Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Is Zip really at risk living outdoors day and night?

Sure.

Many of you have followed the minor but intense firestorm caused by some animal rights people because we chose not to let Zip sleep in the house at night. I wrote a lot about it. As foolish as the flap was, it was also hurtful to be accused of willful cruelty to an animal you come to love by strangers who know neither one of us.

But this is part of the other American pandemic – the once sacred idea of privacy and leaving others to their lives has been swept away by the digital tsunami,

To me, animals’ most urgent right is to remain with people—us—  and exist on the planet. I’d love to join a group that fights for that.

I have important work for Zip to do, and I will care for him, love him, and protect him because, in part, I need him to do it. Working and domestic animals that don’t have work to do with people who care for them are rapidly becoming extinct.

One of those problematic issues is Zip’s safety and that of other barn cats.  Is he at risk of living outside?

My ethics call out to me, so I wanted to do additional research on the truth about outdoor cats and barn cats and how it relates to animals and pets that most urban people never see or learn about—those that live outside for different reasons, some by choice or circumstance.

I am not black-and-white; every issue has two or more sides, and I often like to hear all of them.

Animal welfare groups, like Republican politicians, used to be rational and function in the middle, helping animals in trouble rather than hunting down and harassing the people who live with them. Nothing was happening with Zip in my mind to justify the death threats and lies coming at me for loving Zip in my way.

I decided to consider the question and share my thoughts and feelings honestly and openly.

It isn’t too late, at least for me.

I contacted several people who helped me research this issue while writing animal books. One is a biologist; two are seasoned and knowledgeable vets who have worked with feral and outdoor barn cats for years, written about them, and studied them.

Unlike most animal rights people I’ve heard from, I  trust and respect scientists, experts, and vets who go to school for six years and accumulate enormous debt to help animals. They are worth listening to.

Sadly, I chose not to reveal their names; they don’t need to receive the messages I have gotten as a punishment for speaking openly.

Here’s where I landed so far:

There are clear risks to cats like Zip, who live outdoors. The issue is not whether it’s too warm or cold—outdoor cats know how to keep warm, and we have provided Zip with a heated cat house in the barn if needed. That’s a bogus issue. Countless cats live here and go outside in the winter; they don’t freeze to death if fed and offered shelter. They would make for lousy furbabies.

Like humans, there is no such thing as a risk-free, trouble-free life for an animal, not in the country or the city.

The idea of working animals working is almost always seen as abuse and exploitation in modern times, as fewer and fewer people grow up around working animals or know much about them.

Too bad. That’s a tragedy. The history of working animals like dogs, cats, horses, and ponies is glorious and should be cherished, not banned.

We have always needed working animals like horses and dogs—even elephants—to help us build our society and culture, and we need them now more than ever as the cost of electricity, drought, and the planet’s heating make energy expensive, even impossible. We are ingrates. Instead of being grateful for them, we allow an animal-hate group to drive them away and take away their animal.

The genuine risks for Zip have nothing to do with the weather but are rarely discussed. Zip has a half-dozen places to keep warm and dry here on the farm. Barn cats know how to do that. The idea that he is being abused for being outdoors is simply ridiculous and false.

But that doesn’t mean there are risks, and the question is whether or not we want to take them, not whether they can survive us.

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One threat is being run over by cars and trucks. Many outdoor and outdoor/indoor cats around here die in that way.

Smart barn cats never go near the road; they have no reason to and don’t like trucks and strange cars. They seem to sense it’s not safe. None of the three barn cats we have lived with for years have ever set food on the road or tried to cross it.

The beauty of barn cats is that they are naturally adapted to their primary work—keeping the farm and its animals free of rats and rodents.

Rats are a grave danger to people, dogs, other cats, sheep, donkeys, and birds. Everyone who lives on a farm fears them.

Rats and other rodents spread several fatal bacterial infections. Dogs can become infected by direct contact (from a rat bite or eating a rat) and indirect contact (drinking urine-contaminated water or licking contaminated soil). Farm animals die all the time from infections spread by rats. Humans can also become sick and gravely ill.

No healthy farm—where the animals many of us eat live and feed us —can function safely with rats, diseased mice, or other rodents. Barn cats are cherished on almost every farm because they hunt and kill rats and thus protect our pets, the animals we live with, and the food that goes to market. In just a few weeks, Zip cleared out the pigeons wrecking the hay loft, and the rats invading our kitchen were also gone. That’s what we hired him for; as a bonus, we got a happy and loving animal.

He will keep them away, but not if he lives in the farmhouse every night.

Anyone who knows barn cats knows that a cat who sleeps inside the house will not spend much time in the barn at night hunting rats and mice. They can quickly lose their skills and interest. And he must keep the farm rat-free for the safety of every animal living here.

That’s not an opinion; it’s a thoroughly documented fact. Imagine the effect on agriculture if infectious diseases were discovered in supermarket food. Barn cats have done an excellent service; remember what caused the plague in Europe? It has never come here.

I’ve never heard an animal rights person worry about a cow or horse or sheep or dog – or human – getting sick and dying from a rat-transferred infection. It happens all of the time.

We had a rat infestation shortly after our first two barn cats died (they lived long and healthy lives living outdoors and never wanted to come into the house until they were old and dying). We let them in then, as we would certainly do with Zip.

The second most severe threat to barn cats is predators that can and hunt cats – coyotes, raccoons, ferrets, weasels, dogs, bears, and hawks.

In 20 years of our rural lives, we suffered one attack on a cat, which was an assault on Minnie that cost her a leg. We never figured out which predator had come into the farm or why she wasn’t killed. We had the leg amputated, and she recovered and resumed her life as an outdoor barn cat. She hunted to the end.

I want to pause and talk about risk. As pets have become family members and emotional support dogs in recent years, animal lovers have begun to embrace the idea that animals must live without risk or danger, much like children. In modern culture, children are expected to have no problems or troubles, and teachers, not parents, are blamed for their misbehavior, indifference, or distraction.

The idea of dog love has evolved – dogs should be guarded against any trouble or danger and kept alive by any means possible for as long as possible, no matter their suffering. It is considered cruel to let a dog with cancer die; many are subject to significant and painful, and expensive surgeries they can’t understand or approve of.

My life is not without risk. Neither is yours.

The animal world is fierce when it comes to one animal eating another. That is how the real animal world works. That’s how they live and survive.

We can make it difficult for predators and safe for Zip – we have. Predators rarely come near a house with donkeys; they are guard animals.

We humans take risks every time we go outside of our homes. Thousands of Americans die from gun violence, children are butchered in schools, and shoppers are targeted at Walmart stores, airplanes sometimes crash, bridges collapse, tornadoes level whole towns, so do wildfires.

When we go out, we can be killed by drunk drivers, runaway trucks, mud and ice slides, fire and flood, the absence of health care, poor diets, and greedy pharmaceuticals. Two tourists were maimed and killed by bears in a National Park recently, and an alligator on the edge of the Magic Kingdom at Disney World killed a two-year-old boy.

I accept risk as a part of being alive; I give my dogs (and cats) the same opportunity. And yes, that is a way some barn cats could die. That is the way just about any animal in the country can die.

Risk is part of life and part of life for every animal that lives for a while in every country.

Evidence shows that barn cats given shelter, fed, and taken for vaccines and veterinary checks live long and healthy lives.

But yes, there is undoubtedly danger out there for all living things. Bringing an outdoor cat into the house at night is also risky. We have a cat, a rat-hunting Boston Terrier inside, a mellow Lab, and a high, intense border collie. Zip would be in danger inside.

Parasites can be difficult to eradicate from a pet, inside or outside the home. Ringworm is also a zoonotic disease that can be passed on to people who come into contact with a cat.

Although indoor cats are less likely to be injured by cars as long as they are fully vaccinated and healthy, every vet I’ve spoken with says that outdoor cats can live just as long as indoor cats. However, indoor cats can still develop diseases or illnesses that shorten their lifespan.

They can claw and draw blood, just as any dog can bite or get aggressive if provoked.

Vets also warn of risks for indoor cats; cats often develop diseases and illnesses that shorten their lifespans and can be transmitted to humans. They rarely get enough exercise and are prone to kidney diseases.

The idea that the outdoors is dangerous but life inside is without risk is not justified by any studies, biologists, or veterinarians.

I can think of nothing crueler than forcing Zip into the house. He loves roaming pastures all night, looking for small critters to pounce on and kill. That is his nature, his call to the wild. I’ll never let cowardly strangers hide behind computer screens away from him in the night.

But I will be candid: Zip will hunt birds and other animals he doesn’t need to hunt and eat, and we don’t want him to hunt and eat. To me, that is the most severe issue about his living outdoors. But we need to balance that against the need to protect the farm. It is a complex choice or one I am at ease with. But it’s the truth.  That is a much more serious issue for me than the dopey suggestion that a wild and outdoor cat can’t live outside in the winter. That is the mark of the no nothing.

I wish I had an answer to this that makes me comfortable.

Indoor cats often gain weight, find unhealthy food and damaged surfaces, and scratch or claw adults and children. For many breeds of cats, living inside is not a natural way to live; they can’t roam and hunt, which is not the healthiest path for any animal.

My point is simple. We all take risks with our lives, and Maria and I have decided the risk the dangers Zip faces to keep our farm and animals healthy outside so he can live the life he was meant to live, something he very clearly enjoys.

We would be heartsick if Zip died or was killed by a predator. Would I regret keeping him out of the house? No, not for a minute. Zip is as happy and engaged as any animal I’ve ever had or known. I want to give him tis gift of a natural life, not the enclosed life of an emotional support animal. I am giving Zip the life he wants and deserves. It’s no one’s decision but mine and Maria’s.

I’ll accept the risk that he takes. That’s my decision and Maria’s decision, not the decision of somehow abused strangers who have no idea how to be civil.

Every day of his life is a good one. I sometimes wonder if the people writing me these disgusting notes think they love Zip, whom they have never met, more than I and Maria do. They have never met either.

I love my life, risks and all. I wish the same for Zip, Zinnia, Fate, Bud, and their comrades in our world.