Thread: Indoor cats
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Old August 17th 05, 08:24 PM
Adrian
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Steve(JazzHunter) wrote:
On 17 Aug 2005 11:07:05 -0700, wrote:

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


There might be a difference in the percentages of cats kept indoors,
that's all. My cousin who lives in Virginia Waters (England) keeps her
two cats indoors. And let's not forget it's illegal to declaw in
Britain, something that's done quite willingly by many vets in the
States if the owner just asks.

.. Steve ..


I've met many cats outside in Virginia Water, your cousin's definately
in the minority. Of course all the large preditors were killed off by
humans in the UK, hundreds of years ago, if they were still arround the
situation may be different.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy & Bagheera)
A house is not a home, without a cat.
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk