Indoor-only vs letting your cat out in a Pakistani neighbourhood

The argument goes in circles. An indoor cat is bored and unnatural; an outdoor cat is happy right up until the day it does not come home.

Outdoors here means traffic, cat fights and the abscesses that follow, dogs, poison put out for rats, people who dislike cats, and the chance of it simply being picked up and taken. Indoors means you have to supply everything it would otherwise go and find — height, a window with something happening, games that end in a catch, and sometimes a second cat.

Plenty of people land in the middle: a netted balcony, a supervised roof, daylight only.

Which did you choose, and would you choose it again? If you lost a cat outdoors, that is worth saying too. It is the part nobody posts about.

Indoor only, and I did not choose it out of principle. I chose it after the third time a neighbour's car nearly got him. He is fine. He is a lazy, enormous, extremely content cat.

Ours goes out and comes back. Sialkot, quiet street. I know the risks, I have made my peace with them.

The one nobody weighs properly is theft. A Persian sitting on a wall in a Karachi street is worth 40,000 rupees to somebody who will pick it up without a second thought. Traffic gets talked about, this does not.

Lost one. He went out on a Tuesday like every other day and did not come back. We looked for six weeks. I still do not know what happened, which is somehow the worst part.

I am not going to tell anyone what to do. But that is what it is like.

Thank you for posting that, and I am sorry. That is exactly the reply I hoped somebody would be willing to write.

Since it is my thread, my honest position after fourteen years and five cats:

I have done both. I lost two cats outdoors — one to a car, one that simply vanished. My current three are indoor-only and I will not go back.

But "indoor" done badly is a genuinely miserable life for a cat, and people who say "just keep it inside" usually skip that part. A cat indoors needs you to supply what the street was giving it:

Height. Not floor space — vertical space. A cat that can get above head height feels safe. Shelves, the top of a cupboard, anything.

A window with something happening. Not a wall. Birds, a street, a tree. This is genuinely most of their entertainment.

Hunting that ends in a catch. A wand toy for ten minutes, twice a day, and you must let them actually catch it at the end. A hunt that never ends in a catch is frustrating rather than satisfying, which is the mistake I made for years with a laser pointer. Put the laser away.

Something to destroy that is not your sofa. A scratching post that is tall enough for a full stretch and stable enough not to wobble. Most of the ones sold here are too short and too light.

And seriously consider a second cat, especially if the house is empty all day. Two cats that get on are a completely different animal to one bored cat.

The middle option is better than either extreme if you can manage it. We netted a balcony for about 9,000 rupees — mosquito netting on a frame, nothing clever — and it is the single best thing I have ever done for them. Sun, air, birds to shout at, no traffic, no thieves.

The netted balcony is what we did too and it changed everything. Islamabad, cost us around 12,000 with a proper frame. Our vet describes it as the compromise that actually works.

One thing from the rescue side that never comes up in this debate: a desi cat that has always been outdoors and is used to it does not adapt to indoor life the way a kitten does. If you are taking in an adult street cat, indoor-only can be genuinely cruel, and a netted space or supervised access is not a compromise, it is the right answer.

The debate is really about kittens and about cats that have never been out. Those are the ones where indoor-only is straightforwardly safer.

Six months indoor-only after reading this thread. He was furious for two weeks and is now completely settled. The wand toy point was the one that made the difference — he was not bored, he was under-exercised, and those look identical.

Flat, third floor, no balcony. Is a window with a grille enough or am I kidding myself? He sits there for hours but I do feel bad.