Lock up your moggies!

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Kerry and I have cats, both of us have had dogs and cats for as long as we can remember. And we both remember several decades ago when we Aussies let them out to wander uncontrolled, and didn’t even desex them. And we both came to the same conclusion, that this was irresponsible. And now it looks like enough people feel that way, that we may have lock-in laws soon. (Audio, 15min listen.)

Lock-In Laws?

If you didn’t listen to the podcast audio, the story is that cats destroy an alarming number of animals every year, and have driven some species to extinction. There is a large population of feral (wild, escaped from homes) cats here and even more in homes and households. This has been in part down to the same kinds of attitudes that unleashed rabbits and foxes on the country.

Cats are great companion animals, they’re relatively low upkeep, but they are predators, hunters that practice all the time. In times past their function as mouse control was vital to us and kept them busy. Now, they don’t need their hunting prowess as long as we feed them. But they still have all those instincts, which was really the second-most-important reason we started making outdoor areas to contain ours. The local birds and small animals deserve to live unmolested. Any rodents that make their way into our gardens and house – they’re fair game….

The single most important reason for us was the other cats in the neighbourhood. When cats wander they mark territory as they go. You’ve probably heard from at least one annoyed car owner that the smell of cat wee was difficult to get out when a cat marked on the windscreen and some ran into the air ducts. And cats also fight and brawl with no thought for their safety. It’s annoying to the people being woken by the yowling, your cat will come home with injuries and cost you a veterinary fee, they will catch parasites and diseases from the other cats, and sometime they’ll run afoul of a car or truck.

Those are enough reasons for us to start making lock-in yards. Also, of course, people have kept cats in small apartments for their entire lives and those cats don’t have any worse quality of life than cats with yards or free-ranging cats. In fact, indoor and yard cats catch fewer worms and diseases, as most owners set up some exercise and play facilities for theirs. Ours now have only seen outside the yard for vet checkups.

Now (finally!) the Government and local governments have begun to make plans to preserve areas from the damage caused by feral cats and to require people to confine their cats either in the house if no suitable yard is available or within the yard if there is.

Expensive! What can we do?

Face facts: Once upon a time a dog or cat was a working animal, herding sheep, chasing away undesirables, controlling rodent and pest numbers. Nowadays, they mainly fulfil another role, that of companionship and their roles in guarding and pest control are very limited. This is not to say we should just not have pets – it’s to realise that they’re every bit as much of a responsibility as children.

As responsible pet owners, all our cats have been neutered at the recommended age for quite some time now. There was cat that gave me a “surprise” – a cat I’d just adopted and which hadn’t, as claimed, been spayed. .. After she had her kittens and they got to adoptable age, I sent them to our local pet place where I knew they’d get good homes.

I kept one kitten and the queen indoors, and when the kitten was old enough for the operation, took them both to the vet. The ex-queen stayed with my ex-partner, and Ghostie came with me on my adventures and finally here to Victoria, where he met Kerry and her big fluffball Merlot.

Since then we’ve scraped together literally thousands of dollars over the years and house moves to properly keep our cats controlled and managed. We both wouldn’t dream of not doing this. The house has two temporarily-installed cat doors that we can lock, so at night they’re effectively curfewed and can’t be sitting outside along the fence yowling at other cats.

Those cat doors get unlocked when either of us gets up after daybreak, and closed in a regular sequence at night so that they now know when to go make their last “doings” for the day, and there’s also a cat tray for anyone that gets caught short during the night.

We’ve also had days where rain and storm has made it undesirable to let them out in case fence palings get blown away or fences blown down – and they haven’t really cared. They use the tray if they must, come and sit with us and play, get plenty of exercise with their furniture and toys along the way, and hardly notice the restriction.

Before you make The Big Decision, here are a list of things I think everyone should know before getting a pet.

Teh Rulz Fer Fur Kids:

• If you feel that you won’t be able to manage, don’t get a pet. They do cost money. We have to carefully budget everything including:
  • check-ups,
  • vaccinations,
  • parasite control medications,
  • amusing toys to keep them exercised,
  • ample wet and dry food,
  • also perhaps buy raw meat for them (see next major point) –
  • (and freeze it then thaw it to kill parasites and their eggs before thawing and feeding it to them!)
  • we also buy scratching blocks for them and even found some smaller cat-sized “lounges” etc so they don’t ruin furniture.
• With regard to cat and dog food, you need to realise that even if the pets don’t go out and hunt their own food any more, it still has to come from somewhere, and that means that animals are still being killed for their food. Luckily in this instance the pet food share is what we’d consider trimmings and offal, but also there’s quite a lot of fresh meat and so forth dedicated to it.
  • Just a note on this: We buy kangaroo meat from an abattoir nearby, it constitutes about 60% – 70% of their diet. This is meat from kangaroos that are culled around farms, so would just have ended up being burned – or, as at this abattoir, processed and sold as pet meat. I buy in bulk, repack into small portions and thoroughly freeze to kill parasites and eggs/cysts. But this is definitely more sustainable than processed cat food.
    We still feed them dry kibble and some tinned wet food but this is only for the rarest of trace elements, as cats are evolved to eat a carnivorous diet. I also buy livers and hearts when available, process this and also freeze in smaller portions so that I can add it to their diets every few days.
• If you feel they’d test your patience, don’t get a pet.
  • There’s nothing worse than having a constant irritation around, and neither you nor the pet deserve that…
• Think about it – dog or cat? Big or small?
  • Most importantly – don’t support puppy/kitten farms. There are literally hundreds of thousands of animals destroyed every year because people got a pet, then they either found out they couldn’t handle it or their circumstances changed, and they then bring those to a Shelter. Choose a Shleter pet every time.
  • Cats can be kept solely indoors if they have a few things to sharpen claws on, climb, chase, etc. Some small dogs will also take to indoor pug life. (sorry – couldn’t resist!)
  • Larger dogs will definitely need outdoors fenced areas to contain them, plus activities.
• All pets will get sick at some stage, need regular checkups, and perhaps even a stay at a veterinary hospital. Responsible pet ownership means having the budget to have a sick cat, a sick baby, and needing new tyres for the car all at the same time…
• Dog and cat fences need to be much taller than you’d imagine – I’ve seen surprisingly small dogs clear fences you’d believe are five or six times their height, and larger dogs sail over a 1.6m fence. Cat fences are no good if they can climb rails or wire – or a tree nearby – and dogs also can find “ramps” you’d never believe are ramps…
  • Our fences are solid paling fences at 1.8m tall, and just below the top I’ve run a small “wing” of netting that leans inwards at forty-five degrees and is about 30cm wide, this discourage the cats because even if the cats use the horizontal rails to get partway up, and I’ve see similar wings completely stump dogs that would have cleared the fence if the wing wasn’t there.
  • Don’t forget the bottom! Dogs will dig under, cats will exploit any sliver of space. Being paling fences our have a plinth board at the bottom and it’s partially in the ground. But you have to be very careful unless you want your pet to be trapped and taken to the pound for being outside.

Wrapping up:

I think the world’s heading for a decreasing human population. Various chemicals that are now in the environment will make their mark because they’ve been shown to affect human fertility (and various other species too I believe) and that will leave a dip in the curve.

Also, people are increasingly living singly (whether with parents, share houses, own homes) and are happy just being single with relationship. Many couples don’t feel that they want to bring a child into the world for whatever reasons.

It’s been proven that having a companion, be that another person or a pet, improves the quality of life and mental and physical health of people. It’s going to become A Thing in the very near future.

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