2024-02-27 08:05:06
Meeting the environmental needs of cats is an essential part of the requirements for providing them with appropriate care. The cats have variable needs and those needs are, in part, influenced by lifestyle. There are risks and benefits to cats that live exclusively indoors, exclusively outdoors, or spend some time in each environment. Understanding the risks and benefits of these different feline lifestyles provides veterinarians with the tools needed to advise clients on how to minimize health risks to their cat while meeting the lifestyle needs of each cat.
INDOOR-ONLY LIFESTYLE
Although an indoor lifestyle avoids the risks inherent in the outdoor environment, “significant effort must be made to meet all the cat’s environmental needs that lives exclusively indoors.” To ensure good well-being, the exclusively indoor cat “must have access to all essential resources, including food, water, comfortable and safe resting places, simulated hunting and foraging opportunities, play, safe territory with space vertical and adequate and clean hygienic points.”
In this sense, they comment that if the environmental needs of the cat that lives only indoors are not adequately met, the cat may develop anxiety and stress-related illnesses may arise or behavioral problems.
INDOOR/OUTDOOR LIFESTYLE
Safety is the main concern when leaving cats outdoors. Providing controlled access outdoors, such as an outdoor enclosure, using a secure cat fence, or walking the cat on a harness and leash, “allows for a more stimulating environment with the potential for more normal feline behaviors while still time, minimizes the risks of having contact with the outdoors”.
On the other hand, to improve the feline’s safety from predators, cats should be allowed access to the outdoors only during the day and keep them indoors or in an outdoor enclosure with indoor access at night. Young cats and male cats are more likely to engage in activities that increase the risk of injury and “should be monitored more closely.”
EXCLUSIVELY OUTDOOR LIFESTYLE
There are some cats whose wellness needs can never be met indoors. These are often cats that have previously only been outdoors, are experiencing tension with other companion animals in the home, and/or whose physical and/or emotional needs are not being met in the indoor environment.
““Forcing these cats to live in confinement raises considerable concerns for the well-being of the individual,” consider. Placing cat houses or managing colonies “can increase the safety of these animals while allowing them an exclusively outdoor lifestyle.”
Trap, neuter, vaccination and return programs “are increasingly available and have been shown to improve health, reduce fighting and the spread of disease among the cat population and humanely reduce the number of free-roaming cats and who lead a lifestyle exclusively outdoors,” they conclude.
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