18/10/2024
This seems like a good time to dust off this list too, as it's been a few years since I last posted it:
Here is the list of things that I can remember off the top of my head personally treating outdoor cats for, which would not have happened were they indoors.
This is not a theoretical list, and is not an all-inclusive list of dangers, but it is (I think) a pretty convincing list of reasons to keep your cats indoors.
>Dog bites
>Cat bites
>Coyote bites
>Bat bite, and subsequent 4 month in-clinic isolation because cat was not vaccinated for rabies
>Owl talons
>Eagle talons
>Rattlesnake bite
>Porcupine quills
>Hit by car
>Fell out of car
>Trapped in car engine
>Stepped on by horse
>Fell out of tree
>Electrocution (did you know cooked cat smells like pork? now you do.)
>Frost bite
>Burns
>Skin cancer (yes, this is an outdoor danger, because it pretty much only happens in white cats with UV exposure)
>Trapped in neighbor's shed for days/weeks without food
>Trapped in unused car for days
>Trapped in crawlspace/under house
>Gunshot wounds
>Head slammed in dumpster/broken neck (yeah, it was still alive when found)
>Trapped under closing garage door - stuck there all day while owner was out
>Antifreeze toxicity
>Anticoagulant rodenticide toxicity
>Covered in motor oil
>Smashed with thrown firewood
>Hit with axe (didn't *quite* take the leg clear off, but damn near)
>Drowned in neighbor's pool
>Caught in bear trap
>Feline Leukemia - this is a viral contagious disease of cats, spread by fluid contact. Indoor-only cats are at effectively zero risk for this terminal and untreatable disease.
>Entirely too many to count strays that people never claimed and were sent to rescue. Did you know that only about a quarter of cats taken in as strays are claimed? Nobody comes looking for them, even though most were obviously not feral.
>Who the hell knows how this happened injuries - cat just shows back up on owner's porch after being missing for some time. These include broken legs, broken pelvis, missing ears, missing eyes, ruptured eyes, penetrating chest wounds, broken jaw, skinned jaw, lacerations, abrasions, etc. Some of these are probably subsets of something higher up the list, but we'll never know, because nobody was watching out for the cat.
>It's also a lot more difficult to notice things going wrong when you're not observing appetite/food intake, defecation, urination. Indoor cats that have urethral obstructions get NOTICED. Outdoor cats that get urethral obstructions don't get brought in until they're nearly dead, and may be in kidney failure. If you never see your cat's f***s how soon are you going to notice if they get diarrhea?
In addition to the dangers cats face, they pose a huge danger to native wildlife. Cats are NOT native to the United States. They are an introduced, invasive species. They have literally driven entire species of birds and rodents to extinction; 33 known extinctions so far have cats as the or a major factor.
There is absolutely no reason that cats need to go outside. Provide them with enrichment, toys, safe places, and companionship indoors and they will be fine. They'll also have an average life expectancy three times longer than an outdoor cat's. "Because they like it" is not a reason to let cats roam - lots of people like jumping off of things too, and for that we have bungee cords and parachutes. Want to take your cat out? Put her on a leash, or keep her in a fence/catio.
