We’ve got one cat 6months and the other 3months old, currently both using the litterbox. However we’re going to move to a new house soon, and eventually try to transition them to getting used to doing their business outdoors instead of the litterbox. Does anyone have any tips or best practices for this transition?
Edit: I dont live in the US, I live in Scandinavia - huge garden and away from traffic. The cats are fine being outside - most cats here are in fact outside. We have norwegian forest cats and they’re meant to be both indoors and outdoors - even during winter!
Pet culture in the US was the same as Norway 40 years ago. Cats were primarily outdoor pets allowed to come and go as they pleased. The 1960’s cartoon the Flintstones showed Fred Flintstone throwing the cat outside at night in every episode during the end credits.
However the modern environmental science has proven the damage domestic cats have on the environment. As such there has been a cultural shift in the younger generations, without any government intervention, to keep cats indoors.
I’m not even talking about the controversy about cat impact on wildlife; I’m referring to the statistical life expectancy of outdoor cats in the US. If anyone isn’t satisfied with the one link I provided, I can find more: outdoor feline life expectancy is statistically drastically shorter than strictly indoor life expectancy. All I did was list the risks - the truth is in the statistics. But everyone who has that one outdoor cat that lived to 27 thinks their anecdotal experience trumps science 🙄.
I can’t speak to Norway. Maybe the feline diseases aren’t rampant there yet. Maybe the Norwegians have long ago exterminated all of their mid-range predators in populated areas. I doubt grandparent up there lives in a place where wolves are roaming around freely. You have coyotes or something similar there in your rural communities, my Norwegian friend from a couple comments up? Maybe the fact that few, if any, European countries have anything like the US car culture keeps streets safer for loose pets.
But in the US, letting cats outdoors statistically reduces their life expectancies. That’s not my opinion; it’s in the data.
I think you replied to the wrong person. I argued that pet cats should be kept indoors.
I do that occasionally; maybe it’s me, maybe it’s my client. But I also prefer to continue a thread, so I may have done it on purpose. In this case, though, I probably misunderstood you, and thought you were suggesting that the cultural shift was for silly activist reasons, and that it was better back in the good old days. Or that the only reason to keep cats indoors is because of the damage they do to wildlife.
Mea culpa