The data is current and up-to-date in accordance with the newest veterinarian research.
Learn more »
Hi, I’m Dr. Karyn! Read my introduction to learn more about me and meet my five hilarious cats: Clutch, Cyril, Alex, Zelda, and Zazzles.
Cats have been sharing our lives for 1000’s of years, and in that point, they’ve evolved from being skillful, silent hunters that stalk and kill their prey with startling efficiency, to, well…this:
Cyril faceplanting…
Don’t get me incorrect, the athletically challenged Cyril just isn’t necessarily an accurate representation of all pet cats, but you get the thought! Nevertheless, if you compare the behavioral and morphological changes that domestication has had on our canine companions, as demonstrated by my Chihuahua, Ned and his German Malinois, Kodah, our feline friends have retained much of their ancestors’ instincts and attributes.
Ned the Chihuahua and Kodah the German Malinois
And it is that this proven fact that often makes it hard for us, their human caretakers, to come to a decision how much of their natural ancestral behaviors we must be encouraging.
I previously talked about using toys and laser pointers to achieve out to my cats’ hunting instincts and get them engaging in some cardio, which I imagine is a crucial a part of providing them with enrichment, exercise, and mental stimulation, but is it enough? Should we be encouraging our cats to be cats, and permit them to hunt prey with impunity? I’m not so sure, but I also think that it is a query that’s open to quite a lot of interpretations.
Is it Cruel to Stop Cats From Hunting?
Back within the late Nineteen Seventies, the Farm Animal Welfare Council of Great Britain formulated a algorithm that will turn into the cornerstone of virtually every law regarding keeping captive animals, not only livestock. Those rules were higher often known as The Five Freedoms, they usually are:
- Freedom from hunger and thirst, by ready access to water and a food plan to take care of health and vigor.
- Freedom from discomfort, by providing an appropriate environment.
- Freedom from pain, injury and disease, by prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment.
- Freedom to specific normal behavior, by providing sufficient space, proper facilities and appropriate company of the animal’s own kind.
- Freedom from fear and distress, by ensuring conditions and treatment, which avoid mental suffering.
More recently, these were re-examined with a view to expand on these basic provisions to not only prevent negative experiences, but to supply animals with A Life Value Living. Now, I feel that it’s fair to say that my cats have a life price living; one which I actually can be quite content with, and the identical can likely be said for the vast majority of cats that live with human families. I may confidently say that the majority pet cats enjoy lives which might be in step with a minimum of 4 of the five freedoms. Where things get a bit less clear, nonetheless, is once we take a look at the 4th rule: Freedom to specific normal behavior. Does this mean we must always allow our cats to roam freely and hunt? Although some would argue yes, I don’t think it’s quite that straightforward.
Most pet cats, like comfortable Clutch, have lives price living.
I live within the UK, where keeping cats indoors is essentially frowned upon, though that is starting to vary. Once I lived in Australia, the principles regarding cat ownership were becoming more strict, with the introduction of mandatory microchipping and registration of pet cats, in addition to the imposition of curfews. See, unlike the UK, where cats have been a part of the landscape for over a millennia, Australia was devoid of feline predators until they were introduced by European colonists within the early nineteenth century. Since their introduction, a population of 3-4 million feral cats has emerged, which is answerable for killing six million native animals per day, and threatening over 100 million species with extinction. On this scenario, limiting the outdoor access and hunting of cats is undoubtedly mandatory. But what about in parts of the world just like the UK or US, where cats, in a single form or one other, are higher tolerated inside the ecosystem?
In my humble opinion, keeping cats indoors is a component of being a responsible owner. In the vast majority of cases, we live with our cats in areas where there are plenty of people, dogs, and cars. There are potentially deadly hazards like predators, toxins, parasites, and viruses, and the feline population density is much greater than would occur naturally, so making welfare judgments for our pets based on their wild origins starts to appear irrelevant.
If we were to take a look at it more objectively, taking into consideration the five freedoms, I’d argue that the lifetime of a wholly indoor cat is one which is:
- Free from hunger and thirst
- Free from discomfort
- Free from pain, injury and disease
- Free from fear and distress
And once we are capable of provide our indoor felines with an environment that
- is enriched with games and interactive toys,
- allows them to explore the vertical world through cat trees and shelves,
- challenges them by providing their food in interesting ways,
- is crammed with attention, love, and affection,
I imagine that we not only allow them the liberty to specific normal behaviors, we’re also ensuring that we give them a life price living.
Zelda and Cyril having fun with some indoor enrichment: catnip on the scratching post
Is it Cruel to Allow or Encourage Cats to Hunt?
Cruelty is essentially a human invention. Within the animal kingdom, there are rarely instances where one animal causes pain or suffering to a different purely for sport or enjoyment; hunting is a matter of survival. But is that this still the case with our domestic pets?
Our pets still have a prey drive – that wild instinct that may turn even probably the most delicate fluffball right into a killing machine – which is why some people imagine that we must always allow them to do what comes naturally – hunt. The best way I take a look at it’s that we will’t treat our cats as pets one minute, wild animals the subsequent. Either we commit to their domestication, or we set all of them free to whatever fate nature has in store for them (and I’m sure you recognize which one I’m in favor of!).
Cats may retain their hunting instincts, but most of them don’t need to hunt, and a few of them appear to be unsure of what to do with their prey once they’ve caught it. The primary time I ever heard Alex engage his ‘hunting chatter’ was when he spotted my husband eating a hotdog! Why would they undergo the work of chewing through skin and fur when there’s a bowl of tender chunks back at home? So we either find yourself with a cat that’s hunting and eating food it doesn’t need, with the danger of picking up various diseases in the method, or one which is catching prey to either kill or play with. I’m not suggesting that these cats are cruel, they are only following an instinct they not have a necessity for.
But I do wonder if knowingly allowing our cats to chase and kill wild animals once they don’t have to, is irresponsible, if not cruel.
Cyril, Clutch and Alex after a hunt
Giving Our Cats the Thrill of the Hunt
I feel it’s necessary to recollect where our cats have come from, and that they still have lots of the urges and instincts of their wild counterparts, but that doesn’t mean we must always ignore the proven fact that they aren’t wild anymore. A part of being answerable for the animals in our lives is keeping them protected, and on condition that allowing your cat to hunt comes with the extra risks of roads, predators, parasites, infections, and conflict with other cats, it seems to me that providing them with alternative routes to flex their predatory muscles is a much safer technique to ensure their needs are being met.
And let’s face it, if my spoiled cats don’t have a life price living, I don’t know who does!
