Cats are much safer inside. Cars kill millions of cats each year.
Outdoor cats are exposed to serious and often fatal infectious diseases such as feline leukemia and rabies.
Parasites such as fleas, ticks and intestinal worms pose a health threat to your cat. Some of these can be transmitted to humans.
Cats outdoors are often chased by dogs or other cats, and killed, injured or hopelessly lost.
Cats are often shot at, poisoned, trapped or tortured by neighbors annoyed by cats using their gardens as a litterbox or hunting birds and other small animals.
Coyotes, great-horned owls and other wild animals are known to regularly kill and eat house cats.
Cats that spend time outdoors require more medical treatment and their lifespan is much shorter.
FERAL CATS
The result of unsterilized, domestic cats who were abandoned or lost, feral cats are born and grow up without human contact. They distrust humans and revert to the ways of their wild ancestors. Attempting to tame them is difficult, time consuming, and only occasionally successful.
The number one killer of domestic and feral cats in the United States is death in shelters due to overpopulation.
For many years, the methods of choice to deal with feral cats have been to ignore or attempt to eradicate them. Neither method has solved the problem of their overpopulation.The truth is that feral cats can live where they are found. Sterilized, vaccinated cats no longer reproduce and pose no health risk. Eartipping provides instant identification for managed ferals. Trap, neuter and return is the only method of population control for feral cats that actually reduce their numbers. The evidence from established TNR programs in the U.S., in Europe and around the world is proving that TNR is decreasing the populations of feral cats where eradication attempts have failed.
Why Neutering And Spaying Are So Important
If you have two breeding cats, and they have 2 litters a year and those kitties have two litters a year each, do you know that in 10 years, there will be over 80,000,000 cats?
And now that you know this, how many do you think find a good home, let alone a home at all?(Hint: Not many....)If an excuse of "I can't afford to get my cat fixed" comes to mind, that just isn't acceptable. Lots of animal clinics can do the altering for a minimal charge, and all you have to do is ASK!
There are even health benefits to altering: Spaying a female helps to prevent mammary tumors (and pregnancy as well...). Plus, spaying stops the rolling and howling that females do when they are in heat, which can be annoying!
Neutering a male helps in the prevention of testicular cancer(and of course, unwanted litters). Neutering also prevents spraying (phew! yuck!) and the desire to roam.
Some people say they have found homes for their cats' litters. That may sound great, but for every kitten born, about 5 die in a shelter. That kitten who died could have found a home with that very someone who decided to get one of their friend's litter instead of saving the kitten from the shelter. That poor kitten didn't have a chance in the world.
