My cats are fully vaccinated, microchipped, and Frontlined and never, ever go out at night. They are only allowed outside while we are home and spend the majority of that time flopped on the patio chairs. Byron is, as Drew says, 13 and in amazing health. Mia is 7.

The truth is that I had intended Byron to be an indoor cat (per shelter request) when I adopted him at 10 weeks old, but I was in college, and when Byron spent a semester at my mom's rural house without me, she started letting him out. Not really anything I could do about it, although I was angry at the time. Once he'd been allowed to go outside, the cat was literally out of the bag. In the 13 years since, I've found that I can't keep him inside full-time; he gets destructive if he's not allowed to have some outdoors time. I love this cat more than I have ever loved an animal and have cherished him through my entre adult life, and I know him really well. If he weren't allowed outside, he would be miserable, and he would make me miserable too. So yes, I let him out for a few hours at a time during the day when I'm home. We live in a safe neighborhood with a big back yard, and he's happy as can be.

Mia was an indoor kitty for the first six years of her life, but I made the choice to let her out with Byron once we moved to this house. She has lost weigh and is much more confident since I started doing so.

I have no problem with people deciding it's too dangerous to let cats out, and I understand that concern completely. I've made the decisions I felt were best for my animals given our circumstances over the years, and they are happy critters.

I've noticed that the ones adopted from The Great Outdoors never, ever want to go Out ever again.

Interesting! My mom had the exact opposite experience. Two of her three cats were adopted from the outside and they love going out. Things are very good for them at Mom's house (ask ND about how pampered her cats are), but the call of the wild is strong for them, I guess.

It IS kind of funny how the adopted ones react to Going Outside. I once took Floyd out as a treat, but he got really anxious and begged to go back in. I think he was afraid I was dumping him.

The Phil Rizzuto obit is a great obit. It was probably one of the Times' prewritten obits.

My cats were always in and out cats, and I mean that literally. My role was cat doorman. They almost always stayed in the yard, usually inside the fence with the dogs, and we brought them in at night. The dogs always got along fine with "their" cats, even though they'd bark fiercely at the dangerous foreign cats, and two kittens grew up thinking that a dog's fluffy tail was the perfect cat toy. I have found that cats that have a chance to go outside don't do much tearing up of the furniture.

I think it's bullshit that the rescue doesn't think great adoptive kitten owners are responsible enough to make that call themselves. They do the checking, they meet you guys. That should be enough. They're pushing perfectly good applicants out the door and leaving some poor kitten in a shelter situation because they're being stupid.

I chose the gym today and the kids did well in the daycare.

I'm down to walking a mile in 16 minutes and 23 seconds. When I started two months ago, it took me nearly 20 minutes to walk a mile. My goal is to be able to do a mile in 15 minutes (which is what I could walk it in college).

That's darned good, Cashmere.

I need to mark off a mile and see what I can do. I wak around the neighborhood, but I've never bothered to check how far I'm actually going.

We once had a cat - classically beautiful but dumb as a box of rocks kitty - who wanted out in the worst possible way. One night - it was a dark and stormy night - she got out. We found her about half an hour later, huddled next to the door, meowing pitifully to be let in. But ... dumb. She still wanted out and tried to escape every chance she got. (she didn't have any sense of direction either - when she did escape neighbors would have to haul her back, since she had no idea how to get home)

Cash, that rocks!

If it wasn't so damned hot here right now I'd be doing more walking outside. If I weren't so damned lazy I'd be at the nice air-conditioned gym more often. The latter is definitely more of a problem than the former.

I need to mark off a mile and see what I can do. I wak around the neighborhood, but I've never bothered to check how far I'm actually going.

zenkitty, you could use this:

[link]

to figure out how far you're going. it's super fun!

Our cats are indoor cats. We would take Dread Beastie outside every now and then because former housemates of mine got in the habit of leaving doors open, and Beastie had gotten used to going outside.

But we're not taking the boycats outside. I don't trust that we'd be able to keep them in the yard, and they seem perfectly happy running around the house. Not to mention we signed a contract with the place we adopted them from promising they'd be indoor cats.

When we went downstairs to feed them this morning, there was an enormous squashed spider. They're earning their keep!