I need your help.
Dave & I are thinking of getting a cat. My family have always had cats, I remember at one point we had like seven of them at once (outdoor cats, only one in the house often). My mum actually has 9 right now (one of them just had kittens) but they're mainly outdoor cats, again only one or two of them come indoors. The kittens are inside now, but will be out when they're big enough. My mum keeps them mainly because she keeps geese, hens, New Guinea fowl, ducks, pigs & wherever there's feed there will be mice/rats so the cats help to keep them away.
Dave & I are thinking of getting a cat. My family have always had cats, I remember at one point we had like seven of them at once (outdoor cats, only one in the house often). My mum actually has 9 right now (one of them just had kittens) but they're mainly outdoor cats, again only one or two of them come indoors. The kittens are inside now, but will be out when they're big enough. My mum keeps them mainly because she keeps geese, hens, New Guinea fowl, ducks, pigs & wherever there's feed there will be mice/rats so the cats help to keep them away.
So anyway back to the point, my mum has decided she's keeping all of the kittens & I have fallen in love with them! I'm definitely more of a dog person than a cat person, but recently we've been talking about getting Tatty some company (another dog) - however we're not ready for that yet. So we looked into getting a cat. Tatty gets on with my mum's cats, the ones in the house at least. They're actually the same size if not bigger than him & they always rub against him while he's wagging his tail.
But.
Where we live now is right next to a main road & some smaller roads in general, so we figured that we'd definitely have to have a 'house' cat, but I'm just wondering how does that work? Do you permanantly just keep the cats indoors all the time!? I can't imagine never letting an animal outside, especially since all our cats have been outdoor ones. My parents are lucky because they have so much land & are far from any main roads & our old house was set in a lot of land too. So yeah, I'm just wondering, do you keep them in permanantly or do they get to an age where you can let them out & they'll come back naturally. What I imagine is that you'd let them out at night when they're old enough? I know cats are clever & come back anyway but I'd be so scared to let it out, especially so near the road.
Please can any indoor/housecat owners get in touch with me about this, because I'm confused. Also, are cats easy to house train, as in using the litter tray or do they leave suprises around the house? My mum's kittens seem to be well trained, but I'm wondering whether she just got lucky, lol. I've already house trained one chihuahua - which was extremely difficult - but I don't want to go through it again!
3 comments:
Ours are both indoor cats. We just prefer it that way.. we don't have to worry about them getting in the road, being caught by a wild animal, getting fleas, or whatever.
Cats are extremely clean animals by nature, so I wouldn't worry about any 'surprises'. We haven't had a single incident with either of ours.. you just need to make sure you keep the litter box clean (the automatic scooping ones are awesome). We have a screened in porch at the back of the house here, so we keep the litter box out there. Both were litter box trained when we got them, but I've heard it comes naturally to most cats, because they generally look for somewhere they can 'cover it up'.
Cupcake used to lay out on our front porch in Naples (which is not screened) occasionally, or she'd lay on the roof outside Casey's bedroom window.. but has never shown any interest in going any further. Oreo has never shown any interest in going outside at all.
Cupcake got locked out of the house once (she'd gone out onto the front porch without us realizing, and we were out all day). We were heartbroken, thinking she'd gotten lost or been killed by a car, and spent hours walking through the streets calling her. We found her later that night in the hurricane shutter storage area under the house, terrified.
Cats naturally don't go too far from home, and are great at finding their way home if they do. My Siamese cat (who lives with my parents - I don't recommend getting a Siamese), and my sister's cat both go outside, and they never leave my parents property (they have a lot of land too).
Really long comment, lol.. sorry. I thought you didn't like cats, anyways? :P
I have to say though.. be careful when bringing a new pet home. Cupcake LOVED playing with other animals (our parents' cats and dogs - even lived with my parents pets for a while).. but she HATED Oreo when we brought her home. I guess she felt like we were replacing her.. it took weeks for her to finally settle down, but even now, she's not as 'sociable' with us as she used to be. Although she does get on great with Oreo now, it's like she hasn't forgiven us for bringing another pet home and having to share our attention.
Thanks Courtney for this helpful comment! Like I said, I've never been a cat person [but we've always had cats since I was a kid] but my mum's kittens just really grew on me & the cat in my pictures, bob, he is such a big softie...
Anyways, what you've said is a help! I was just confused with letting the cat actually outside. I mean we have a garden, patio area where the cat could probably go outside & be safe, but I was just paranoid about a cat running away, lol.
We're going to talk about it a little more, because lastnight Dave decided he'd rather get another [bigger] dog, like a labrador or something... so we'll see! Oh & yeah, I agree with the getting jealous thing. I remember when I first got Tatty - my lifelong pet dog Snoopy got soooo jealous and would never even look at him, lol.
Thanks for the comment again! :)
Our cat, Darcy, is a house cat that only goes outside when supervised. When he was a kitten we bought him a little harness and lead from Pets At Home to go out with but he no longer needs it as he never strays very far because we keep an eye on him. I don't think he's actually ever tried leaving the garden.
He's a very clean cat and has used his litter box practically from birth. We've never had any 'surprises'.
Hope this helps! :)
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