Why is it so difficult for people to understand that cats need to be kept indoors only???

# Stationary cars—yes, even a stopped car can be dangerous. Fanbelts cause the most hideous injuries you can imagine, ripping the fur and skin right off the cat's body and slashing through the muscle. It's not pretty. Those few that survive carry the scars for the rest of their lives.

# Leaking antifreeze can also kill. A cat walking through a small spill of antifreeze and then licking its paws has ingested a fatal dose—usually within days, although I have seen it take months for a cat to actually die of the resulting kidney failure.

# Dog attacks. Sometimes cats with seemingly minor injuries will still die from the extreme fear they experience from the attack. Dog bite injuries can be painful and costly to treat. I had to do multiple surgeries on one cat who was severely bitten. Of course, dog attacks often have even grimmer consequences.

Stolen to be sold to a lab for "research" or dissection. Many cats dissected in America's classrooms today are stolen from owners or captured off the streets and sold, alive, to biological supply companies. In Mexico, children are given $1 for every cat they catch. "We have irrefutable evidence that the cats cruelly killed in Mexico were going to American biological supply firms who supply public schools with animals for dissection." (Cat Fancy 1995) In 1990, an undercover investigation of well-known biological supply companies documented Class B licensed dealers delivering hundreds of live cats of unknown origin to those companies. (www.neavs.org). Tens of thousands of cats die every year so that children and college kids and nursing students can dissect them.

# Stolen, killed and eaten by people. In some cultures, this is perfectly normal behavior, just as some people eat beef, which would horrify a Hindu, and others eat pork, which is taboo in Islam and Judaism.

# Stolen to be used as "live bait" for training fighting dogs (common, especially if you live in or near a good-sized city); live cats are thrown into the pit or tied up and dangled above it to be ripped apart by the dogs, to "blood train" them.

Abuse by juvenile delinquents (of any age)—beaten, shot, stabbed, sexually abused, dissected alive, etc. All of these are common and well documented in cities, towns, and rural areas. I personally saw many of these cases, and was involved in others when I worked at the Animal Protection Institute:

A kitten with a fever of 107ºF and two shattered, infected hind legs and numerous puncture wounds. The kids apparently dragged her out of the dog's mouth, but didn't tell mom. The injured kitten did not receive veterinary care until it was almost too late.

A sexually abused 8-week old calico kitten.

A Birman kitten rescued by a street person from a group of kids who were repeatedly throwing him against a brick wall for fun. Numerous cats injured or killed by guns or arrows or, in one case, beaten to death with a golf club by a man walking his dog along a bike path. Why he was carrying a golf club in the first place was never explained.

Cats soaked in gasoline and set on fire.

A litter of newborn kittens deliberately crushed to death in a trash compactor.

A kitten set on a hot barbecue grill for laughs. Rescued by an outraged neighbor, she survived for a few agonizing hours before dying of massive burns.

A live adult cat tied into a black garbage bag and thrown into the Platte River, where a passerby noticed the bag moving and pulled it out.

Kittens thrown from moving cars. A client of mine behind one of these picked up the kitten and adopted her. Angel was one of the lucky ones. I've seen 2 dead kittens on the median of I-25 in Denver just this year, out of perhaps a dozen trips.

# Encounters with a poisonous animal. Depending on where you live, the deadly options may include rattlesnake, copperhead, coral snake, water moccasin (also called cottonmouth), tarantulas, black widow and brown recluse spiders, and scorpions.

# Predators. Besides people, there are a lot of critters that can hurt or kill a cat. You may have several of these in your area:

# Alligators (if you live in the southeast, you probably know someone who has lost a cat or dog to a 'gator).

# Broad-winged hawks (wingspan over 4 feet, dive speed over 100 mph)

# Owls – A friend of mine watched an owl strike and fly off with a large, screaming Maine coon cat in his talons.

# Eagles (cats are on the menu of Golden eagles, 4 of which were seen circling my town just last week)

# Coyotes—these resourceful relatives of our domestic dogs live virtually everywhere in the U.S., including Manhattan and downtown Los Angeles. One night, on major thoroughfare in Denver, I personally saw a very large coyote trotting down the middle of the street!

# Foxes—one of my feline patients was brought in with a clear set of puncture marks across her back and down both sides, in a perfect imprint of a fox's jaws. This particular fox was living in central Denver. A large cat might be able to escape a fox—or it might die trying.

# Raccoons—they don't necessarily kill, but they can cause devastating injuries. Raccoons also carry rabies in many parts of the country. Adult raccoons typically weight 25-50 lbs. Your cat is no match.

# Skunks—the danger is not just from the unpleasant end! As members of the weasel family, skunks have vicious teeth and bad tempers.

# Other large predators -— in my little town west of Boulder, Colorado, there are bears and mountain lions that have been seen near the schoolyard or trotting down Main Street. More than a dozen domestic cats and two dogs have been taken by lions; in just the last week, two cats were snatched within sight of their owners.

# Diseases from other animals and from the environment (rabies, distemper, feline leukemia, feline AIDS, feline infectious peritonitis, Lyme disease, ehrlichiosis, cytauxzoonosis, ringworm, sporotrichosis, and hundreds of other infectious organisms you've never heard of). Some are merely annoying, others are fatal.

# Traps and snares. Traps do not discriminate. Thousands of cats and dogs have lost limbs and lives to steel-jawed traps set for raccoons and other species. One of my neighbor's cats had what was left of its leg amputated just recently after being caught in a leghold trap. These traps are legal for control of "nuisance" animals—even in states like Colorado that have banned leghold traps. Few of these nuisance-control trappers are licensed or regulated. They do not care what they catch; if they find a cat or dog in their traps, they usually just kill it and dispose of the body.

# Impoundment by animal control, an annoyed neighbor, or local cat-hater. At the shelter, your cat will spend a terrifying few days in a metal cage until:

you reclaim him (less than 5% of cats in shelters are ever re-united with their families)

he is destroyed (the fate of the vast majority of these cats)

if he is extremely lucky, adopted to a family who will keep him indoors!

Parasites—fleas, ticks, heartworm, roundworms, tapeworms—as well as the parasites of the parasites, like tapeworms that live in fleas, or West Nile virus and rickettsial diseases carried by mosquitoes.

Skin cancer—cats with white or light-colored fur around the face and ears are prone to cancer from exposure to direct sunlight.

Hanging/choking from a non-safety collar, or a malfunctioning safety collar.

Accidental poisoning from eating a poisoned rodent or walking through herbicides, fertilizers, pesticides, eating poisonous plants, and other sources.

Intentional poisoning. I grew up in a neighborhood where a vicious woman deliberately baited and poisoned cats for many, many years. In those days, all cats went outside; no one ever heard of an indoor cat. Our family lost several cats to poisoning over the years we lived there.

Exposure to weather (heatstroke, snow, ice, severe storms) and unable to find adequate shelter.

Being accidentally trapped in a garage, basement, car, or other enclosure. Before I knew how dangerous it is for cats to roam, one of my cats wandered into an open garage, apparently hid inside when the car started, and spent a long weekend locked inside while the people were away. I once found my other cat standing on the dashboard of a van across the way. Evidently she slipped in through the open sunroof and couldn't get out again. Had the Southern California weather been just a little warmer that day, she could have died of hyperthermia. I had thought it was safe to let them out there, because it was a cul-de-sac with hardly any traffic and open space all around. Not!

Undetected disease. Guardians cannot always carefully observe cats who spend a lot of time outside. Urinary tract problems are frequently missed because the cat so rarely uses an indoor litterbox. I've had clients find their male cats dead of a urinary blockage before they ever knew the cat was sick.

* Stupid accidents. Things happen. One of my cats broke a toe when she fell off a fence and caught her paw between two of its boards, which is where I found her.

A lot of people let their cats out "supervised". That is, the guardian is actually out in the yard with the cat, or pretty close by, mostly, at least until the phone rings or the timer goes off or the kids scream or some other distraction occurs.

If you think your mere presence is sufficient to protect your cat, you're only fooling yourself. You're always within earshot? Great...you might be lucky enough to hear the squealing tires—and the thud. Here are a couple of other experiences from people, including me, who thought their cats were safe outdoors:

# A man was outside one morning, standing on his deck, with his cat sitting right next to him. He was drinking his coffee and enjoying the sunrise. Suddenly he heard a funny noise and looked to see what it was. He saw, already a long way off, a coyote with the cat IN ITS MOUTH—snatched from RIGHT NEXT TO HIS FOOT. The guy yelled, and fortunately the coyote dropped the uninjured cat and ran away. All concerned were definitely sadder, but hopefully wiser. Did you know that coyotes can run as fast as greyhounds? Cats can't, and neither can you!

# One lady's cat was outside, on his harness attached to a clothesline. She went inside for just a couple of minutes. When she came back out, she found that the cat had tried to jumped over the fence, and was partially hanging from it. His feet were on the ground but he was slowly suffocating. The cat survived, but the trip to the emergency clinic was both terrifying and expensive,

# My neighbor's elderly cat, Boots, was sitting on his own porch one summer day, just 2 weeks before his 20th birthday. We had a big party planned for him. He was dragged from the porch and torn apart by two pit bulls, who played tug-of-war with his broken body. Unfortunately, he was not killed outright. His owner (who was in the house, literally only a few feet away) heard Boots screaming, scared off the dogs, and rushed poor Boots to the emergency clinic, where he survived for a few painful hours until he was finally euthanized. Happy Birthday, dear sweet Boots. I miss you so much! I cry every time I think of you.

# A cat being walked on a leash was chewing on some grass. The cat started coughing, but the guardians couldn't see anything in his mouth. They watched the cat, who was still coughing sporadically, overnight, and took him to the vet first thing in the morning. The veterinarian found a 3-inch piece of grass stalk near the cat's larynx, which she removed. Lung x-rays showed fluid, possibly from lodged grass seeds. The cat eventually recovered.

Many years ago, my roommates and I were sitting on the porch one evening with our cat Mr. Crosby, watching our 2 dogs play in the yard, which was surrounded by a 6' wooden privacy fence. Suddenly there were 3 dogs instead of 2; a large Irish setter had suddenly bounded over the high fence like a deer. When he saw us, boing! he jumped back out. We were so stunned we never even moved. (Even though that story had a happy ending, Mr. Crosby did not. He moved out with one of the roommates. As they were moving into their new place, Mr. Crosby slipped out through an open door and was never seen again).

Face it—as a human, you simply do not have the ability to react in time to stop EVERYTHING that could possibly happen to your cat. Your cat is faster than you. Your neighbor's dog is faster than you. Cars are definitely faster than you.

Granted, some cats do live long and happy lives outside. My neighbor's outdoor cat was 15 and doing fine. Then they got a kitten. Sweetest little black kitty you ever saw. They started letting him out when he was only about 8 or 9 weeks old. I found him outside at 10 p.m. one freezing winter night when I walked the dog. I took him in overnight, then went over to their house the next morning to discuss it with them. They said he could get under the house to stay warm, just like the older cat did; evidently the kitten didn't know that. They also said their older cat would teach the kitten to be street smart. I guess he was a slow learner, because he died right in front of their house, struck and killed by a car on our very busy street long before his first birthday.