out of the house), but when it comes to cats, free-range breeding has been the norm for so long that it would be hard to put that genie back in the bottle ( or that cat in the bag).

That sounds undeniably bad for cats (we had several that were killed on the roads when I was growing up), and bad for wildlife. Even ignoring the death toll of small mammals and birds, interbreeding with free-ranging domestic cats all but wiped out Scottish wildcats as a distinct species. Pode

If you're worried about whether they'll be okay as indoor cats, don't worry. There are about 75 million in North America. The vast majority are doing very well. In many cities in Canada and the United States, it is illegal to let cats roam free. If you have space, a catio is the perfect solution. KimberlyCoast

I once had a few (free range) chickens. Then I had rats. Then I had a cat. Now I have no more rats. She hunts all night, sleeps all day. She seems to need to contact me once a day, but other than that she does her own thing. I put that down to allowing her to fully pursue her instincts, so I'm generally ok with the small mammals she brings. The bat looked like something out of the horror movie Hammer though. How a cat catches a bat remains a mystery. lcj4949d

Like everything, it depends. If you live in a high traffic area, there is an increased risk of her getting hurt. If you live near a nature preserve, there's an increased risk of it munching on an endangered or protected species. If you live in a quiet neighborhood and she has a bell on her collar, you're probably okay. Stroppimare

I shared a space with cats and they were all outdoor cats, to be fair I never...