Indoor/Outdoor Cats

by Kaitlin
(Pennsylvania)

All of my family's cats are indoor/outdoor. We live in a very secluded area where we are surrounded by about 300 acres of farmland.

All of the cats we have owned lived indoors until they were 6 months old, and then were given the choice of living inside or out, or both. Four of our cats preferred the outside and our oldest one sadly passed away two years ago at the age of 17. He had lived outside his entire life.

The only outdoor cat problem we had was that our one got caught in a fox trap and had to have her front paw amputated. We had brought her in for a while, but she kept sneaking back out. We also have 4 cats that come in and out when they please. Normally, they go outside in the morning and we call them in at night.

We are always getting compliments about how friendly our outdoor cats are, and I believe it is because we had the inside for 6 months.

Although we are surrounded by farms, we can still go outside at any time and see at least 6 of the 7 cats just laying around the yard. If not, just one call and you can see them running through the cornfield or woods. I believe that they have a very happy life and get to be a real cat, all while still getting plenty of love and attention.