Swiss Cat Ladders
mymodernmet.com
mymodernmet.com
This was after moving the cat to an upstairs apt, which had always been an outdoor cat in Vermont.
Took him like two months to figure it out, even after terrifying and pissing him off by stranding him in the middle of it.
He was a thankful and happy cat when he finally realized his freedom.
Ours was uglier than all of the shown above (a spiral staircase around a pvc pipe), but it was a fun project and very rewarding.
I find the country also really values animal welfare as a whole.
"We estimate that free-ranging domestic cats kill 1.3–4.0 billion birds and 6.3–22.3 billion mammals annually."
"may exceed all other sources of anthropogenic mortality of US birds and mammals"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cats_in_Australia
We have a cat that was rescued from a neglectful neighbour. We were shocked one night when it turned up at our back door with a live pet rabbit is had nabbed from a house a few doors away. Thankfully the cat mostly has since caught non-native mice and grasshoppers since (that we are aware of).
The best conservation efforts at restoring native animal populations in Australia have been achieved through cat and fox proof fencing followed by trapping, baiting and shooting programs:
Interesting. I once had a golden retriever bring us a baby rabbit from the woods. But he brought it to us in a nurturing way, as if to being it to us for help, not for dinner.
Just another way dogs and cats are different, I guess.
I don't think keeping cats in their indoor "native habitat" will undo millennia of Old World having outdoor cats. Feel free to look up Switzerland's protection of cats instead.
In the UK garden birds are on the incline which would be counter to the general public argument that (paraphrasing here) “pet cats are killing all the birds”.
The declining bird population as whole is put down to other factors such has changes to how we farm food, decreasing hedgerows, basically us humans ripping out the birds habitats and not our cats murdering them.
Where I live small rodents are a pest, there is a large number of them and we want to control their number. Cats will stick to their learnt hunting behaviour. If they learn to hunt rodents when they are young then that’s what they will focus on hunting in their adult life’s. So in my area my cat mainly hunts rodents (comparing the numbers of mice she brings home compared to the number of birds she has). So as a kitten (and though out it’s life) play with ground based hunting toys instead of airborne toys. Get them a bell on their collar, and change it up ever now and then.
Now... Am I going to say that this is the case in all countries? Nope. Let’s take Australia where the feral cat population is vastly growing which is causing harm to the native rodent population, but that’s been blamed on the feral population and are being culled and not the domestic cats living with humans.
[0]: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...
[1]: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/advice/gardening-...
There are incredibly high and well-known subsidies for animal farming industries here, in addition to a blind eye often turned toward the treatment of said animals. It's arguable that most Swiss people value animal welfare more than many in the US, but saying that the country "really values" it when they opt to pay large sums of money for unnecessary animal suffering, both on the governmental and often individual level, sounds rather absurd to me.
however i keep mine strictly indoors for peace of mind. to satiate that desire to climb and to combat ennui, i built simple cat shelves/stairs onto the wall of my spartment using hand-sawn boards and metal brackets screwed into the studs. there are 2 paths up and down and around the corner that gives them a way to relieve the zoomies when they strike. my older cat uses them to sun near the window, while the kitten both runs and sleeps on them (and other untold mischief).
In the Rest of the World you do have some cats kept indoors the whole time but it is not the normal thing to do. Only in America are they de-clawed, kept inside an apartment for their whole life and not given special 'cat' rights to do things like climbing really 'dangerous' cat ladders.
Cats very much have their own patch to patrol. Their home is there for them come feeding time. Despite being portrayed as antisocial they do interact with other cats in occupying this larger territory.
In a society where people let their cats patrol their territory it seems cruel keeping them indoors. In a street with lots of cats you would let yours out too. But if all the cats are locked away and not able to roam then you would lock your cat away too.
Interesting how Switzerland also has much more cat friendly traffic than what you get in America. Maybe this is why America has become this place where people lock up cats and daren't let them roam freely.
unless you have supportive research in human-feline relations, cat population epidemiology and comparative global felis catus sociology buttressing those anti-american presumptions, my cats will continue enjoying their happy indoor lives.
He's an adult (cat) and can make his own decisions.
I won't let my (small) fear of his death imeped his (great) desire to go outside.
Update: he lived a long-for-a-cat happy life and passed peacefully several years ago.
however your experience doesn't generalize, particularly your assessment of the risks and benefits.
i watched a neighbor's cat get hit by a car and then die in my hands. the mortality rate for cats in my neighborhood is probably north of 20% per year (huge). it would be irresponsible to expose my cats to such risk when they're quite content already. mortality would have to be less than 1% (small) for me to reconsider.
It's just they can't get down sometimes!
They (cats) unfortunately lack the reversible rear feet of squirrels, so down is rather precarious when all your claws face in the "release the hold" direction as you go down.
We had the pleasure of housing one temporarily for a couple months. It looked huge but 50% of its volume was wispy fur. Hidden within was a lean petite frame with muscular legs. It was a very different animal from our two other typical mutt house cats, but I can't recall if the claws were organized differently.
[1] http://cfa.org/breeds/breedskthrur/norwegianforestcat/nfcart...
You never find little piles of feline bones at the base of a tree. I doubt cats ever climb beyond where they can get down on their own.
Nothing worse than being woken up at 4AM by a cat jumping from the beams into the center of your bed, waking you up.