I thought Boyfie was iill

"Christina Websell" wrote in message
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"Joy" wrote in message
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"Christina Websell" wrote in message
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"jmcquown" wrote in message
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On 9/20/2013 3:38 PM, Lesley wrote:
A friend of mine when recently asked if he'd had a good day told me
"Nope..one of my effing cats chased a pigeon into my bedroom, shot
under the bed with it then disemboweled it under the bed this was at
6.30 in the morning and I've spent the rest of the day getting blood
stains off the underside of my mattress and removing pigeon guts from
my bedroom from now on I am going to shut my bedroom door at night"

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs


Good enough reason to have an indoor only cat.

Jill

Most Brits don't keep their cats inside unless they live in a big city
near a busy road.
Best idea is to keep the bedroom door shut ;-)

Cats are what they are, they love to hunt and catch prey and I think
they should be allowed to do so, if possible. I wouldn't keep Boyfie
inside just because he might mess my house up with feathers and guts.
Even though I'm not keen on him catching birds because I like birds very
much, I made that choice when I decided to keep him.
I would much prefer if he restricted his catching to baby rats but
realistically, he won't.
He almost never catches small birds now, but the problem with collared
doves is they just can't take off quickly from the ground and Boyfie can
still manage to leap a few feet into the air at 11 years old. He's
quite fit.

Tweed

The cats I have now seem to be quite contented being inside-only cats.
They've never known anything different. However, I once tried to turn an
inside-outside cat into inside only, and she was miserable, so I gave up
on that.

Joy

I am sure that cats who have always been inside and know no different are
happy.
Boyfie and KFC came to me having been outside and lost and since it is
safe here I saw no reason to alter it.
There is a remote possibility that Boyfie could be killed by a car on the
road, but it *is* remote. But a cat did get killed once a few years ago
outside my house, he must have jumped in front of the only car that passed
along in an hour :-(
Sometimes I just have to trust him to take care of himself when he is out.
He did it before I got him after all.

Tweed

Yes, there is a risk to letting them go outside, but if they are miserable
when they're shut inside, it doesn't seem right to me to keep them shut up.
I realize some people have no choice. However, I know for myself, I'd
rather have a shorter, happy life than a long miserable one.

Joy

"Joy" wrote in message
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"Christina Websell" wrote in message
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"Joy" wrote in message
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"Christina Websell" wrote in
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"jmcquown" wrote in message
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On 9/20/2013 3:38 PM, Lesley wrote:
A friend of mine when recently asked if he'd had a good day told me
"Nope..one of my effing cats chased a pigeon into my bedroom, shot
under the bed with it then disemboweled it under the bed this was at
6.30 in the morning and I've spent the rest of the day getting blood
stains off the underside of my mattress and removing pigeon guts from
my bedroom from now on I am going to shut my bedroom door at night"

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs


Good enough reason to have an indoor only cat.

Jill

Most Brits don't keep their cats inside unless they live in a big city
near a busy road.
Best idea is to keep the bedroom door shut ;-)

Cats are what they are, they love to hunt and catch prey and I think
they should be allowed to do so, if possible. I wouldn't keep Boyfie
inside just because he might mess my house up with feathers and guts.
Even though I'm not keen on him catching birds because I like birds
very much, I made that choice when I decided to keep him.
I would much prefer if he restricted his catching to baby rats but
realistically, he won't.
He almost never catches small birds now, but the problem with collared
doves is they just can't take off quickly from the ground and Boyfie
can still manage to leap a few feet into the air at 11 years old. He's
quite fit.

Tweed

The cats I have now seem to be quite contented being inside-only cats.
They've never known anything different. However, I once tried to turn
an inside-outside cat into inside only, and she was miserable, so I gave
up on that.

Joy

I am sure that cats who have always been inside and know no different are
happy.
Boyfie and KFC came to me having been outside and lost and since it is
safe here I saw no reason to alter it.
There is a remote possibility that Boyfie could be killed by a car on the
road, but it *is* remote. But a cat did get killed once a few years ago
outside my house, he must have jumped in front of the only car that
passed along in an hour :-(
Sometimes I just have to trust him to take care of himself when he is
out. He did it before I got him after all.

Tweed

Yes, there is a risk to letting them go outside, but if they are miserable
when they're shut inside, it doesn't seem right to me to keep them shut
up. I realize some people have no choice. However, I know for myself, I'd
rather have a shorter, happy life than a long miserable one.

Joy

I wouldn't even try to keep Boyfie in, he likes to go out with the idea of
catching a rat, but if not he goes to his bedroom.
TBH, he is not up to the big rats. They scare him with their huge brown
teeth, but he is well able to get the younger ones, well much younger ones,
like big mouse size, bigger than that, get the terriers in.
This means he has to stay in the house otherwise he is RB. The terriers
kill everything in their path, rats, cats, anything.

I wouldn't want to have one of those terriers as one killed her kennelmate
but if you breed them so fierce that's what can happen.

Joy wrote:

I once tried to turn an inside-outside cat into inside only, and she
was miserable, so I gave up on that.

I had the opposite experience - I tried to turn an inside-only cat to an
inside/outside cat. This cat had a problem with the litterbox and simply
would not use it. She would pee and poop on the floor next to it. I did
try a few brands of litter, but she didn't like any of them. And as this was
in the early 80s, there wasn't a lot of knowledge readily available as to
why a cat would avoid the litterbox. I did ask vets, though, and once I
asked a neighborhood cat lady (whose cats were always extremely healthy
looking, so I figured she was doing something right), but never got a good
answer.

So I thought maybe she could learn to go outside instead. I picked her
up one day and brought her down the stairs and outside, where she promptly
freaked. She started clawing my head and screeching. I managed to get us
both back up to the apartment, but it took a while to get her off my head.

Well, *that* didn't go so well, did it? Not one of my brighter ideas.

(BTW, years later, I realized that she probably felt intimidated by the
other cats in the house. And I knew nothing of having multiple litterboxes.
I was also very poor at the time and probably wouldn't have been able to
afford all that kitty litter. So I never figured out why she wouldn't use
the box. It didn't make me very popular with roommates, either.)

--
Joyce

"Riveting reading that keeps readers reading."
-- The Midwest Book Review

"Bastette" wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

I once tried to turn an inside-outside cat into inside only, and she
was miserable, so I gave up on that.

I had the opposite experience - I tried to turn an inside-only cat to an
inside/outside cat. This cat had a problem with the litterbox and simply
would not use it. She would pee and poop on the floor next to it. I did
try a few brands of litter, but she didn't like any of them. And as this
was
in the early 80s, there wasn't a lot of knowledge readily available as to
why a cat would avoid the litterbox. I did ask vets, though, and once I
asked a neighborhood cat lady (whose cats were always extremely healthy
looking, so I figured she was doing something right), but never got a good
answer.

So I thought maybe she could learn to go outside instead. I picked her
up one day and brought her down the stairs and outside, where she promptly
freaked. She started clawing my head and screeching. I managed to get us
both back up to the apartment, but it took a while to get her off my head.

Well, *that* didn't go so well, did it? Not one of my brighter ideas.

(BTW, years later, I realized that she probably felt intimidated by the
other cats in the house. And I knew nothing of having multiple
litterboxes.
I was also very poor at the time and probably wouldn't have been able to
afford all that kitty litter. So I never figured out why she wouldn't use
the box. It didn't make me very popular with roommates, either.)

--
Joyce

"Riveting reading that keeps readers reading."
-- The Midwest Book Review

That's sad. For you, and for her.

Joy

"Bastette" wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

I once tried to turn an inside-outside cat into inside only, and she
was miserable, so I gave up on that.

I had the opposite experience - I tried to turn an inside-only cat to an
inside/outside cat. This cat had a problem with the litterbox and simply
would not use it. She would pee and poop on the floor next to it. I did
try a few brands of litter, but she didn't like any of them. And as this
was
in the early 80s, there wasn't a lot of knowledge readily available as to
why a cat would avoid the litterbox. I did ask vets, though, and once I
asked a neighborhood cat lady (whose cats were always extremely healthy
looking, so I figured she was doing something right), but never got a good
answer.

So I thought maybe she could learn to go outside instead. I picked her
up one day and brought her down the stairs and outside, where she promptly
freaked. She started clawing my head and screeching. I managed to get us
both back up to the apartment, but it took a while to get her off my head.

Well, *that* didn't go so well, did it? Not one of my brighter ideas.

(BTW, years later, I realized that she probably felt intimidated by the
other cats in the house. And I knew nothing of having multiple
litterboxes.
I was also very poor at the time and probably wouldn't have been able to
afford all that kitty litter. So I never figured out why she wouldn't use
the box. It didn't make me very popular with roommates, either.)

Boyfie consistently refuses to use his litterbox although he did once, which
was when I kept him indoors for his snip, but it had to be earth, not cat
litter.
To make sure I could get him for his op, I kept him inside for 48 hours so
he absolutely had to use a box.
He didn't like it.
It was a good thing done, he'd already got lost wandering after girls. Now
he doesn't, he spends a lot of time in his bedroom, and goes out twice a day
to hunt small ratties.

He sometimes catches them and he is very delighted to bring them home.
Perfect life for a cat. IMO.

Tweed