Before owning a cat you need to first decide whether you’d let your cat live indoors or outdoors or both.
When deciding don’t just consider what you prefer but think about your cat as well. Think about what’s best suited for the breed of the cat you’re planning on choosing so that you and your cat are both happy with the living arrangements.
Indoor Cats
Indoor cats make for very great house pets. Also, because they’re inside their safety is almost assured. Being inside prevents them from contracting fatal illnesses as well as from encounters with motor vehicles. Also their exposure to other cats and animals are limited preventing possibly fatal fights from occurring.
Sounds great right? Well as healthy as keeping cats indoors may look cats that don’t get out very often if at all often develop certain behavioral problems.
For example cats kept exclusively indoors can become very dependent on their owners. As a result they may feel stressed when their owners are not around and may resort to violent behavior to cope. The latter is something to take note of as even when provided with scratching posts and the proper environment these cats may prove to be destructive to house furniture and other people especially strangers.
If you plan on keeping your cat exclusively indoors be sure to keep a close eye on its diet. You should also give it its own area to move around in so that it gets the necessary exercise to prevent obesity. Also interact with your cat daily because cats with little to no interaction for prolonged periods often develop behavioral problems and are easily stressed out.
Outdoor Cats
What better way is there to make sure that your cat gets the exercise that it needs by letting it go out of the house?
Physically letting cats go outside gives it a much better environment to move around in and mentally ample time outdoors gives cats a chance to explore and keep their minds active at all times.
Outdoor cats however are more prone to various health problems, the most common of which is fleas. Even if you invest in a quality flea product it’s hard to keep them off of your cat because fleas live just about anywhere outside of your house. Not to mention that outdoor cats can bring fleas inside your house and this can make for quite the problem if you have other pets.
Also if you plan on housing an outdoor cat you’ll need to have it vaccinated for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) and Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV), because these are rather common and can be fatal.
You may also want to check in with state laws and bylaws if there’s anything pertaining to cats in your area.
Making the Decision
Both types of cats have their own advantages, as well as disadvantages. Even if you choose to partially let your cat out you still have to deal with most if not all of the problems presented by owning both an indoor and outdoor cat.
What’s best is that you do extensive research so that you can prepare yourself as well as your cat for whatever living situation it is you’re planning.