Thread: Indoor cats
View Single Post
  #8  
Old August 17th 05, 08:18 PM
Smokie Darling (Annie)
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default


Christina Websell wrote:
wrote in message
oups.com...
First let me say I'm not being antagonistic, I'm just interested in the
(apparent) culture difference between the US & the UK as regards our
feline friends.

With regard to letting cats out: All the cats I know go outside, they
(usually) learn their way back home from their local neighbourhood,
they don't go too far but suss out gardens, wildlife, other cats and
people, and hopefully realise that traffic isn't for playing with.
There's not too many birds in London and no-one seems to care about the
pigeon population anyway. Some get lost, some get hit by traffic (mine
for example isn't allowed out the front to the road, only the back
garden where he doesn't seem to want to climb the fence to escape from
but if he did I'd let him).

It seems natural for a cat to want to venture outside, and to me it's
cruel to keep them inside (unless they're not interested).

It seems that in the US people are much more likely to force cats to
stay indoors, or take them out on a leash (something I've NEVER heard
of over here and to be honest I think people would laugh over here if
they saw a cat on a lead, but fair play for succeeding in training a
cat to do it), or build these enclosure thingies for them, to protect
the wildlife, also I've never seen one over here.

It's interesting, do you think it's a cultural thing? How long have
people in the US been doing these things? Perhaps it's not the general
population, just people in cat groups As I say, I wasn't saying
that either way is right, it's just interesting how people do things
differently.

Marcia
Lord Otis's slave and minder


It just isn't the same in the USA as it is here. Yes, there is a huge
cultural difference, like declawing being offered at the same time as
speutering presumably because of an assumption that most cats will stay
inside and furniture is king..
BUT. They have the most awful predators there. Cat-eating ones, which,
apart from the renegade fox, we don't have here.
Mountain lions, coyotes, bears are just waiting to snap up your cat. And
big bad traffic like we have never experienced.
At least I think this is the reason that I've learned from this group why
cats are mainly kept inside in the USA. Yes?
Or is it really just cultural? and some of it not necessary, because this
made me think hard.

Tweed


Piggy-backing on Tweed (lightly, dear, wouldn't want to hurt you):


Another thing, at least in my area... I've seen (and reported) people
who swerve their vehicle in order TO hit a cat, I've seen them drive
onto people's lawns (or sidewalks, or the other side of the road) in
order to run over a cat. Then we've got the ones (in my
neighbo(u)rhood) who enjoy poisoning animals (they've been reported as
well) or shooting them (not just cats).

Where I live the predators are as Tweed listed, then there are the
feral dogs, who do not know how to "kill" correctly, and that is the
worst thing to find (they don't do a kill bite at the throat or spine -
they just rip that animal apart while it's still fighting) and/or hear.
I've seen this, and gotten bitten trying to stop an attack on a little
kid (I managed, baseball bats are wonderful things) with several other
people.

Some of the predators here aren't just interested in cats, they like to
get dogs, ponies, and children too. One is only allowed to kill a
predator if it's attacking a child (or adult), and even then one gets
to deal with fines and punishment for killing "protected" species
(punishment seems to be community service in the few cases I know
about).

Smokie Darling (Annie) - all of my masters and mistresses now prefer
the "great" indoors, so long as they can look outside.