cats? inside? or outside?

My cats spend most of their time inside but they're allowed to go out too. They're older so they spend more time inside where it's cooler. Instead of buying store bought hairball products I've used Vaseline petroleum jelly about every two weeks for years which my grandmother used to give it to her cats to help with hairballs. Mine never seem to have a problem with them even though two of them are long haired, too. One cat will lick it off my finger but with the other two I have to put a dab on the top of one paw which they lick off while giving me nasty looks. :)

I have have had many cats as pets and none of them have ever been outside cats. I brought a Sealpoint Siamese and a White Persian with orange eyes from Europe with me when I came to the States.

My cat stays inside. I have no doubt that he would enjoy the great outdoors, but I dont want to put up with the crap that having your cat be outdoors can produce. Plus I think it is safer and better for the cat by far to keep them inside.

For his safety, our cat is indoors only. The only time he goes outside is to go to the vet, so he does not ever want to go outside. We brush or comb him daily, so he does not have hairballs.

We have inside/outside cats. We also make sure we only have short haired cats here. A long haired cat should be brushed daily to prevent hair balls. I also give hairball meds during the heavy shedding periods. Cats that eat wild things rarely have hairball problems, nature takes care of them.

my cat lives inside my house.he never to be allowed outside.i think cat inside my house would be more clean.he likes to sleep with me when it's cooler in winter.so i don't like he is dirty.

If I had a cat would be inside out side was when we could have one before LInda got allergic to them. Now not cats!

my cats are inside, tho I have a porch they can go out on to, but they can't get off the porch

I keep my cat inside a cage during night time but he is set free to roam in our backyard during the day time. He rarely goes outside the house to explore, except when he sees a fellow cat, and then they start to fight. Lol. But he's pretty content to sleep all day and hunt for some birds in the backyard.

Hi quita! Once a cat goes outside, I find it to be really cruel to keep them inside. I don't care what any vet says. I say this, how would you like to be kept inside all the time? You wouldn't like it one bit so why should the cat? Now if they were raised indoors and kept inside, that's different but once a cat knows the outdoors, to change that would be very cruel. Now when your cat gets to coughing like that again, make sure you have some hair ball remedy on hand so you can give some to your cat. What it does is, it's a very sticky laxative substance and it adheres to the hair that's stuck in your cats throat and moves it through the bowel tract and out it goes! LOL Sometimes it takes more than once to get it all out. Some cats will lick it off of your fingers and some won't. If your cat won't then put some on their paws and legs and rub it in good so that when they shake their paws, it won't get all over your walls and floors. They'll lick it off and clean themselves up. You can get the hair ball remedy at walmart in the cat food section.

I only let one of my cats go outside. He would stay on the porch or with me so I didn't worry too much about him getting hurt. The rest of them stayed inside because I was to afraid to let them out. When I tried to brush them, they thought I was playing with them and I would end up all scratched up. Because of this I probably didn't brush them as much as I should have. Someone was always throwing up a fur ball and I would usually step in it. UGH!

We have a cat that is black and white too... she is also quite long haired and often has fur balls. While she has thrown up in the house on a couple of occasions I have kind of made her realise that she needs to go outside to do it. I did this by every time I heard her reaching, or coughing, I knew she was getting ready to throw it up, so I put her outside. Now she does go out the cat flap when she has a hairball, but now, she has had times where she does it right in the middle of my pathway, so I have to clear it up so my little boy does not tread in it. As I said I have a cat flap, and she comes and goes as she pleases. She mainly goes out at night and early morning though, during the day she likes to sleep on the window sill. She goes out at night and scares foxes away, I think when we go to bed she kind of goes out to watch the house, I have actually seen her race after a fox, and it was a female fox, because it just had this awful scream to it, which woke me up about 2am a few weeks ago. Have included photo of my cat below

At present I live in an area that is overrun with stray and feral cats. I have had cats all my life...since I was 4 years old...and have rescued them from the streets many times. I do not declaw my cats so that they can go outside. It is natural and good for a cat to hunt and eat its prey and it is in their nature to do so. I used to have a kitty door until my daughter broke it. Now I'm saving up for another one because, frankly, I'm sick of the kitty litter getting tracked all over my house. I much prefer for my cats to go potty outside and with little encouragement, they will. One thing that I do make sure of, though, before putting my cats out, is that they have flea collars on or else I'll use the drops but either way they don't go out unless they have some protection. At present I have four house cats and am working with two ferals that hang around my porch. Among my house cats only one is going outside right now because she's the only one with a flea collar. Chester keeps losing his flea collars so I'm going to have to start getting the drops for him. Smoky is still a little scaredy since I took him in a year ago so I don't think I want to let him out quite yet for fear he may not come home. Spooky, on the other hand, is one we just took in a few days ago and so he stays inside for the same reason as Spooky. I hope by next spring to find a home for Spooky and get a cat door so that the rest of my kitties can come and go. If you'd like to read some stories about my cats and the work I do, you can check out my blog at http://thecatladyrules.blogspot.com I dream of the day when I won't have to keep a litter box in my house anymore.

I think cats are best left outside, when I had a cat we did have a room for it in the garden shed and we had a bed for it. She would just sleep in there, when they're kittens you must keep them indoors because they can easily get hurt or lost and it's just nice to have a cute little thing indoors lol. When we kept her indoors and she got angry at my mum she would poo on my mum's bed lol she was a smart little cat. Miss her.

I had 4 Cats and they would be in and out Scruffy would stand by the Door if she needed to go to the Toilet as she was not happy using the Litter Box lol the other 3 would use the Litter Box but also go outside but at Night they where always indoors, in the Winter they hardly went out and Scruffy would run out do what she had to do and then run back in lol

My cats have always been indoor cats because that's where cats are supposed to be kept. They are domesticated animals who should be kept indoors for safety reasons. Our town also has a law against cats (and dogs) running at large (not on their own property and not leashed). Outdoors is not a safe environment for cats.

i would let them outside especially in the morning because they defecate in the morning so i make sure they won't defecate inside my house because they defecate inside before and its was very disgusting smell i let them in the afternoon in the house.

My cats are indoor cats. I have two that do come out with me, but only when I am out smoking and they are confined to the yard, If they leave the yard, they go in. The one cat I found so she has a habit of being outside. The other is her son, and I wish I would not have let him out. He got fleas and is allergic to the bites. Of course he brought them in to share with his brothers. Now I have to frontline them and spray the house and yard with chemicals. I do not like having them around the chemicals, and I do not like that I have to get them their shots because they can develop a cancer. If I had kept them indoors I may not have this problem. Plus, if the cat is strictly indoors one doesn't need to worry about shots or having them get into something they shouldn't. Some people are mean to cats, and will poison them or try to run them over. They may get into a fight with another cat or some other animal that could kill them. Raccoons abound in the city as well as the country and they can be very vicious creatures. They do have cat pens that will allow you to let your kitty play outside and be confined at the same time. For a cat that is used to having the run of the neighborhood this may be a good option for you. Happy Mylotting!

We let our cat out during the day so she could enjoy the outdoor, but we keep her in when it's dark. We wouldn't want to go to bed without knowing that she is safe and sound =)

My cat is an inside only cat. He is deathly afraid of cars because we found him as a stray kitten and the people who had him before us said they were moving and didn't want to take him with them so they tried to run over him :( How can people be so cruel? He has gotten outside a few times and when he came home he was covered with bites and scratches from strays because we live in a mobile home park and people drop them off around here all the time. He had to go to the vet both times he got out so we make it a point to make sure he is an inside only cat. Oddly enough my cat likes the taste of Vaseline. He comes over and meows when we are getting it out of the cupboard and licks it off our fingers.