How to Make Your Outdoor Cat a Happy Indoor Cat
Outdoor cats, even otherwise well cared-for cats, face an extraordinary array of dangers. According to The Humane Society of the United States, free-roaming cats typically live less than five years, whereas cats kept exclusively indoors often 1ive to 17 or more years of age.
GENERAL HAZARDS TO FREE-ROAMING CATS
Cars - Cars kill millions of cats each year in the United States and maim countless others, either from being hit or from crawling inside the hood of a car to get warm in the winter. Automobile accidents also occur as drivers attempt to avoid hitting a cat in the road.
Poisoning - Cats can find chemicals that are poisonous to them on treated lawns, in rat or mice bait, and on driveways and roads from antifreeze leaked or drained from cars. Antifreeze tastes sweet to a cat, but as little as one teaspoon can be fatal.
Other Animals - Outdoor cats can be injured or killed by free-roaming dogs, wildlife, and other cats. Cats can suffer torn ears, scratched eyes, abscesses and other injuries requiring expensive veterinary treatment. Diseases can be transmitted by bites and scratches from infected animals.
Human Abuse - Animal care and control agencies often learn of situations in which cats have been burned, stabbed, or hurt by other means. Free-roaming cats are also susceptible to theft.
Traps - Cats can get caught in traps and those that don't die immediately may suffer for days before being released or may starve. Cats caught in leg snares and leghold traps may lose limbs from injuries.
Overpopulation - Unaltered outdoor cats are the major source of the cat overpopulation problem, causing millions of unwanted cats to be euthanized at animal shelters each year. Humane societies and animal care and control agencies struggle daily to rescue, treat, feed, and house stray and unwanted cats. Kittens can be safely spayed or neutered as early as eight weeks of age, and there are significant physical and behavioral benefits of this procedure. Without the biological urge to roam to find a mate, spayed or neutered cats live more contentedly indoors.
DISEASE RISK TO FREE-ROAMING CATS, WILDLIFE AND HUMANS
Free-roaming cats are at risk of many diseases, some of which are acquired from prey animals. Some diseases affecting cats can be transmitted to humans. Vaccines are available for some of these diseases, but no vaccine provides 100% protection.
Viruses
Rabies (transmissible to humans) is caused by a virus which can infect warm-blooded animals, including cats, people, wildlife, and farm animals. Outdoor cats are at risk of contact with rabid wild animals such as raccoons, skunks, foxes, and bats. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cats are the domestic animal most commonly found to be rabid. Cats are closely associated with people and rabid cats often become aggressive. These two factors increase the risk of human exposure. Bites are the most common means of transmission.
Rabies is lethal if not detected and treated immediately. Fables attacks the central nervous system, resulting in paralysis and death. Flu-like symptoms progress to hyperactivity, disorientation, hallucinations, and convulsions. In the last stages of the disease, the victim lapses into a coma and dies of respiratory arrest. There have been only two documented human deaths in the U.S. from rabies contracted from cats since 1960. However, the postexposure treatment of persons bitten or scratched by cats infected or suspected to be infected is enormously costly and inconvenient.
Feline Leukemia Virus (FeLV) compromises a cat's immune system and is the leading cause of death due to infectious disease in cats. The virus is shed in feces, milk, and tears, but spread between cats primarily via saliva by grooming, licking, biting, and shared food dishes. Clinical signs range from chronic diseases to cancer. Once infected with FeLV, the cat may develop immunity and become resistant to future infections; become a "latent carrier" of the disease; or become persistently infected and die within three years. Death can be sudden or lingering and painful. A vaccine exists but is not 100% effective. There is at least one reported transmittal of FeLV to a mountain lion.
Feline Panleukopenia (feline distemper (FPV) is extremely contagious either by direct cat to cat contact, or indirect means, i.e., transmitted on clothing, humans or inanimate objects. FPV causes vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration. FPV disarms the cat's immune system, making it vulnerable to other diseases. Without intensive medical treatment, death will result. A vaccine is available. FPV has been diagnosed in the endangered Florida panther.
Feline Infectious Peritonitis (FIP) is a progressively debilitating, difficult to diagnose, and fatal viral disease. FIP is transmitted via feces, urine, or nasal/oral secretions by direct contact with infected cats as well as use of common food, water dishes and litter pans. It can infect liver, eye, brain, kidneys, lungs, lymph nodes, and heart, and the blood vessels in the lining of the body's cavities, causing fluid accumulation in the abdomen or chest cavity. No cure exists. Although a vaccine is available for FIP, its use remains controversial. FIP has been diagnosed in jaguar, mountain lion, and lynx.
Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (Fn3 destroys a cat's immune system, and is often fatal. It is most commonly transmitted by cat-to-cat bite wounds and found most often in unneutered free-roaming males. FIV leads to chronic infections of the mouth, upper respiratory tract, intestinal tract, eyes, and skin.
Currently no vaccine or cure is available. FIV has been found in the endangered Florida panther and bobcat.
Feline Viral Upper Respiratory Disease: Feline Viral Rhinotracheitis (FVR) and Feline Calicivirus (FCV) are extremely contagious, with death occurring most often in very young or older cats. Congested cats can't smell and often won't eat, so death results from starvation or dehydration. Transmission is via aerosol contact between cats. These viruses are extremely stable in the environment, so transmission via inanimate objects is common. Other clinical signs include fever, mouth ulcers, eye infections, blindness, lameness and diarrhea.
PARASITES AND DISEASES OF CATS TRANSMITED TO WILDLIFE AND HUMANS
Cat-scratch Disease is caused by a bacterium, Bartonella henselae, and is transmitted from cat to cat by fleas. Over 90% of human cases are associated with either a scratch or a bite received from a cat. People who contract this disease sometimes require treatment which may include antibiotics, analgesics, bed rest, and heat applied to painful lymph nodes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cat-scratch fever, acquired from cats infected by fleas, affects about 22,000 people each year, of which at least 2,000 people need hospital care. This disease can cause encephalitis in young children and death in individuals with compromised immune systems. Up to 80 percent of the cats in some studies were infected with this disease. Cats show no symptoms of the disease.
Toxoplasmosis is caused by a tiny protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, which resides in the intestinal tract of cats and in the tissues of many animals and rodents. If contracted by a pregnant woman in her first trimester, it can cause abortion of the fetus or blindness, retardation, or seizures in the newborn.
Toxoplasmosis can cause serious illness in children and even death in individuals with weakened immune systems. A suspected outbreak of toxoplasmosis occurred in British Columbia in 1995. One hundred and ten people were believed to have acquired acute infections from the feces of infected domestic feral cats which entered the drinking water supply. Cats and people contract toxoplasmosis most often from eating raw or undercooked meat. Cats can get it from eating wildlife and they are the only animals in which the organism can complete its complex life cycle and be excreted in the feces. Signs of infection in cats vary from being inapparent to weight loss, fever, diarrhea, pneumonia, encephalitis, and eye disease. Toxoplasmosis may be fatal in young kittens.
Lyme Disease is caused by a bacteria carried by ticks and is rarely fatal, but causes serious illness in humans and dogs when not diagnosed and treated with antibiotics in its early stage. Cats who live in tick-infested areas may transport infected ticks from the field into households on their fur, increasing the risk of human exposure. When left untreated, the disease can cause skin ailments, paralysis, disorders of the nervous system, eye and ear problems, stomach disorders, cardiac symptoms, and arthritis of the large joints in people.
Roundworms can reside in the intestinal tract of cats, other domestic animals, and wildlife. Cats can contract this parasite from eating infected wildlife, from ingesting eggs shed in feces, or larvae can be passed from a mother cat to her kittens via her milk in their first few weeks of life. The kittens can develop life-threatening disease as a result. Roundworms can be transmitted to people who accidentally ingest the parasite's eggs containing larvae, if children or adults ingest the eggs, the eggs hatch, and infective-stage larvae migrate through the liver, lungs, and other organs and tissues where they produce damage and induce allergic responses.
Infection may leave children with permanent visual or neurological damage. Roundworms can remain infective in the soil for a prolonged period. Drugs are available to kill this parasite in cats and people.
Hookworms, a type of roundworm that lives in a cat's digestive tract, can infect human skin, causing lesions. People acquire hookworm larvae through contact with wet sand. For example, children, electricians, plumbers, and other workers who crawl beneath raised buildings, are more susceptible than the general public, as are sunbathers. The larvae can remain alive and travel in the skin for up to several months. Drugs are available for cats and people.
Plague is an acute bacterial disease transmitted primarily by wild rodent fleas mainly in the Southwest and California. Cats can become infected from flea bites or from eating infected small mammals. The most frequent route of transmission to humans is via the bite of an infected flea. Alternatively, people can contract the illness by direct contact with the secretions of an infected animal or person, such as scratches, bites, or from inhalation of infective droplets released by coughing or sneezing. In recent years, almost all human cases of the most lethal form of the disease, pneumonic plague, have been linked to domestic cats. Since 1977, there have been 18 cat-associated cases of plague in humans in the U.S. Plague causes fever, diarrhea, nausea, slurred speech, mental confusion, staggering gait, coughing, enlarged lymph nodes, coma, and death. A vaccine is available for humans.
Conclusion: While letting cats outdoors may seem the natural thing to do, the hazards that cats face when they leave home are clearly numerous. The best way to keep cats healthy. and protect wildlife and human health. is to keep cats indoors.