My indoor cats want to go outside. Should I let them? What to know?

Question

I'm struggling with deciding on whether to allow our 2 indoor cats (Cici 11 yo. & Autumn 5 yo.) outside, making them indoor/outdoor. How do I make this decision? What information do I need before deciding? It's worth noting both cats used to be indoor/outdoor before we made them only indoors. We adopted them last year while living in Maine. We moved to California this year though, at the start of August. The cats used to be scared of their new surroundings but are now itching to go outside.

C. Rathjens, DVM · Accepted Answer

The main factors to think about are risk of injury (by cars and by other cats), risk of picking up disease (from other cats, intestinal parasites), and risk to wildlife (more of a concern if your cats like to catch songbirds) VS risk of increased stress due to being indoor only and risk of aggression between the two cats because they are stressed inside. From a behavioral perspective, being outside is much better. There is way more stimulation and it's a natural life for them. From a health perceptive, being inside is probably better, but we don't fully know the effects of the stress of being kept indoors. There are definitely ways to mitigate the risks of going outside, namely vaccination for Feline Leukemia and use of flea/tick preventatives, along with yearly fecal to check for intestinal worms. FIP, which is basically feline AIDS is not one that we vaccinate for and is transferred during cats fights, so they'd be open to that if outside. I hope that helps you think through your options! There's no perfect answer.

My indoor cats want to go outside. Should I let them? What to know?

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