A Cat Parent’s Dilemma – Indoor or Outdoor Living?

As a cat parent, you have to decide whether to let your feline live indoor or outdoor.

On the average, our feline friends live to be 10 to 12 years old when living indoors. And an outdoor cat lasts 2 years because of car accidents, attacked by predators, infected by diseases, or they vanish.

A no-brainer, we should keep our cat indoors.

But there are advantages of allowing our cats to go outside which I’ll bring forth.

They are less prone to obesity. Nomadic cats burn more calories than their non-roving counterparts. Excess body fat will affect the bones and joints, organs for breathing and digestive organs. Diseases such as diabetes and chronic kidney are common to overweight cats.

Outdoor cats are less vulnerable to these diseases because they die of accidents, fights, and other horrors before they are old enough for these diseases to become a problem.

Cats are kept on a leash or a screened-in enclosure to keep them active.Never forget that cats are cunning, they can slip their neck from leashes and get hit by a car. They can escape enclosures by climbing trees and fences in a jiff and fall down.

Cats by nature is an outdoor animal. They love the open air, experimenting with anything that moves and you love watching them. But what if you are not there and they are chasing mice or gophers. Remember hunting is risky. While your cat is hunting a dog might come in the way.

They urinate and defecate outside. This is a good thing so there is no smelly litter box inside the house. That goal can also be achieved by keeping the litter box clean.

Your neighbors might not appreciate cat poops in their surroundings that will get you and your cat in hot water

Come to think of it I’m supposed to be discussing advantages of outdoor living for cats but it seems I can’t find any. Just let your cats stay indoors so they can live their full 9 lives.

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