In article ,
(paghat) wrote:

Billy expounded:

Unnatural perhaps, but house cats do live longer.

Hope you don't mind me being on top;-)
.. . .keeping cats indoors is also good for the health and life
expectancy of the cats, and less expensive for the cat owners. The
Humane Society of the United States was quoted in 1992 estimating the
average life expectancy of free roaming pets to be between 3 and 5
years, while indoor cats can commonly reach ages of 17 years or more.
http://www.scvas.org/index.php?page=text&id=keepcats
Of course, this what you would expect from an anti-cat front group like
"Audubon Society".

Then there is . . .
Aside from the obvious dangers of car fan belts and tires, toxic plants,
dogs and cruel people, there are many hidden dangers to cats allowed
outdoors. Life-threatening dangers include:

* Diseases for which we currently do not have vaccines for (Feline
Aids),
or vaccines that are not reliably effective
(Feline Leukemia, Feline Infectious Peritonitis).

* Heartworm. Yes, it is true that a cat can get heartworm, through
mosquito bites. Shorthairs are at higher risk than longhairs.

* Antifreeze. Its sweet taste is irresistible to cats, and a cat who
has walked through a small pool of antifreeze and cleans its paws has
ingested a fatal dose.

* Skin cancer. Light colored kitties (especially white) are at risk
for skin cancer of the ears due to exposure to direct sunlight.

* Hanging/choking. Those neat little cat collars which do not
provide breakaway or stretch releases have killed many a cat.

* Fighting among outdoor kitties not only spreads disease, it can
result in painful abscesses which require medical attention (an
untreated abscess can kill a cat). Unaltered tom cats are prime
candidates for such fighting, not to mention they will impregnate any
and all receptive females they come upon.

* Toxoplasmosis. A single celled organism that cats can ingest while
eating prey that has been exposed. Not only can it kill a cat, it is
contagious to people and can result in severe birth defects to human
babies whose mothers are exposed during pregnancy. Wearing rubber gloves
while handling litter pan duties and gardening is highly recommended for
pregnant women. Finding another home for your cherished pet is NOT
necessary.
http://www.runway.net/b/moonmaid/in-or-out.html

And lastly, there is "The Cat Fanciers' Association" which weasels
around and never gives numbers. They just say that a cat is safer
indoors than outdoors.
http://www.cfainc.org/articles/safer-indoors.html

Longevity can be greatly extended (to truly unnatural ages) by adding

chromium picolinate: recommended for cats with diabetes
http://www.vetinfo4cats.com/cdiabetmed.html
(I used to take it for the same reason but never saw any benefit from
it.)
to a diet so calorie deficient that the pet becomes
nearly inert, living year after year at the edge of starvation, their
whole system functioning at a minimum rate of merely alive.

It's dangerous to go outside. It's dangerous to have full liberty in the
house. The best thing for a cat or a dog would be to keep always either in
a small box or on a short leash. If quality of life counts for anything,
however, a more interesting diet & opportunities to hunt & exercise are
more important than having an inert animal in a box lasting a long time
thanks to the chromium picolinate.

It has been popularly reported that outdoor cats last 3 years, indoor cats
17 years. These are fake statistics and not based on any actual studies,
but they're popularly repeated by advocates of cat leash laws & by people
who either hate cats coming in their yard from next door or are paranoid
pet owners who want to justify their pet's awful life as a housebound
overweight animal.

The record-holding oldest cats have had access to the outdoors and often
to barns and are permitted hunt. It is rare to hear of a completely indoor
cat that lives to age 20, the majority of cats that age having had access
to the outdoors or even living most of the time outdoors.

You can tweek the stats any number of ways, statistics being as Twain said
"damned lies." If you look at how many cats get run over by cars, you
won't find any indoor cats killed that way. If you look at cats dead of
obesity-related diseases, won't find many outdoor cats on that list. If
you look at cats with all sorts of renal problems, the majority are indoor
cats (thought to be due to the fact that there are NO commercial catfood
preparations that are adequate for a long healthy life -- your choices are
rendering-plant waste in "100% meat" products or more typical blends with
corn, rice, and flour added -- what a cat needs is whole organism and
would frankly have a more balanced diet if all it ate was worms).

A more sustainable statistic would be that outdoor and outdoor-access cats
live eight healthful years on average (twenty at the outside0, and indoor
cats live eight or nine healthful years (fourteen to seventeen at the
outside). The outside ages of outdoor-access cats will more likely be
healthful than for the indoor cat, whose last "extra" years will be
afflicted with chronic illness and a great deal of veterinarian care.

"Averages" are funny things. Looking at the oldest cats exclusively, they
almost all had outdoor access. But averages can look a little less safe
for the outdoor cat because it is less likely to have preventative
veterinarian care (innoculation against the most common feline disease) or
swift emergency care than is the indoor cat, and it is veterinarians
rather than the indoor environment that's responsible for the extra if
miserable years.

Whatever the "average" might really be, or how it's measured, fact
remains, a 100% housebound cat does not necessarily live a longer life. It
is popular folklore that outdoor cats live short lives. The few studies
actually done show that even completely feral cats which never have
veterinary access live up to twenty years (as documented by the Cat Action
Trust in England). Unspayed feral cats outliving spayed indoor cats is the
opposite of popular belief, but there you go.

The shortened life of indoor cats is partially due to boredom resulting in
lethargy resulting in overweight and thereby susceptibility to all manner
of ailments, including diabetes, heart disease, renal failure, dental
disease, and cancer -- so that they make it past age nine, all the way to
age fourteen (on average), only with constant veterinary care & owner
willingness to let the cats carry on with chronic illness. They'd
otherwise have to be put down about age nine, the same time as natural
death occurs in a physically fit cat that had outdoor privileges.

One predicctive measure of how long a cat MIGHT live is its skill as a
hunter. Cats that delight in the hunt (and yes that usually means killing
birds, though for farm cats it'd be rodents) are living a higher quality
of life by their own standard, and so may continue to hunt into their
'teens. The year a cat stops hunting is the year its health begins to
decline.

Perhaps the ideal would be the life of a farm cat, having the best of both
worlds, complete liberty of outdoors or indoors, less threat from
automobile traffic, plenty of opportunities for the hunt.

Emotional states and longevity are a controversial area of study but it's
not hard to accept that a happy active cat has more HEALTHY years than a
bored inactive cat, even IF the latter were to live on & on & on with some
renal problem. Human emotional states as related to their cats are also
interesting. The University of Michigan Stroke Research Facility, looking
at over 4,000 cases, discovered a 40% increased rate of heart attack and
30% increased rate of death by cardiovascular disease in people who never
owned a cat. So get a cat, or die.

-paghat the ratgirl
--

Billy

Impeach Pelosi, Bush & Cheney to the Hague
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/