Our daughter is staying with us for a couple of weeks since her lease was up prior to the day she’s moving out of state. This is her cat, Pearl. Pearl was adopted from a shelter as a kitten about a year ago. She’s pictured with her new toy, called a “SmartyKat.” That’s false advertising: she’s no smarter after playing with it than before.
Pearl is my first extended encounter with a 100% house cat, one that has never willingly set foot outside. (She’d have been run over in moments on the busy streets in front of my daughter’s old apartment.) She’s pretty placid, though when my daughter put her in a crate to come over, it sounds like she behaved like Steve lite, pissing all over and generally making a racket. Most days, she vacillates between running away when I clomp down the stairs, and playfully stalking me and batting at my legs. She gets lots of treats and playtime and generally has a good life as far as I can tell.
As a kid, we had indoor/outdoor cats. They were killing and fighting machines at night, and purring, friendly pets during the day. I don’t know the range of a typical house cat, but I imagine they knew a world that was at least a square mile. Pearl’s entire world was 800 square feet or so at my kid’s place, and now it’s a couple of thousand in our house. She seems to have adjusted to a complete change in her world without too much fuss. That’s pretty remarkable.
Anyway, since we have a temporary pet, I thought I’d introduce her to this pet loving community. Also, if you have recommendations for traveling with a cat on an airplane, please share them, since Pearl will be leaving on a jet plane in a few weeks.
Baud
Good looking cat.
raven
Speaking of temporary, we just brought Artemis home. She’s very skittish, very submissive and very sweet. I think her specialness was reflected when the vet tech cried when we took her. It’s a miracle that she’s alive and it may be a miracle if we can let her go.
Baud
@raven:
Glad she’s home.
Oklahomo
I’ve seen everything from 10 acres to 20 blocks to 6 square kilometers. Depends on how hungry the cat is, and of course if it’s a tom he can have a huge range. We have a feral tom we call Shaggy who used to drop by once a month until the last female was trapped and neutered. He still drops by now and then, but we’ve seen him in pastures miles from our place.
Ken
mistermix: “the temporary house guest”
90% of Balloon Juice readers: (knowing chuckle, and anticipation of cat pictures for the foreseeable future)
raven
The only cat my first wife and I ever had, itty bitty kitty, needed to go to the vet for shots. My ex wanted to crate her but I said it would be fine. When she came out carrying the cat it bolted from her arms and we never saw it again. There’s a lesson in there.
dr. bloor
@Ken:
She’s going to put the “free eats and skritches” mark on ‘Mix’s door for hobo kittehs in the area.
sab
Looks exactly like my dad’s cat when we stole him from the neighbors one freezing December night. Thirteen years later he’s still doing great, although he went blind in both eyes. He’s always been a placid boy, but he can hold his own against other aggressive cats, because he is big and loud and they don’t know he is blind,
feebog
We are in coyote country and cats rapidly become the prey rather than the hunter. Have not had a cat in years, strictly a dog family.
realbtl
@raven: You’re gone already. : )
zhena gogolia
Reminds me a bit of my dear departed Masha. Very sweet looking cat.
Major Major Major Major
Awwww, love her!
sab
@raven: Scritch only her head, until she lets you move further back. Stay clear of her feet and tummy. she ain’t a dog. Our boy cats like to have the back scritched where the tail attaches, but the girls take offense.
schrodingers_cat
@raven: Photos please.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: My girl kitty loves that. She will arch her back asking for more. She is quite a hussy.
randy khan
What a cutie.
It’s definitely true that cats who’ve lived outside or spent a lot of time outside are different than cats who’ve been indoors their whole lives. That said, they all want to go outside.
zhena gogolia
@randy khan:
My last three didn’t. Never showed the slightest interest, even though they had spent their first two months out there. Maybe because they had.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I never thought of that. Anybody know?
Eunicecycle
@randy khan: I looked up the other day at our back porch door to see our always-indoor cat looking in at me! Before I could get over my shock and get up to let her in, she showed me how she got out. She jumped back in an open window that the screen had been knocked out. She zoomed back in the house and disappeared for several hours. I think she was traumatized by her little adventure!
Gvg
Airlines used to have rules like 2 pets per plane in the cabin, so you needed to be early. Maybe it reserved now, there are special crates that fit under airline seats, very small, with doors on top. Use vet prescribed tranquilizers. Have copies of all bet records and microchip. You can also ship in the hold. I had to pick up a shipped to me cat, and there was a cargo area, separate building at the airport, which was not air conditioned. This was Orlando, in the summer 30 years ago, so get there fast and get your pet. Don’t arrive in off hours, the inspectors or staff who process animals weren’t 24 hours, more like 10. Different airlines had totally different rules so check.
if some official want to inspect the crate and remove the cat, insist on going into a shut door room so the cat can’t escape and run around a huge airport and get lost. They get scared.
randy khan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I just looked for that, because I was curious. It looks like typical ranges for “free ranging” cats in suburban and urban environments are on the order of a circle with an 1,100 foot diameter (call it 2/10 of a mile). In rural areas, the range is much bigger, call it a 4,000 foot diameter circle.
piratedan
aye, here in AZ we have inside only cats… they want to look outside, we have windows, doors with metal mesh screens that they can smell the outside and be safely inside. We have coyotes all around us and I’m not gonna say that feral cats aren’t out there but any house cat bolting likely has an extremely short lifespan if it makes for the desert.
I love my furry family way too much to let them out…
randy khan
@Eunicecycle:
That’s funny, but also typical.
I’ve had cats get out and then, when I’ve found them, look at me contemptuously as if to ask why I let them do that. (And, more than once, gone looking for an escapee, only to come back to the front door and have the cat whining to get back in).
raven
@sab: She is a dog.
w3ski
Some Airlines are not pet friendly. Research who you use to carry your pet. Check for ratings on pet service, pay attention to low ratings. It could even mean your cat’s life.
My Sister went thru much trouble getting her pet to Hawaii when she moved there.
w3ski
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@Gvg: Thanks, good advice. My daughter is taking her to a cats-only vet clinic prior to flying to get whatever they recommend to calm her down.
germy
germy
deianaera
Not sure where travelling from / to, but check the airline policies about shipping cats in the hold vs in the cabin. During the summer months, some airports will require you to have the cat in the because of the heat. Also, they make melatonin for cats. OTC kitty dope is your friend.
sab
@randy khan: Four of our six cats were outside cats, semiferals. You couldn’t pay them enough sardines to go outside. again. They know it’s a jungle out there.
germy
@deianaera:
The sedative my vet prescribed for our kitty is called gabba something. She unfortunately needs one before every vet visit. (The cat, not the vet.)
Grover Gardner
Our little Spike, who looks just like your guest but about half his size, used to accompany us on night-time walks around the neighborhood, darting in and out of the shadows. Then one night he got his butt kicked a bit by another cat en route. Now he follows us to the end of our block and waits for us to come back around. ;-)
MazeDancer
If you haven’t done so, get the underseat kitty carrier. Open it up, put a towel inside, turn it into a bed. Let kitty learn to love. Smell matters to cats.
Use this same towel on travel day.
It is just like going to the vet, they love carrier once they are somewhere strange. Do not be concerned how small it is, cats love tight spaces,
If you’re rich, buy your daughter a first class or business class ticket. If not, don’t worry about it.
If TSA wants to open the carrier, insist on going to a small room. Otherwise, kitty runs wild in airport.
Take a folded box to “line” the underseat space, so lots of moving feet won’t bother kitty.
It will be fine. I have done it. Twice. Cats lived to tell the tale.
StringOnAStick
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: It will likely be gabapentin drops, which taste awful, so wrap the kitty in a towel before you try to administer them. We used them to move our two cats on a two day drive. The vet told us the effect was somewhat cumulative, and by day 2 they were certainly more sedated but not so much that the more vocal one wouldn’t do some desperate “I’m scared!” meowing about once an hour. Your vet might recommend a higher dose for a plane ride.
Ours haven’t been outside since age two weeks when they were rescued as orphans. They love to look outside but have never tried to go outside. We have lots of birds and one kitty would be a stone cold bird killer to extreme. When I was in my twenties I received a cat about a year old who had never been outside. He was hit by a car twice and didn’t survive the last one. My point is that if they’ve been raised as indoor only, they will never learn the skills to survive outside, so avoid the temptation of you want him to live very long. The average age of an outdoor cat at death is 4 years, and lots of those were cats that were always outdoors.
Steeplejack (phone)
@randy khan:
That suburban range (diameter 1,100 feet) is about 22 acres. The rural range (diameter 4,000 feet) is about 288 acres.
Fun with calculators.
raven
@germy: Gabbapetin, Bohdi was on it in his final days.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I think our girls had bad spaying. The vet mis-sexed them, so we took them to the cheapo clinic because money was tight. Instead of neutering they got hysterectomies under less than ideal conditions. I think some nerve damage was done. Had we known they were girls we would have had them at the pet hospital. That was major surgery,
Dorothy A. Winsor
You shock me
raven
Here’s Artemis, chances are she’s never been in a home before. She’s warming up, even to me, pretty quickly but she’s pretty sensitive to quick movements and noise.
Major Major Major Major
You’ll want to make sure you follow the regulations for the airline and the state you’re landing in re: having a clean bill of health. Samwise needed a vet certificate dated no earlier than a month before his flight, iirc.
That vet said that people don’t prescribe tranqs so much any more. Samwise did fine.
Auntie Anne
@randy khan: My former ferals loved looking out windows, but go outside? No thank you! They ran from open doors – I just figured they knew where the good life was, and it was inside, with the proper staff to see to their every need.
sab
@Steeplejack (phone): I was at the bank yesterday replacing my lost debit card. Banker and I were discussing comparative keypads. Why is the one I change my password in upside down from the ATM machine. Also too the zeroes were weird.
I felt like such a nerd to be finding the conversation interesting.
Van Buren
@raven: we once were traveling with a usually placid cat. She made so much noise in the crate my kids couldn’t take it and let her out, which is how I had a cat digging its claws into my scalp driving down I-95.
sab
@raven: I thought it was the tabby mackeral.
ETA: Pearl is the cat. Artemis is the dog. Now I get it.
Now I get it. Different jackals, different households. Sorry.
Old School
@raven: Awww. What a good girl.
germy
@Van Buren:
It’s all good fun until the cat decides to get comfortable under the brake pedal.
(I speak from experience)
Raven
@Old School: I put the crate in our bedroom an now napping time!
WaterGirl
@StringOnAStick: My little Henry broke his ankle bone fighting the gabapentin I had to administer by mouth after his ACL surgery.
HATE is not a strong enough word.
Martin
CNN bringing the headline
CaseyL
Pearl is lovely. I hope she enjoys her stay with Granma and Granpa.
@raven: You’re doing a good deed, fostering Artemis. She looks like she could be/wants to be a Very Good Girl. It won’t be a complete surprise if you decide to keep her ;)
sab
@Raven: She looks so much like our new pitbull. What a sweetie.
ETA: We absolutely love this dog.
ETA: Our vet ( not the guy who mis-sexed the cat) is a cat guy but he loves pits, and especially pit mixes.
Skepticat
All my cats have been strays who chose me (obviously knowing a soft touch when they saw one), and my latest three were born feral. They all immediately became indoor-only cats, and all adapted well. The current trio seldom go outside even when the door’s open—been there, done that, this luxury is better. A friend in California is heartsick and utterly bereft because one of his outside cats disappeared last week, and I explained to my three that this is why they’re always inside and still alive.
They travel internationally with me (but via general rather than commercial aviation) and thus are chipped, because there’s always the chance of problems between the cup and the lip. They hate being put in their carriers (I have the scars to prove it) but usually are fine, albeit sometimes vocal, once there.
Gvg has great input on airline travel, but I hope this beauty doesn’t go in the cargo hold. Good luck.
debbie
A pearl beyond compare! ?
zhena gogolia
@raven:
Darling!
germy
@WaterGirl:
The gabapentin my vet sold us is in capsule form. A pill too big to be swallowed by any cat other than a lion.
So we have to twist it open and mix the powder with water, and then squirt it into her mouth. It’s always a horrible experience for everyone.
Every other cat I ever had would sit quietly for a vet exam, but not this one. She yells and poops during the car ride, and then resists the vet.
Another Scott
@randy khan: There’s a huge cat that seems to be a Maine Coon mix or something down the street. Very fluffy, looks to be at least 20 pounds. I only see it lounging in the gutter near its owner’s driveway in the evenings. Our dog Ellie wants to go up and chase it or play with it, but she’s also wary, so we make a wide berth. The cat hardly moves and only occasionally glances at us.
We’ve got lots of skinny, very hungry foxes in the neighborhood, but so far they apparently haven’t messed with it. Kinda surprising to me… I was worried when I hadn’t seen it for a week or so, but there it was back in its old spot a couple of days ago.
Cheers,
Scott.
sab
@Skepticat: Two neighborhood cats turned up dead on a neighbors driveway, and we don’t know if one if them was not-Dobby (Dobby’s best friend from his feral days with similar markings.) I saw them in the driveway and thought they looked dead but assumed they were just sleeping in a dangerous location. But we haven’t seen not-Dobby since. We don’t even know if it was murder/ slaughter or if they were hit by cars. Somebody posted it on Facebook, but I don’t do Facebook and step-daughter is a drama-lama who exagerates. I am sure not-Dobby is gone. Sweet guy. Sad.
Outdoor cats 2-5 year life expectancy. Indoor cats 12-20 years.
arrieve
@raven: What a beautiful girl! I am sending her virtual hugs.
WaterGirl
@germy: Henry weighs 11 lbs and the vet said he was to small to get gabapentin in pill form, because it would be too high a dose. so it had to be liquid.
satby
Cats belong inside. Too many dangers to them, and they’re too dangerous to songbirds.
Joy in FL
@raven: She’s wonderful. I’m so glad you have Artemis for now, and she will be safe no matter what.
That’s a beautiful photo.
satby
@raven: She’s a beauty, the princess is too!
Joy in FL
Pearl is so pretty.
Thank you for introducing her to us.
schrodingers_cat
She is totally judging you. Pretty kitty.
geg6
Pearl looks an awful lot like my Cleo. Cleo is a 100% house cat as we live on a busy road and she would be killed in seconds. Plus, the Humane Society is right across the street and we don’t want her getting picked up as a stray (which she was when we found her). In fact, she was only about a week or 2 weeks old when we found her in our garage, abandoned by her mother. We made an emergency trip to the local PetSmart where we found out that you can buy cat milk in a carton, just like cow’s milk. We fed her by syringe at first but she quickly learned to lap it up from a bowl. And now she eats luxuriously whenever and whatever she wants.
Anyway, it looks like Pearl has a brown spot on her side. Cleo has one on her back. I love that one anomalous brown spot.
randy khan
@Steeplejack (phone):
And 640 acres to a square mile*, so the suburban range is about .035 square miles and the rural range is about 45/100 of a square mile. In a neighborhood like mine, where the lots average around 3/10 of an acre, the suburban range would cover almost 75 houses.
*Random fact I learned in elementary school; related, a quarter section, the standard amount of land given to homesteaders, is 160 acres, or 1/4 of a square mile.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Have you ever done a Furry Friends posts about your cats or your entire furry family?
Another Scott
Meanwhile, in Ohio… Robyn Penaccia at Wonkette – Pay employees more, make more money:
Quoting a WSJ story:
Unpossible. Everyone knows that the path to true wealth and prosperity is hoarding money. That’s why Burundi is the world’s leading economy.
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@raven:
Oh, that is good when the tech cries when the foster family takes the doggo away. It means the doggo is special.
I hope she’s a foster fail. ;-)
A Ghost to Most
The cat we adopted after Tunch died freaked out the first time she walked in grass. Now it’s her favorite surface. I’m glad she got to experience it. Her life must have been shit before we got her.
randy khan
@Another Scott:
I think a fox would steer clear of a 20-pound Maine Coon. Most predators try for things that can’t put up a fair fight, and most foxes are a fair bit smaller than 20 pounds.
raven
@sab: We are getting mixed messages on whether or not she is a bit. I really really am subject to all the negatives but this baby seems so sweet.
geg6
@raven:
Oh, she’s adorable! Mrs. Raven looks like she’s in love.
geg6
@WaterGirl:
I thought I did, but I may have just discussed it with someone. Happy to do it again though. Hell, we wouldn’t have either of our doggos without Balloon Juice, Anne Laurie and John Cole.
MazeDancer
@raven: What a sweet and beautiful doggie!
geg6
@raven:
My niece will have no other dogs than pitties. Hers are cuddle bunnies and just so loving and sweet with her babies.
Benw
Cute!
Falling Diphthong
When moving my mom’s cats cross country by plane, we got tranquilizers from the vet. Might be a good idea if the one thing Pearl loathes is being in a crate.
It’s not like you can have a logical discussion with the cat about what to expect, so having it be a vaguely unpleasant foggy day after the human made me swallow that damn pill might be better than awake and trying to escape for hours on end.
Another Scott
IamHappyToast speaks for all of us.
Thread.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@raven: Aww. I can already tell she’ll be difficult to part with.
Roger Moore
@randy khan:
I don’t think they all do want to go outside. My cat was found on the street, and he does not want to go back. He is perfectly happy to stay inside.
Elizabelle
@raven: I think she looks like Artemis Raven to me.
Beautiful girl.
Roger Moore
@sab:
The ones on the ATM are telephone-style, and the ones on computers are calculator-style. Calculators are descended from mechanical tabulators, which chose their layout because it made sense mechanically to put the low numbers at the bottom and the high numbers at the top. Phones put the low numbers at the top because those are easier to hit, and phone numbers had been deliberately set up to maximize the number of low numbers back in the days of pulse dialing. This is why New York’s area code is 212, LA’s is 213, and Chicago’s is 312; they were the biggest cities, so they got the fastest to dial area codes.
Elizabelle
Pearl is a beautiful cat. Soon to be a jet setter.
Albatrossity
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Google knows. Home range of cats
Albatrossity
@randy khan:
No. They don’t. I had a cat I rescued from a ditch; he was about 8 months old when I got him. After a year inside; he had no use for the outside ever again. He knew a good life when he saw it.
Kay
This is good. Debtors need time to plan.
geg6
@Albatrossity:
Gotta agree. Our Cleo loves to sit in her cat tree and watch the birds and squirrels (my John built a bird feeder on the little deck off our bonus room where the cat tree is for just this reason). But she has no interest in going outside and actively backs away when the door is open.
Betty
@MazeDancer: I was once at the airport when TSA insisted on taking a cat out of it’s crate. It was a bloodbath, terrible screaming. Just awful.
Skepticat
@sab:
Heartbreaking.
MagdaInBlack
@raven: I think she has won the doggo lottery, having you 2 foster her.
rikyrah
Cute cat??
rikyrah
@raven:
You are good people.?
sab
@Skepticat: I was sick when I found out those sleeping cats weren’t.
raven
Update, my tenant who raises pits, said she’s probably going to weigh 60-65lbs when she gets proper nutrition and exercise. We looked at a pup last week that was over 50 and agreed that we have to get something smaller.
sab
@Albatrossity: My semi-feral moved in at about 11 months, maybe younger. Ran away from open doors. At about age 10 he accidentally ran out the back door, realized he was outside, crawled under the back steps, and had to be hauled out from under those steps because he didn’t want to be in the open.
He still loves the open windows, but he runs every time I open the back door. That was three years ago.
He was out in a sleet storm in November on the day he moved inside with us. His first winter was approaching.
karen marie
@raven: I had that almost happen with my first cat as “an adult.” I had a harness and leash on her and was carrying her, but as we turned onto Charles Street at the foot of Beacon Hill a rickety box truck sped past, freaked her out, and — boom — she backed out of that harness so fast it made my head spin. Fortunately, I stuck my hand out and grabbed as she leapt away, and I managed to grab her tail and hang on. Poor cat! Poor me!
I don’t know if that experience is why she subsequently hated going to the vet but she was forever after labeled as “fractious” by every vet who had the misfortune to see her.
You people and your god damned cats have me back looking at cats again. My 11-year-old spaniel and I have been cat-less for something over two years. I swore I wasn’t going to get another — because I really hate the smell of cat pee, and the dog and I are now living in a small, 700-sqft apartment. All of you all are going to be to blame.
On that note, any recommendations for cat litter? I used clay for my previous cats because of concern for the dog’s intestines given there’s inevitably a certain amount of poop eating that goes on. I cleaned the pan every time the cat the cat used it but adult cat pee stinks.
MazeDancer
Many cats get more freaked out being drugged, and not being able to move, than being with Mom, in a familiar carrier.
Airlines, in general, will not fly pets in the cargo hold during Summer. Too many pets have died that way, too hot, so they made a rule.
karen marie
@Gvg: I will never put a cat in an airplane hold again after what they did to my Alice. I flew from Seattle to Boston with a plane change in, I think, Detroit. As I was sitting on the second plane, I saw them roll one of those big luggage cart things out with my cat in her crate precariously teetering on the top. Yup, it hit a small bump and the crate fell off, landing upside down on the tarmac. I screamed. The pilot and a flight attendant went down to check on her, then brought her up into the cabin for the flight continuation. Fortunately, it wasn’t a full flight so there was room for her crate on the seat next to me. I had made the mistake of obeying the rule that the cat had to be able to stand up in the crate in order to fly in the cabin. She couldn’t stand up in a crate that small, so I sent her luggage. Never again.
J R in WV
Our big cat, Punkin (so named because she ate herself into a sphere!) was rescued by Wife from inside a multi-flora rose bush and inside a culvert between our place and the neighbors. She was tiny, not much bigger than a chipmunk, and the vet told us she was pushing 6 months old and needed to be spayed asap. She is nearly 20 pounds now when fed as much as she wants. More like 15 on a controlled diet. Punkin is a black tortie, very camo with various shades of black and tiny spots of tan. Very stealthy.
She goes outside at 4 am, and after a few minutes sleeps on a big dog bed on the back porch, outside our bedroom. Not every night, and not if the weather sucks. Spike is about the same age, goes out a little, is very stealthy. Grey tortie, they’re both about 14 y o now. They spit at each other, wrestle, no blood shed any more, tho.
ellenr
I had to bring a stray cat my sister was taking care of from Philadelphia to the UP. He’d been to the vet, so we were able to use a carrier that smelled like home. No drugs at all. I hardly knew this cat, about 18 months old, and when we got to TSA, they told me to take him out of the carrier. He was so frightened that he just held on to me with his head under my coat. Cloth carrier that fit under the seat. I was able to pet him through the flight and change of planes. He’s 14 now, large longhair Tux. He looks like a skunk, so local critters (fishers, foxes, extra large owls) leave him alone. His range is yard and outbuildings. He has never stalked a bird but will hassle one that has knocked itself out on a window.
laura
@raven: You and your giant tender heart carefully hidden in a prickly exterior. I’m upvoting this comment.
Gravenstone
@karen marie: Personal preference but I like World’s Best, which is basically ground up corn cobs. It claims that you can actually flush the waste clumps (no personal experience) and it seems to clump urine effectively.
sab
Raven, I know you will do a good job so I don’t care how this turns out. Our new pitbull was quite happy in her old home, but I think she is a lot happier with us.
Your new girl will be happy with you, but if she thrives with you she will be very happy with a stable new home also.
Kristine
@raven: Sweet pupster.
Steeplejack
@sab:
The keypad that always gets me is the one on the pump at gas stations. The Enter key is never in the same place and is never “emphasized” enough. I have a hard time finding it even at the gas station I go to almost all the time.
Steeplejack
@karen marie:
The housecat, of blesséd memory, used Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal litter (“multi-cat”). Very fine, like sand, so she didn’t track it around. And no odor problems in this 625 sq. ft. apartment.
Dunno about its dog-worthiness.
SW
As a dumb-assed kid I used to think that cats needed to go outside. That indoor cats led a deprived life and that keeping one locked up in the house was cruel and against their nature. Now, fifty some years and dozens of cats later I have learned how stupid that opinion was and is. Cats are indeed killing machines. No matter how well fed. Its sport for them. The toll they take on songbirds etc is truly appalling. But the worst damage is to themselves. Disease, injury, predators and especially cars take a huge toll. They are territorial creatures of habit. They develop a routine which, when they are young, their athleticism allows them to navigate unscathed. But then around middle age, they begin to lose a step. The senses aren’t as sharp anymore. But they continue on the same hazardous path. When I was a kid, our outdoor cats would always meet the same end. “Fluffy ran away”. Right. Outdoor cats live about half as long as indoor cats because outdoor life is really too dangerous for a middle aged cat. That’s when they are killed. Or excuse me, they “run away”. All things considered, the good of the local wildlife, and the lifespan of the cat I have realized that my romanticism about the freedom my indoor/outdoor cats had was just bullshit spun to paper over my laziness. Keep your cats in the house.
Quiltingfool
@raven: Oh my, what a sweet looking baby! I’m not sure I’d be able to let her go.