At least 18% of UK households own a cat. In thinking about cats and how different they are as pets, it struck me that cats are probably the only pet that we “release” into our local environment.
Every other pet, apart from dogs, are confined in cages or tanks. And we never let our dogs walk the streets on their own. But we let our cats out and they disappear, sometimes for most of the day or in the worst cases, several days.
But if I let my cats roam free, letting them come and go whenever they want, do I have a pet or do I just have a possession that I feed and house?
If you allow them to, many cats will spend most of their time out prowling around the neighbourhood and chasing any small thing that moves. That’s not so much of a problem, it’s just that it’s very easy to hardly see them.
When my cats arrived as kittens, we decided that we wanted the cats to be around us as much as possible because they’re part of our family. We wanted the joy of sharing our home with purry, furry, funny animals that love us and are affectionate as we love them. We wanted them to play at home, to be safe, to seek out our laps, to talk to us and to sleep on our beds at night. We wanted our cats to complete our home.
So Diesel and Eliza have the freedom of the house and the neighbourhood during the day, but come home to us in the evening.
Diesel turned out to be an outside cat, desperate to get out whenever he could. Eliza is homebody and her outside visits are few and short. We always bring them inside in the evening (well, it was hunger really as they came in for supper and then found the flap closed), and quite quickly they got used to it.
Over the years, we have really enjoyed our cats being at home when we are, and we have an inkling that they do too! Environmentalists tell us that cats can wreak havoc at night on small creatures like mice and birds too, so keeping them in at night helps wildlife too.
One of our cats’ “enemies” is a large caramel cat who makes his presence felt around our neighbourhood. He’s a big cat, bigger than both our cats. Eliza would never challenge him – she got chased by a squirrel once and that was enough for her.
But Diesel has challenged him quite a few times and come off worst (Diesel is not a big cat, although I think he thinks he is).
When I see “Caramel” creeping through our garden at night, spraying my fir trees, I can’t help thinking whether his cat parents ever see him and what benefit he brings them.
No, I want a pet, and just to prove what I’m saying, here comes my Diesel, belly full, looking for his post-dinner lap time.
As I swing my chair around to enable him to jump up, he’s already purring, and I’m looking forward to our time together. This joy of being a cat parent wouldn’t be possible without that closed cat flap.