Protecting Your Indoor Kitty

The other day I was walking my dog in our favourite off-leash beach, and I noticed a strange-looking baby stroller go by. It was completely covered and had a window screen at the front to allow its occupant a view. Not quite.

To my surprise, it turned out the occupant wasn’t Bubble Boy, but a large tabby cat.

I’d seen elderly dogs wheeled around, but a cat? For cat owners, there is no controversy more ongoing than the question of whether or not to allow one’s favourite feline outdoors. Some will go to great lengths to make up for indoor confinement, such as the owner of this tabby did, wheeling her big guy around in a covered stroller to get his fresh air and entertainment for the day.

It doesn’t stop there.

The owner of an indoor cat can purchase cat-proof fencing, outdoor cages, runs, pens and harnesses to keep their little prowler properly contained while outside. The belief is that an indoor cat is kept safe from getting lost, stolen, or killed by another animal, or becoming the target of cruelty or an accident, as well as health hazards such as poison, disease and parasites.

The Humane Society of the U.S. estimates the average life expectancy of an outdoor, roaming cat to be 3 to 5 years, while the indoor kitty averages 17-plus years. Though my cat, Mrs. Peel, lived to the ripe old age of 20 and enjoyed moseying around the great outdoors, I can understand the fear.

If anyone has ever seen an animal suffer from ingesting anti-freeze fluid, you’d probably quite happily push your pet around in a stroller for the rest of its life.

Some people even keep their cat indoors to protect other living creatures from their cat, such as the estimated millions of birds that become kitty bait each year. In her wild youth, Mrs. Peel was also a rather skilled and relentless menace to the bird population.

The reasons for denying one’s cat the not-so-great outdoors are therefore plenty. The only argument against it, really, is that it’s worth the risk if kitty’s happiness is at stake. In other words, an indoor life is not a life worth having for a cat, or so goes my own logic. It’s also something of a hassle, especially in summer months when you’d like to leave your doors and windows open.

But let’s say you want to wean your cat off the roaming life and keep her happy indoors? Make the inside of your home appealing, for starters. Create inviting places to lie in the window and bask in the sun; ensure there are scratching posts and clean litter boxes (one per cat) available; keep toys and cat nip around.

And if it becomes impossible for your cat to adapt to the shut-in life, consider all the outdoor options out there for runs, pens, fencing — and of course, the stroller.

Cat's Meow

The Cheshire cat explained to Alice in Wonderland "a dog growls when it is angry, and wags its tail when it is pleased. Now, I growl when I am pleased and wag my tail when I am angry. Therefore, I am mad".

All cat owners will be familiar with the warning sign of a swishing tail when "puss" is displeased and the purr of contentment when everything is going puss's way, but there are many other ways in which the cat expresses its emotions or communicates with its owner.

Owners may notice that when the cat is sitting on their lap it slowly blinks and momentarily shuts its eyes. This is a cat's way of saying "I feel safe and I trust you" and has sometimes been described as a "cat kiss". If the owner gives a soft smile and blinks slowly many cats will respond by blinking back. When the cat is in this mood it will often appear mesmerized and knead the owner's lap or arm with its front paws, often with the claws extended which can be quite uncomfortable for the owner. Nonetheless it is a sign of affection and contentment - for the cat!

Cats also pat with their paws. In contrast to the defensive for angry swipe with claws out, the gentle pat with claws retracted is the cat's way of getting attention or inviting play. Many cats will gently tap their sleeping owner's eyelids when the cat believes it is getting up time!

On returning home, the cat owner will be greeted by "meow" which with a little imagination may sound like "hello". This particular meow will be quite distinctive and used only as a greeting. It is quite unlike the "meow" to remind you it is meal time. The cat will also rub around the owner's legs and purr and the tail will be carried flag-like in greeting.

The owner who has upset the cat will also be familiar with the rear view of their departing cat - with its erect tail and stiff legged haughty walk which very clearly demonstrates the distain with which mere humans should be treated!

A cat will also express contempt through grooming. Who hasn't noticed the cat sitting just out of reach of a dog and washing behind its ears with a look of total disinterest.

The cat is a most complex creature which has learnt that there is mutual benefit in living with humans who will provide food and warmth and comfort. In turn, humans gain the benefit of companionship and entertainment from a pet which is quiet, clean and undemanding.

Pet theories

American researchers have discovered that owning a pet can significantly reduce your risk of a common cancer.

The body of evidence supporting the notion that pet ownership is good for your health grew even fatter this month. A new study, published in Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, found that keeping animals can cut the risk of developing the relatively common cancer of the immune system, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, by almost one third.

"The idea that pets and good health are associated goes back 20 years or more," says Dr June McNicholas, a psychologist who has researched the relationship between people and their pets. The catalogue of health plusses can't all be attributed to regular dogwalking however. When a study suggested that people who own pets have better cardiac health, says McNicholas, "one of the significant factors in people recovering well from a heart attack was owning a pet, but it wasn't just dogs. It applied equally to cats." Here are some of the many ways in which pets have been found to strengthen our constitutions.

Pets are good for cardiac health

The Baker Medical Research Institute in Australia studied 6,000 people and found that those who kept animals had lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol - and therefore, a lower risk of heart attack. Another study, conducted at the University of Minnesota and published earlier this year, concluded that cat owners were 40% less likely to suffer a fatal heart attack than people who didn't have a cat. Adnan Qureshi, the neurology professor who led the study of nearly 4,500 people, said he believed that people who stroked their cat experienced less stress and anxiety and therefore were at a lower risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.

Pets boost the immune system

This month, a study by researchers from Stanford University and the University of California found that regular exposure to a cat or a dog could reduce one's chance of developing non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It is thought that exposure to allergens - from cats and dogs - could boost the immune system.

The immune-boosting power of pets is something that McNicholas has also investigated. In 2002, she studied 256 primary school children and found that children aged from five to seven from pet-owning households attended school for three weeks more than those who didn't. "We found that children brought up with pets had more stable immune systems. There have been other studies which suggest that children born into a household that already has a dog or a cat are less likely to develop asthma. Moderate exposure [to allergens] will prime the immune system." Meanwhile, a study in Japan found that pet owners over the age of 65 made almost a third fewer visits to their GP than people the same age who didn't have pets.

Dogs can act as a health warnings

After 20 years working for the charity Hearing Dogs for the Deaf, Claire Guest was struck by the story of a colleague whose dog had repeatedly sniffed at a mole on her leg before it was diagnosed as a malignant melanoma. Guest went on to work with researchers at Amersham hospital in Buckinghamshire, to discover whether dogs could be trained to detect bladder cancer in urine samples, and found that they could.

Similarly, in 2006, a cancer research centre in California published a study which found that ordinary household dogs could be trained to detect early breast and lung cancer between 88% and 97% of the time, by sniffing people's breath - it is thought that these particular cancer cells give off miniscule traces of volatile odours that dogs can smell. The idea is that, once they have worked out which odours dogs are detecting and which cancers emit them, a diagnostic machine could be developed.

Guest also trains dogs to warn owners with Type 1 diabetes of an impending hypoglycaemic, or low blood sugar, episode - they usually alert their owners by jumping up. "We don't know exactly how the dogs do it, but again they pick up on scent because they sniff the person before deciding whether to warn them or not. Because they also have a relationship with their owner, they may be able to pick up on other signs."

Pets can improve self-esteem and decrease the likelihood of depression

"There have been studies that have suggested pet owners are more likely to have higher self-worth and are less likely to suffer loneliness and depression," says Dr Deborah Wells, senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Belfast, who has conducted several studies on the benefits of pet ownership. "Dogs seem to bring people the biggest benefits - you have to get out and walk them every day, and they can act as a social catalyst."

Wells says pets are particularly useful for children. "Pets can become like a therapist, for want of a better word. If children are bullied at school, or their parents are getting divorced, children will often tell their pets their problems whereas they wouldn't always talk to a person."

The charity Pets As Therapy has been running for 25 years and has 4,000 dogs and 106 cats, which visit 120,000 people in hospitals, hospices, care homes, day care centres and schools for children with special needs every week. "We started taking dogs into nursing homes, because elderly people had had to give up their pets when they went in and it was making them depressed and in many cases ill," says Maureen Fennis, the chief executive. "At one nursing home, there was a lady who used to say the visits were her reason for staying alive."

The routine and "normality" of having a pet can help people suffering a traumatic event, such as bereavement or a diagnosis of terminal illness. In one study, McNicholas found that people with animals to care for adjusted far better after the death of someone close than those without pets. "We live in a society where we do not like to cry in front of people," she adds, "but there are a large number of people who can cry in front of their pets" ·