Leaving a cat alone for 24 hours, first time

Suddenly, without warning, Cat Protector exclaimed (12/29/2007 12:52 AM):
Cats should be kept indoors all the time. By letting them roam outside they
can get hit by cars, encounter people who might harm and abuse them, become
a target for predators, and get in fights with other cats. All 3 of my cats
are indoor cats and I'm a lot happier knowing they're safe.



I was waiting for you to say that

jmc

Suddenly, without warning, RPSinha exclaimed (12/29/2007 9:02 AM):
jmc wrote:

: When we leave our cat alone for one or two days (no more!), we leave two
: litterboxes (one in the tub, one her normal one), her day's supply of
: wet food (she likes it a little old anyway, dunno why), and enough dry
: to get her through one more day than I expect to be gone. Also make
: sure she has twice as much water as I expect her to need. Minimal
: lights, and as for the shades: If she wants to look out the windows she
: will, whether the shades are open or closed (unless you have external
: wood shutters!). Personally, I'd make it easy for her to look out.
: It'll give her something to do.
:
: Leave a couple of safe toys out for her to play with as well.

Thanks, just the sort of advice I was looking for. Would you scatter
the food and water at a few places leave it all in her usual eating
place?

Usual eating place. Not sure why you'd want to scatter it around,
unless she's a couch-potato cat that needs the exercise.


: If you don't think she'll behave well...

She has never misbehaved---other than waking me up at 4AM. I am only
trying to make it comfortable for her.

She'll be fine, but may take a while to forgive you once you get back

jmc

"jmc" wrote in message
She'll be fine, but may take a while to forgive you once you get back

I remember about 18 months ago when without much warning on a Monday, I went
into the hospital for four days. I had a friend go over to my apartment that
evening and fill up her gravity feed water dish and kibble in her gravity
feed food dishes that held over a weeks worth of both.

I came home on the Friday and my one year old Deetoo was about three pounds
heavier and looked like she was four inches longer. It was like she went
from still a little big kitten size to full grown, big cat. I came in the
door, she came up and sniffed me once and then walked away, ignoring me
completely. I knew I'd have to put in considerable effort to get in her good
graces again.

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 08:28:44 -0800 from William Graham weg9
@comcast.net:
This is an old argument,
and I have come to the conclusion that what you do has to be tailored to the
circumstances.....If you live in an apartment in the city, and you get a cat
as a kitten, then sure.....You should keep an "indoor cat". but if you live
out in the sticks, and you get cats (as I do) that are strays, feral, or
were already outside cats, then you should keep them as they were, or as
they are accustomed to living, which is outdoors.

There's something to that, but I would question even that rule of
thumb.

Dexter the Wonder Cat was an indoor/outdoor cat for his first five or
six years. (I got him as a kitten, from a country farm.) I lived in a
one-family house in a fairly dense inner suburb of Cleveland.

When I was speaking with the animal warden on an unrelated matter,
she strongly advised keeping Dexter indoors, not only because of cars
and diseases and possible fights with other cats, but because of the
skunks in the area. "I bring in at least one dead cat a shift, that
has tangled with a skunk." This tipped the balance for me, since the
vet had also advised keeping Dexter indoors.

It took a few weeks of being *very* careful whenever I opened a door,
but Dexter did adjust to being an indoor kitty. He loved sitting in
the windowsill and watching the goings-on outdoors, and would run
from one window to another to follow the progress of people or
animals.

It certainly helped that I spent a lot of time playing with him, but
my experience is evidence that an indoor-outdoor cat can become a
happy indoor-only cat.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:06:59 -0600 from RPSinha :
Should we leave the
windows shades open or closed? I can't decide if looking outside will
be fun for her or torture?!

Definitely open. Cats get bored easily.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 17:32:51 -0600 from RPSinha :
Would you scatter the food and water at a few places leave it all
in her usual eating place?

Cats are creatures of habit. She'll expect to find food in the usual
place.

Contrariwise, why would you want her to start looking all over the
hose for food?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

Per William Graham:
Careful with the TV....I used to investigate fires and other accidents for a
living. TV's frequently start fires in homes.....Also, don't leave torchier
halogen lamps and other high energy sources energized while you are gone.
Now, I will leave these small screw-in fluorescents on, but seldom anything
else....

When I was about 15 years old, my mom expressed anxiety that the
hi-fi was always left plugged in - was afraid it might explode.

Knowing all there was to know about everything at the time, I
pedanticated on her for about five minutes about how electronic
things can't explode.

While I was going on and on... "Wham!!!" loud noise, smoke,
strong smell.

A power supply capacitor in the hi-fi's amplifier had exploded -
right on cue.
--
PeteCresswell

Leave them opened. Otherwise you may find the shades clawed up or torn down
when you get home. When I went on vacation one time, I left the miniblinds
in one room closed. When I got home, I found the miniblinds pulled out of
the window and on the floor. I had a petsitter coming to my home twice a
day during that time and the cat still tried to go through the blinds.

S.
--
**Visit me and my cats at http://www.island-cats.com/ **
---

"Stan Brown" wrote in message
t...
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:06:59 -0600 from RPSinha :
Should we leave the
windows shades open or closed? I can't decide if looking outside will
be fun for her or torture?!

Definitely open. Cats get bored easily.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/

"blkcatgal" wrote in message
Leave them opened. Otherwise you may find the shades clawed up or torn
down
when you get home.

My biggest problem was my new kitty climbing up the shower curtain. I'd come
in and take a shower and realize that the curtain had been turned into a
sieve with water all over the bathroom. After the first couple of times, I
learned to toss the shower curtains up over the rod a few times so she
couldn't reach them.

Alright, perhaps this story will help support the reason why cats should be
kept indoors. Last year I had the chance to write a story about the EAMT
(Emergency Animal Medical Technician) unit here in Phoenix. One of the calls
we went out on was about a mother cat and her kittens which were thrown in
the trash dumpster by one of the residents of an apartment complex in west
Phoenix. When we got there, another resident had pulled them from the
dumpster and thus we were able to save them and transport them to the
shelter. The thing that was sickening was the fact that the person who was
suspected to have thrown them in the trash like beer cans walked right past
us and didn't bat an eye.

So, I think the question is this. If you let your own cat run free would you
feel ok if someone picked up your cat, threw them in the trash and then
didn't tell you about it? How also would you feel if your cat was found dead
after it sufficated because more trash was piled on top of them as they
meowed and cried for help but nobody did anything to stop it. The mother cat
and her kittens were lucky but this could;ve been the scenario that played
out if another resident hadn't heard there cries and crawled into the
dumpster to get them out. This also happened in a bad part of town but still
scenarios like this can happen even in the best of neighborhoods as animal
abuse knows no bounds.

You can argue how it's ok to let them out all you want but that means you
also give permission to someone to possibly abuse or kill them. Would you
feel ok if that happens?

"David" wrote in message
. ..
I'm sure the newgroup is sick of the argument but for anyone who does feel
like joining in...

My cat is an indoor cat. The thought of him ever making it outside makes
me sick.

That being said, my position is that if a cat is not raised as an indoors
cat and has its claws, then I see no problem with allowing it to roam
outdoors.

Cats are animals. They live outdoors in the wild. In the past I may have
said that cats should not be allowed out doors in big cities but I live in
an apartment in a metropolitan area and there has been a cat I catch
jumping out of our dumpster on a regular basis. It is a healthy looking
at so I am not sure if it has a home that it goes to but it manages to
survive the time it does spend outside. I've thought about trying to
catch it and calling animal control but it is alive, it looks healthy, and
it will not stay that way if it gets euthinized.

I think arguing that cats should be kept indoors all the time because of
the reasons you mention, Cat Protector, is made for good reasons but is
unrealistic. An indoors cat could die in more than one ways from being
trapped indoors. I doubt an unbiased party has attempted to generate
statistics for the chances of an indoor cat living vs. an outdoor cat but
even if it is well know, the point is that you can not protect a cat from
everything.

A person can get in a fight with a bear camping, but (some of us) still go
camping. A person can get hit by a car but we still go outside.

As much as we want to provide for and keep our cats safe the simple fact
of the matter is that they are vulnerable living beings, just like us.

My two cents.

David



"William Graham" wrote in message
. ..

"RPSinha" wrote in message
...
As I have mentioned previously, I am caring for a cat who is about 1
year old. During the warmer days she was outdoors all day, but came
inside to sleep. Then she met her first Midwestern winter and didn't
know what hit her. But she has adjusted, sort of, goes out many times
each day and returns in 1/2 hr to 2 hrs depending on the weather and
her mood.

Now we are facing a sudden development I need your expert advice with.

We must leave her alone for something like 24-30 hours. I realize that
this is no big deal for many cats but this one is simply not used to
being locked in for so long. The maximum she has been locked in alone
is like 5-6 hours, so this will be a big jump.

We'll of course feed her just before leaving, leave some of her
favorite canned food for a little later and kibble for after that,
fresh water and fresh litter (I know this will be a torture for her,
she like to "go" outside unless the weather is truly dreadful).

Any other advice you can give from experience? Should we leave the
windows shades open or closed? I can't decide if looking outside will
be fun for her or torture?! What about lights: lot of lights on or just
a few?

TIA!

(The temperature on that day is predicted to have a *high* of 34, so
probably too cold for what *she* would want as we leave: to be left
outdoors! She often has those moments but always comes running back a
little later.)

I use cat doors....They are small rectangular openings that you put in
doors that have a leather or vinyl flap with a magnet at the bottom that
kind of holds them closed to keep the cold air out. but the cat or small
dog can push against them and they will open so it can go out. If you
install them as far away from the door handle/lock as possible than
thieves won't be able to reach the latch and get in, so they will be
relatively safe. but they do require you to saw a rectangle in your door
in order to install them.....They usually come with instructions and a
template for doing this.....They also have a panel which will block them
so your cat (or any other animal) won't be able to use them. They also
make them in long aluminum sections for installation in sliding glass
doors that lead to patios and the like....We have one of those, and two
of the regular kind that lead from the kitchen to the garage, and thru
the garage door to the outside so our cats can come and go day or night
to either the front or the back yard.