Broader adoption of keeping cats safe at home would have large benefits for cat welfare, human health, local wildlife and even the economy. So, should cat owners be required to keep their pets contained to their property?
Broader adoption of keeping cats safe at home would have large benefits for cat welfare, human health, local wildlife and even the economy. So, should cat owners be required to keep their pets contained to their property?
The council did it because some of its suburbs (The Basin, Ferntree Gully, Upper Ferntree Gully, parts of Boronia, Lysterfield) border national parks and the Dandenong Ranges.
Younger cats can adapt to living indoors.
But the challenge was with older cats, who are used to roaming around.
The happy medium would be to phase it in over five to 10 years, where any new cats registered or adopted after a particular date have to stay indoors, but older cats can continue to roam.
Benefits for cats: No FIV infections, no car injuries, safe temperatures, no fights, no parasites.
Benefits for wildlife: no murder, fewer vectors, no loss of habitat to cats
Benefits for community: no roaming cats triggering sensor lights/setting off other pets/damaging property with claws, no toxo transmission, no digging up poo while gardening/losing plants to cat piss
Cons to cats: Keepers must provide entertainment
Cons to keepers: Exercise the level of basic responsibility every other keeper of pets is expected to, or parent with children.
Cats go nuts at the witching hour anyway, being inside or outside has nothing to do with it.
Basically, nah, they're alright inside. They sleep for between 12 to 18 hours a day and get most active at dawn and dusk, so having some way for them to burn off energy with a good cat tree or the like will keep them occupied. And if they want more than that, they will come to you and make their demands known. And if that's still not enough and you're willing to put the effort in and do some acclimatising, you could get a second cat and they'll keep each other occupied.
I have two cats, they have never been let outside and they've been completely happy. Granted the house is a decent size and we have a lot of things to keep them entertained, but that responsibility comes with the ownership I figure.
It's always a controversial topic and rarely has any level of insightful or genuine discussion. Best to avoid unless your idea of living is engaging in meaningless social media pile-ons or rage-baiting.
Ah I'm just here for the drama, so it suits me just fine
Jokes aside, it did surprise me a bit. Considering Lemmy tends to be quite left leaning and big into climate activism and stuff of that nature, I really didn't expect there to be this many people who disagree with the OP. I've never really seen more than 1 comment per thread that goes against the common opinion
I didn't realise this was so controversial. All we need now is some hexbear user to stumble across this thread and instigate a mass pile-on (luckily they've decided not to federate with us anymore so we should be safe).
If anyone does notice the conversation get a bit out of hand please report it and we'll deal with it accordingly
Oh, it's only now that you mention it I realise I haven't seen any hexbears in a while.
I'd probably have locked this thread by now if I were a mod tbh. Although I don't really like threads being locked, it doesn't look like there's much actual discussion happening. To me, it looks more like everybody on both sides is screaming their opinions as loud as they possibly can and trying to 1 up the other side
"We need to genetically modify cats to only hunt introduced rats. "
In my area foxes were hunting outdoor cats, so you hardly ever see one. Foxes got baited, and now cats are everywhere. Q is, what is better.
The discussion here has gone a bit off the rails, and it's reached the point where discussion is no longer meaningful. As such I am locking this thread. If you believe you have something meaningful to contribute to the broader discussion create a new post.