In article ,
(paghat) wrote:

In article
,
Billy wrote:

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

This is a bogus stat. Of course if it was about how quick the "humane"
society kills animals then sure, they kill all feral cats that come into
their custody without giving them any chance at all. They kill most of the
rest of the cats while they're at it -- because it's easier, not because
it's necessary.

Despite all the POSSIBILITIES of harm from going outside, fact is cats
with access to the outdoors USUALLY live long and much more fulfilling
lives. You can find baseless stats claiming outdoor cats live less than
eighteen months (not telling you this is for the feral cats in the worst
possible environments and wouldn't even hold true for feral cats in other
conditions).

The few times it's actually been studied such worst-case scenarios never
hold up. Longevity studies are also skewed because unspayed females that
never get pregnant during their lives are at heightened risk of ovarian
cancers, giving rise to the fraudulant statistic that spayed indoor cats
live longest. Fact is a cat that is periodically pregnant has a vastly
reduced cancer risk.

MOST outdoor cats live long healthy lives. Some certainly do get run over
or fall to illnesses nobody bothers to have treated. If one measured only
the quality of life, and pretended having nothing much to do no place to
go is good quality, you'd still have to STOP measuring when they reached
the point of diabetes or renal disease and live miserably thereafter on
borrowed time if they get the expensive care.

The Humane Society has passed their baseless stats from ear to ear for a
lot of years. Sometimes they say eighteen years for indoor cats,
sometoimes seventeen, sometimes fourteen. They always say three years but
sometimes say this is for any outdoor cat, though when they first started
spreading these bogus stats twenty years ago it was only for feral cats --
time rather than studies transmute these urban folklore assertions.

The Humane Society also alleges that two out of three veterinarians
recommend never letting a cat outdoors. That seems likely a bogus stat too
since the Society reveals no source for it, but if it were true, my
question is why, if you could quadruple a cat's lifespan as they preend,
would 33% of veterinarians think it was okay to go outside? Maybe they're
the 33% who bothered to check if the Humane Society is blowing smoke?

The Humane Society's primary task in America is killing and disposing of
animals. They have done ZERO research and report on ZERO research on
longevity and health issues of any cats at all. The hsus.org website has a
page about never letting cats outdoors which they take entirely from a
pamphlet distributed by the Center for Disease Control. If the Humane
Society had any factual data they wouldn't restrict themselves to copying
pamphlets trumped up by other agencies. Both the "alternative"

PETA and the HSUS kill upwards to 90% of the animals that come into their
custody WITHOUT REGARD FOR ADOPTABILITY. To do otherwise would require a
major shift in priorities away from politics and toward animal health and
welfare. PETA would rather be a disruptive group of nutters, and HSUS
would rather spend the money on their non-research propoganda machine for
neutering and not letting cats or dogs outside ever. The chances of
finding a lost pet are 3%. The direct cause of this horrible statistic is
the fact that leading organizations send them straight to slaughter (see
Nathan Wingrove's book REDEMPTION for incredible details).

These organizations don't care about the truth because they have instead
their agendas. It should be up to pet owners to assess their particular
situations and with REAL knowledge decide whether they're willing to risk
or attempt to mitigate death by captivity through obesity and renal
failure, or death by automobile of a much healthier animal that exercises
and hunts. It can be argued either way. But not when fraudulant stats
phony up the odds to make it look like their agenda provides the only
reasonable answer. PETA and HSUS have no desire to stop killing animals
because it is upon this alleged "necessity" they base their otherwise
varied agendas with momentums that do not permit actual educative process
but only propogandizing.

Here's a nice little interview with Wingrove as an introduction to realilty:
http://www.consumerfreedom.com/artic...fm/article/183

Cat Fanciers' Association's reasoning for keeping a cat indoors includes
the recommendation that you have only a cat that has NEVER BEEN outdoors
-- not even leash-trained or during supervised play, as once they know
what it's like out there they'll never be happy indoors. It has at least a
passing chance of not being unhappy about the situation if outside is just
an image through the window never explored. C.F.A. to promote this nutso
idea of NEVER NEVER NEVER set paw past the door must perforce refuse to
consider the negative health impact on cats and don't even warn about the
obesity and disease that results from trapping cats indoors, and the more
rapid decline of cats that cannot hunt. Their answer to all potential
problems is only "be sure to love your cat."

Some facts left out of agendized and phony stats: Cats trapped indoors are
more apt to be destructive, apt to overeat, apt to get carried away in
"stalking" behavior harming children or other pets, and unless trapped
with other cats become so dependent on owners that they're totally
stressed out when alone, resulting in over-grooming to the point of
inducing baldness, or not grooming at all and getting pretty rank. Stress
also causes cats to stop using literbox, bouts of excess timidity or
outbursts of aggression, hiding, and destroying objects with claws or
teeth or urine, and to heighten these bad behaviors when their are
visitors or changes in the environment as slight as rearranging the
furniture. And when they inevitably do get out by accident, they have no
survival skills and are much more apt to be run over, lost, or torn to
pieces by a dog.

Cats that have the liberty of a catdoor to the outer world are not as apt
to have any of these behavioral problems, remain healthier for longer
periods because well exercised and not overeating, have improved survival
skills, clear mice out of gardens while increasing the quality of their
diet (cats on 100% manufactured diets get all sorts of renal problems when
older, such as do not afflict hunters).

The negative side is well known because well-advertised by professional
animal killers posing as animal welfare agencies or groups. The REAL thing
to consider is this: How to mitigate dangers for cats that go outdoors; or
conversely, how to mitigate the health damage that appears to be
inescapable for indoor cats.

The latter would involve way better control over what cats eat and to
provide whole organisms from time to time (like fresh frozen mice
available in many pet stores). Unfortunately we're a fat culture and it
extends to our animals; we can't control what we ourselves eat and we
won't stop giving the pets leavings from the human's bacon trough. The
mitigation for outdoor cat safety turns out to be easier than for indoor
cats for most humans who are psychologically incapable of controling any
living thing's diet properly and would NEVER let their cat have a thawed
out and soon quite bloody mouse.

Mitagation for outdoor behavior is also difficult since we can't follow
them around, but neutering males does restrict their territory, whereas
unneutered they wander great distances and yowl to the annoyance of
neighbors and get in fights. Outdoor females should be spayed or they will
get pregnant. Spaying/neutering is another area that is more complex than
agendized organizations make it, but it does mitigate the risks involved
with outdoor access. Permitting outdoor access only by day is also
mitigates risk, as cats won't be frozen in car headlights or attacked by
nocturnal animals. Outdoor cats must also even more rigorously be properly
vaccinated. And they must be treated for fleas on a regular basis and
checked for possibility of wounds or worms. And they should have
under-the-skin ID microchip. Too damned bad dumbass animal-killer
organizations won't as quickly list mitigating factors -- not wanting to
admit house-bound cats require them, not wanting to admit outdoor cats can
ever be safe.

There are no absolutes in this. Everyone who says it MUST be this or that
is a chump. Personally if I could never let a cat outdoors for whatever
reason that would be for me an indication that I oughtn't have one. Anyone
who can't afford MASSIVELY EXPENSIVE veterinarian bills for the life-long
indoor cat's later years better start saving up now, or take THAT as
evidence they'd just better go without.

-paghat the ratgirl

Thanks for the citation. I collect them.
Think I'll go have a nice glass of chamomile tea to settle my nerves.
Oh, we have five cats, and they never tell me where they are going;-)
--

Billy

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