<p>In early January my cat came inside one night with a huge gash in his back gushing blood. We’re assuming it was a fight as there’s a lot of cats around. He’s been house-ridden for the last month but still cries at the door to go out. Does he not realize that he almost died?</p>
<p>^^ He has 8 more lives left so this isn’t a big deal in his mind.</p>
<p>Is he an altered kitty? If not, he should be, or he will continue to get in fights.</p>
<p>nope…he’s a scrapper and he likes the nightlife and loves that wild adventure. Thank goodness he is your pet and not your child! (I suppose he could be both) Kidding aside, cats like to go outside at night and they can be territorial and he is obviously not emotionally scarred from the experience. Keep him indoors while he heals. Cats will be cats!</p>
<p>This kind of story makes my blood boil. Allowing a cat to go outside is asking for repeated injuries and a high chance of death. It’s irresponsible pet ownership. They are domesticated animals, not meant to fend in the wild. Dogs, other cats, wild animals, automobiles–they all threaten your cat’s well being. If you love your cat, keep him indoors. Eventually he’ll forget the outdoors exists.</p>
<p>My cats go out. That makes sense because they were strays, some born in the yard. They are not allowed to stay out all night though one used to do this every now and then. He did it once or twice last summer. He plans it: comes to the door, thinks about going in, changes his mind, turns down food, shows up early AM and goes to sleep.</p>
<p>I am also a big believer in keeping cats inside. I used to have outside cats in the 70s/80s and it was a series of injuries and fleas. Cats are house companions.</p>
<p>Lergnom, your cats were strays or born in the yard because of human cruelty and neglect, not because they were naturally meant to be there. They are a domesticated species. They aren’t equipped to live in the wild, especially a wild that includes automobiles, large dogs, multiple diseases and crazy humans. I won’t even get into the threat they pose to birds. Cats don’t belong outside. Please consider the advice of The Humane Society:
[Indoor</a> Cats vs. Outdoor Cats](<a href=“http://www.americanhumane.org/animals/adoption-pet-care/caring-for-your-pet/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats.html]Indoor”>Indoor Cats vs. Outdoor Cats - American Humane - American Humane)</p>
<p>We had a barn cat that only came in on the coldest nights or occasionally to sleep in the coat closet. He came home limping one day and we took him to the vet. The cat had fractured his pelvis and the vet said to keep him confined in a small area preferably with no place for him to jump up (or down) I knew that was never going to happen, but I locked him in a bathroom with a sandbox (which he knew how to use but never did up until I locked him in the bathroom). For three days he howled and scratched and ironically one of the kids opened the door just as my husband opened the slider and that cat was out in a shot. He disappeared for about a week and then showed up and resumed his life. Cats will generally deal with their own healing after the initial assistance. </p>
<p>And yes, all our cats are outdoor/indoor cats and we’ve not lost one in forty years that wasn’t fifteen years or older. I neuter them and they have their shots although I have to catch them to get them to the vet and sometimes that is near impossible. January in the zero degree weather is usually the safest time because they come in to sleep and i can stuff them in the cat carrier in the morning. Never had a problem with fleas or worms although our pampered dog gets fleas and had a case of worms so generalities cannot be made about the health and welfare of indoor vs. outdoor cats. We love the cat sometimes more than the darn dog. And outdoor cats don’t need a stinky litter pan. </p>
<p>My vet has horses, dogs, barn cats and indoor cats so tends to not lecture about how we should house the cats. We had one huge cat that is now deceased that fought like crazy with all sorts of things and annually got an abscess on his head because he was always head first into a fight. The vet said most cats get it on their back and rear as they are retreating. The vet would clean it up and give me a script for antibiotics and tell me when I could catch it to clean it with Dial soap. That cat lived to 17.</p>
<p>The indoor vs outdoor cat argument is about as divided as the stay at home mom vs. the working mom argument. You are either one or the other and no one will convince you that there is better position other than your own. Clearly if you live on a busy street you might want to consider keeping your cat inside and if I lived on a busy street I might do that also. My sister keeps hers inside and she had one live to twenty, but that cat was so old it’s fur was falling out and she had to actually give it shots everyday. To each his own I guess.</p>
<p>I straddle the worlds of indoor vs outdoor. We own a cat that defines “outdoor cat.” Per the vet’s instructions, we feed him at dusk in the garage and let him out at daybreak. We have three indoor cats: two who’ve never set foot outside and a stray who has almost come around to our way of thinking re him being an inside cat. I agree that cats are healthier when they live inside. Still we had a choice of not providing a home for our outdoor kitty or working with him - making sure that he stays inside at night.</p>
<p>We neuter/spay all our cats and keep shots up to date. </p>
<p>Funny story: our vet owned a cat he could not get to become an inside cat. The cat frantically escaped at any opportunity but seemed content to hang around outside. So he became an outside cat. Eventually the cat would cry at the front door to come in and the vet would let him in, only to have the cat run through the house and beg out the back door. It was as close as the cat came to becoming an indoor cat.</p>
<p>My boy cat is obsessed with being outside as much as possible. The only time he wants to be inside is when it is very cold out, or raining hard or snowing. Lately I’ve been trying to restrict his outside time, only letting him out at night (so he can’t kill birds), but it’s incredibly difficult because when he’s forced to be inside, he spends his time chasing and bullying my girl cat (his sister). It’s like he has so much energy and aggression that he normally directs toward hunting and fighting with other cats, and when he’s inside he takes it all out on the other cat. It is really traumatic for her. (He has been neutered since he was a kitten, by the way.) Oh, and he cries at the door, frantically tries to escape at every opportunity, and pees on the furniture. I could live with that, but not with him bullying my other cat all day. :(</p>
<p>We’ve always had indoor/outdoor cats. Never once been in a fight. Our last cat would have been miserable inside. There is nothing he liked more than lounging on the porch. Lived to be almost 20. Couldn’t imagine denying him his simple life pleasures.</p>
<p>Just keep him inside until he heals. Get him fixed if he’s not fixed and then let him roam free.</p>
<p>I always said that any cat we owned would be an indoor cat for all the reasons MommaJ said and especially because of the birds. That being said, our cat, age 14 goes out for some time each day. We got him as a kitten on a farm and he never went outside again for almost 3 years; but he spent those 3 years trying to thwart us at every chance. We finally gave up. The cat stays right by the house. He goes from the front door to the back and often sleeps in the sun on the deck. He comes when he is called and does not stay out if we are not home or overnight. I still say the next cat will be totally indoors.</p>