Indoor Cats

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Sonya

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Tell me what you like, dislike about your indoor cat...

I've never had an indoor cat, but my outside cat of 8 yrs got hit last week and I am finding myself missing him terribly. Everytime I go to the garage I look for him. I want another one, but outside - I just don't know...it seems they always get hit by a car eventually. I live in a rural area, my house is 1/4 mile from the road which is only a one-way road, but cats roam so much, even fixed ones, it almost seems inevitable that they are going to meet their fate on a road, my cats brother got hit 6 yrs ago. Plus, since cats roam so much, I know they go places where they are not wanted...neighbors, etc...and many people are against their hunting habits.

So tell me....do they get up on your counters, table??? I'm not sure I can handle that. I'm sure they get on your furniture and beds, I think I can live with that. Plus I have 2 inside dogs...dogs love cat poop...how do you keep your dogs from getting into it?

What are the pros and cons...this is a big decison for me. Hubby said he does not want an indoor cat (suddenly he's allergic, never heard that before in the past 13yrs)...this will certainly be a decision we make together though.

Also - we go away alot - we have a camp that we go to on our weekends in the summer. Do we leave the cat at home or take him with us? Our camp is a 5th wheel trailer in a campground. I do have a petsitter who takes care of my goats/horses/chickens while we're gone so it would be nothing for her to dump his/her litter box and make sure he/she has food.

Just tell me what you like/dislike about inside cat and what you think about our situation going away...note - our dogs go with us.

edited to add - the cat could go to camp with us too, that would not be a problem, our trailer has air...we spend majorities of our days there on the boat with the dogs along, I know the cat can't go on the boat...I don't think it would be happy there.
 
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I have always had indoor cats- I would never have an outdoor cat. My cats have lived to be 21, 18, 16 and 20 and now I have two 8 year olds. I have had a cat sleeping with me every night for the last 25 years so I couldn't imagine not having an indoor cat. My one cat is sitting in my lap right now.

Cats can be trained just like dogs. I would never allow my cats up on the counters or tables. They know better.

I probably wouldn't take my cat on camping trips with me so if you have a housesitter that could feed and clean up after her that might be best..

I have a great situation for my cat's litter box. We have a small cat door that goes out to a 4' x 5' box (in the garage) and it has a little light in it and a hinged door so I can open it and take out the litter box to clean it. I had to do something to keep the dogs out of the poop.
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I want an indoor cat but the house I'm in isn't mine so I don't think I can do it right now. As far as getting up on the counters/tables, my family always strongly discouraged it from the time our cats were small and never really had a problem with it. For keeping your dogs out of the cat box and away from those "tootsie rolls", we have used a gate (like the kind you get for little kids) or you can try turning the box a certain way toward the wall/corner so the dogs can't get to it. I think it would really depend on the cat if it was comfortable traveling about or not. Some cats hate traveling and others are fine. In fact, this last summer I was staying at a KOA and there was a couple there that had their cat out on a leash. I love the fact that indoor cats are safe from cars and predators.
 
I am highly allergic to cats but mother raised siamese. They never were on the floor. They would jump from the back of the couch onto the top of the refridgerator and on the table, then on the counter and on the piano and end tables and oh gee.......you couldn't even eat dinner without having to swat them off the table. They broke a bunch of stuff too chaseing eachother around. Finally she would put them in the Florida room when they got nutty or we would be eating dinner.

Then Michael had a kitten, Joey, for ten years in the house. Oh man I suffered. He wasn't so bad with jumping all over the place but the cat hair was horrible. I had to keep all the furniture covered with sheets because of the cat hair. You'd sit down and get up with a butt full of hair.

After Joey passed away I said no more cats in the house.

So we accumulated barn kitties.

They do love the new barn and live in the loft now. Very happy happy there.
 
After we lost our first (married together) cat to the road, we decided they had to be indoor only. I do have two outdoor barn cats but they came feral with the property and have been trapped/spayed/neutered/vaccinated. The male is friendly, the female is still working on it but will let me touch her briefly now.

We have 10 indoor kitties. One was a feral outdoor that still wants to go out...I am waiting for her to come back in right now. It won't be long, it is cold outside!

All of our cats are rescues and spayed/neutered/vaccinated. Kenny (husband) has brought most of them home, not me. He is a big softy. We have one home-made litter box, sized 2'x4' with a hinged lid, cat door flap and lined with 1/4" plastic and caulked at all seams. Water-tight but we use clumping litter and clean daily. The exterior looks like a blanket chest.

We use a water spray bottle to discourage unwanted behavior like counter/table jumping. All it takes is a few squirts and they learn quickly to stay down. If you do this right away and when they are young, it will stick with them all their lives. Also, if you have one cat...cat hair won't be any more of a problem than the dog hair you already have from two dogs. I'd also like to suggest that two cats are better than one. Very entertaining to watch siblings. We had three from the same litter (lost a brother this summer) and all 3 did everything together, play, wrestle, sleep, eat and seemed genuinely "closer" to each other than to any of the other cats, and "closer" than any of the other cats who have formed friendship bonds.

Don't take the cat camping. They prefer to remain in their homes while dogs think home is wherever you are.

Heidi

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HOLY COW!!! Look at all them kitties!
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I am very afraid of what Marty is saying, but trying to keep an open mind...how about spraying.....will fixed male cats still spray? If so, another barn/outside kiity is sounding better every minute...
 
The answer is simple- you have THREE outdoor kitties- I have just upped mine to two and will up it again in the summer to three. Then, if you lose one, you replace it but, I have to say, it is not the end of the world that losing your only cat is. I had an indoor cat, supposed to be homing her. Had her for three years finally a family that came for a kitten said they would love her. She only lasted three weeks- suddenly took a turn and the Vet said she had a tumour in her mouth and euthanised her. I felt awful, if I had kept her she would still be alive I have nursed a cat through that for two good years (no pain with this kind of cancer) I feel like I sent her away to die. No more house kitties for me. Plus I am SO allergic I had to cuddle her with a towel over my face (some would say an improvement
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) and even then I came out in a rash. I can cuddle the barn kitties, even though they squirm, as they do not moult as much.
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YES YES YES you need an indoor kitty!!!! Spray bottle of water for the counter jumping, kitty scratching post for the claws, and a covered litter box for the "tootsie rolls"! Oh and a lint bursh for the hair!

I think truthfully, that hubby will come around if you find the right cat. I think you guys should go look at a shelter. They are fixed already and all updated on shots. You may even be able to find a kitty thats declawed( not that I don't think it's cruel) but that would help with furniture and things like that.

Yes you will have cat hair on your black clothes but probably get that with your dogs
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. They are very self sufficant(sp). You can leave them for a few days with enough food and water and they will be fine. My parents do it when they go camping. I go and check on them just to make sure their fine but usually I don't see them or can't find them.
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Good luck!!!

Leya
 
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Indoor cats are the best. We have a 15 year oldnow most likly my last cat. We finally broke down and got a electric litter box The bassett found a way in it always until we got one that scoops itself. the cat we have was a bookstore cat for years until the store was forced out of business by Barnes and Nobles opened a mile away. What they did was give him a can of food and two bowls of dry and a big bowl of water and he was happy and fed for three days and still had food and water left come Tues. morning so leaving for a weekend is not a problem. Get a kitten and enjoy a worry free cat ownership for once.
 
My indoor cat just past away but I will tell you my pro's and con's. Pro's not many for me but my cat always seemed to sleep at the foot of the bed which was nice in the winter. Con's cleaning the cat box...getting cat litter everywhere...including the bathroom counter where we put his food so the dogs couldn't get to it and including the bed YUCK. I can tell you that we will not be getting another indoor cat. I doubt we will get another cat period. I am a dog person myself.
 
I adore my indoor cats and have had them for 20 years. Two little old timers who up until recently have been good boys and not done bad things. I think they both are getting dementia because they poop in their food bowls and both need to take some pretty strong meds now.

I will not have indoor cats again in my life but they both have been very special to me> No doubt wouldn't have gotten to be this great age being living outdoors so if you want them in your life for a good many years I think it's the best way to go.
 
[SIZE=14pt]I need to know how to keep the dogs from getting into the cat box for crunchies..... Even the covered litter box somehow the needle nose doxie I have finds the opening no matter how I hide it![/SIZE]

Lyn
 
lyn_j said:
[SIZE=14pt]I need to know how to keep the dogs from getting into the cat box for crunchies..... Even the covered litter box somehow the needle nose doxie I have finds the opening no matter how I hide it![/SIZE]Lyn

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[SIZE=14pt]Lyn,[/SIZE]

for us, the solution is a short baby gate in the doorway to the bathroom door where the kitty litter pan is. Those crunchy snacks, urgh! I have honestly almost thrown up when our dogs have grabbed a treat but the baby gate keeps them out of "they cat's bathroom". The cats have no problem or issues with jumping over the gate to get to their litter.

Jill
 
I wonder how well this would work Lyn? If you could get the cat to accept using it, I bet it might help keep puppy noses out! In fact, I might give it a try just because I hate litter tracking all over when she digs in there.

Top opening litter box

And you could make it yourself out of a rubbermade bin.

There are also special made boxes like these ones, with a cat flap on them. I wonder if they might keep dogs out?

Hidy tidy

Count me in as a nother that will not have an outdoor cat. Its an indoor cat or none for me. I lost cats when I was a kid because my step-mother insisted on letting them go out, and I will not do that to myself. Added to that is the fact that I would never consider letting my dog run loose and potty on other people lawns and in other peoples GARDENS *eeewwwww* but a fav place for a lot of cats is the garden for some reason. If I wouldn't let my dog do it, why would I let a cat? I know I hate digging the flower bed and fiding kitty crunchies in there! Or when the neighbors cat tears open our garbage. Ick. I like knowing my kitty is safe and sound indoors, and it would NOT matter one whit to me if I had one cat or ten, loosing one would be too hard on me to allow it to happen by a car, or a coyote, or a nasty neighbors poison. (yes, that happened to 2 of my cats one time too!)

If you want an indoor cat but don't want to deal with the rambuncious kitten stage go to the shelter and get a young cat that is not a kitten. It will still bond with you but will not be nearly as active as a kitten under ayear old. I have a short hair cat and the only time I get covered with hair is if I am trying to restrain her, then she seems to let the hair fly! The vet says its a stress reaction and that all cats do it lol. Use a spray bottle to keep the cat off of/out of anything you don't want him/her into. My cat won't use a scratching post, so we got her a mat to scratch on and she has made the compromise for us on that. She just didn't like the post, would rather scratch on the "floor". She doesn't scratch the furnature or other carpeted surfaces at all now.
 
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I have five (oops) barn cats all fixed. I live pretty close to the road but knock on wood haven't lost a one in the 5 years I've lived here. They pretty much stay out by the barn 400' from the road and I NEVER feed them anywhere but at the barn.

I wouldn't have an indoor cat, I brought Purr in when she had the kittens it was late fall so they stayed in the basement all winter. I am NOT into cleaning a litter box!

If your looking for a FAT, FIXED, immunized, wormed, barn cat I could always bring you one on Saturday. I have a calico and 2 yellow and white ones, that are overly tame, one even rides Tweety. (I think she would like that one to find a new home.)
 
We have two indoor cats and were just adopted by an outdoor cat. He just trotted on over one day and hasn't left.

The only problem I have with the indoor cats is they have discovered that the beams that are attached to the basement stairs(unfinished basement) are for scratching. We have decided to let them do that so that they won't do it anywhere else which they do not until we get the basement finished. We are going to install an area with a cat house and a couple of the same beams so that they can scratch away. Their litter box has a cover so there really isn't any litter anywhere except when they track it out. Not bad at all. They are not allowed on any counters, tables,etc. They really don't show interest in it anyway. I do have one that lays at the end of our bed which I like.
 
I would never want to be without house cats. To keep dogs out of litter boxes you can put them up on top of a crate or use baby gates. Do they get on counters? Yes. They are very clean animals and I would rather have cats in the house than dogs. I do have a house dog and wouldn't be without him, but having cats is SO much easier!

-Amy
 
We have one indoor cat, Larry, who thinks he's a dog.
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In the past I have had a couple of outdoor cats since we've been on this farm for 16 yrs. now. The first one died of old age...actually she was indoor/outdoor and she was street smart. I don't know how she did it, but I never saw her cross the street. And if she did she was mighty lucky!
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She was a beautiful black and white Maine Coon. The second outdoor kitty we thought would be just as smart...well we were wrong and hubby found him one morning in front of our house on the road......someone did'nt see him or was unable to stop as he crossed the street. I decided then and there no more cats. Untill Larry got here.............so he had to be strickly indoor because we were not gonna let him be a statistic. Soooo...that being said.....I don't think I would want another indoor cat...once Larry goes if we get anymore cats, they will be outdoor barn cats, and it will be in another venue.

Larry is a character and we love him to death...he's actually hubby's cat. But I don't relish doing litter boxes. Honestly I don't know what it is but I can stomach the smell of puppy-poo better than I can kitty-poo!
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Edited: Oh yea the litter box locations thing....We have a basement which goes off into a small room. Altho the dogs never go downstairs, it makes it alot easier to keep Larry's litter box down there. This way everybody's happy!

~Lary and Lakota~

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I am all for indoor kitties. However I have two siamese type meows and they are terrors.....I don't really care if they are on the counters or table or what have you it is utterly exasperating to constantly be shushing them off. I just wash the counters. Now I do draw the line at sitting on the table while we are eating
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The cats I have had when fixed didn't spray...I am a firm believer in multiple cat boxes cuts down on the innapropriate urination.......and the cat boxes are my least favorite part of indoor meows........but I just keep them clean and it isn't too bad.

I love kitties and they definately live a whole lot longer when kept indoors.

If you are unsure about the idea I will reccomend a couple breeds that are a little less imposing
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the maine coons typically are quite mellow....persians also tend to be less ambitious HOWEVER they can be very very stuck up and a bit spiteful
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most of your oriental types..siamese, burmese, orientals, etc...are very active talkative and demanding...........

I have heard that ragdolls are wonerfully sweet......

and then there are your good old fashioned mutt kitties
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