Zookeeping
Jun. 17th, 2015 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So I've been rather torn over whether to make the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee strictly indoor cats or if they get to be indoor-outdoor. All our cats so far have been the latter variety, but this was before we knew just how ecologically destructive they are.
I'm still thinking it may be only supervised Outside Time, but just in case, I figured I'd start training them early on wearing jingle collars so that it will be much more difficult to sneak up on animals.*
Which means that they get to try out collars!
... I think I may have broken their nervous systems.
Seriously, they spent the first hour or so flipping around like ground flowers. And then they mostly forgot about them. Starbuck has worked out how to snap the breakaway, and I just keep putting it back on her when she does. I'm hoping she gets used to it enough that she doesn't bother trying to take it off.
They're also still only meeting Fern every so often. Aspen has pointed out that with that and the parrot that the kittens are so interested in, my life has become a variation of the Fox-Grain-Goose riddle. It's at least keeping me busy.
*I don't think they've learned to kill things, but you never know.
I'm still thinking it may be only supervised Outside Time, but just in case, I figured I'd start training them early on wearing jingle collars so that it will be much more difficult to sneak up on animals.*
Which means that they get to try out collars!
... I think I may have broken their nervous systems.
Seriously, they spent the first hour or so flipping around like ground flowers. And then they mostly forgot about them. Starbuck has worked out how to snap the breakaway, and I just keep putting it back on her when she does. I'm hoping she gets used to it enough that she doesn't bother trying to take it off.
They're also still only meeting Fern every so often. Aspen has pointed out that with that and the parrot that the kittens are so interested in, my life has become a variation of the Fox-Grain-Goose riddle. It's at least keeping me busy.
*I don't think they've learned to kill things, but you never know.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 02:07 am (UTC)There's also cat bibs, if the kittens figure out how to not jingle their collars.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-07-03 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 02:28 am (UTC)On the other hand, sometimes I want to let them out just *so* they can be destructive on the rodent ecosystem when the gophers are being nuclear level destructive on the garden.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 05:44 am (UTC)It's kind of funny, we just got her a collar (because my grandmother just recently decided to start letting her outside), and she totally doesn't care. I was playing with it the other night while she was on my lap, and even at its tightest, it's ridiculously loose on her, and she could have it off in a hot second if she wanted to.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 09:31 am (UTC)Of the two indoor-outdoor cats of my childhood, one would probably have been fine being an indoor-only cat, and the other (acquired as an adult stray) would probably have been very cross (and routinely brought us home dead rats and pigeons -- I don't remember any other birds in the mix, but it has been a long time).
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:18 am (UTC)I'm still thinking my best option is supervised Outside Time. We do live next to a national forest, and while three of our in/out cats lived long, happy, healthy lives, one lived a happy, healthy life until suddenly she was eaten by a mountain lion. (At least, that's what we think happened. There was a sick old lion wandering around the neighborhood eating people's pets, and Charlie suddenly disappeared one night, so ...) Fern is a wily old thing, but I don't know if I want to roll the dice completely with these little guys.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 12:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-06-18 09:03 pm (UTC)If I had room in my house, I'd probably bring the barn cats inside as well, but as it is, all I can do is make sure they have monthly flea and tick protection and annual shots--and catching one of them for those shots is really difficult.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:22 am (UTC)I'm thinking supervised backyard time is our best option at this point. Fortunately fleas and ticks aren't a big nuisance around here.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 12:05 am (UTC)On the other hand, the squirrels and grackles can all take care of themselves, so with rare exceptions, they don't seem to do in much of anything except for bugs and mice, none of which are particularly endangered around here. So the guilt remains mild, and the cat boxes remain much more manageable. I at least feel good about Foster's inside-outside habits: he goes outside to stare at the grass and then poop, he comes back inside, that is about the whole of it. He's seventeen and laid-back. He's not gonna murder anything; he won't even eat kibble anymore, just wet food.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-19 06:26 am (UTC)The Itty Bitty Kitty Committee got mobbed by the scrub jays while they were out on the deck a few days ago. I felt like we had hit some kind of Baby's First milestone.
no subject
Date: 2015-06-20 10:32 am (UTC)My very orange kitteh got dive-bombed by a couple of fieldfares the very first time he went outside. They didn't bother our old tabby, but the ginger was obviously just Too Colourful.