Stronger Than You

I just wanted to thank you about the outdoor cats post. I’ve never had a cat but have been thinking about getting one for a while, so I was really oblivious about the issues and health concerns that come from outdoor cats. So, thank you! 🙂

You’re very welcome, and that’s also part of why I published that post. I think a lot of people never think about it because it’s just… such a common practice they’re used to it. But like, just because something has been widely done for a long time doesn’t mean it’s the right way to do something.

Take the betta fish for another example. They’re capable of surviving in very small spaces, I’ve even heard quoted “the imprint of an ox hoof in the mud” as a size. People for years and years and years have kept them in vases and other small bowls like this:

I heard people say that they can live in a vase like this and they don’t even need feeding because they eat the roots and the roots “clean the water for the fish”:

For years and years, I had heard the betta lifespan was supposed to be 2-3 years, but here’s the thing- it’s actually more in the range of 7-8 years. In more recent years there’s been a major push to shift this view of bettas and give them better accommodations. Bettas need filtration and they need heat and they should have enough space to actually swim around. They should have enrichment. A proper betta enclosure looks more like this:

(that’s not two bettas, just a reflection)

Take big boa snakes. Many in the hobby of keeping them recommended smaller meals more often (something smaller every 7-10 days, rather than something huge every or every-other month), to help with digestion etc. Recently a study was done that said actually, a boa’s metabolism takes roughly 2 weeks to complete a cycle and they shouldn’t be fed more often than that or it can interrupt/restart the process and cause problems. People that found out adjusted.

Take a lot of lizards, esp leopard geckos. For years the common standard was to keep them on sand, until it was proven that sand is actually not a great substrate because they can eat it and get it impacted in their gut. The Leopard Gecko lifespan shot up from 2-3 years to 15 years as people learned how to better care for them in captivity.

The point is that people can care for animals to the best of their ability and go by the common standards of the time and still unknowingly do it poorly. New information can always come to light that means a shift in caretaker practices. The same thing is going on with cats. People have, for so many years, done cat care certain ways, and they’ve been working out alright enough that people think the way it’s always been done is fine.

The problem is that it’s not, not really.

The impact on the native wildlife has been extreme in places, and the impact on the cats themselves can be devastating. Imagine keeping an animal that should live 20 years and thinking it’s fine to put them in a position where they may die as young as 2 or 3 years old. Imagine being told how to help prevent that, and saying “no thanks.”

Anyway, thanks for saying something. I’m glad that I could help, and I really hope that when you do get a feline companion, that they live a long and healthy life in the safety of your care