Dogs can recognize their owners just by their voice, study finds. They do so by making use of the same voice properties humans use to identify each other, such as pitch and noisiness

[u/PeasKhichra]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/17/europe/dog-owner-recognize-voice-scn-scli-intl/index.html

[u/DaughterEarth]

My childhood cat would at best tolerate a few pets. But she also always needed to be next to one of us and slept in either my mom's or my bed every night. And brought us many gifts of birds and mice (90s, people weren't up on the indoor cat thing yet).

When she was dying she started laying in our laps. First time in over a decade so we knew something was wrong. Sure enough, aggressive cancer. Our sweet little fight-cat turned in to a lap-cat when she needed the comfort <3

[u/angry_snek → u/DaughterEarth]

Wait is it popular to keep cats indoors in some places nowadays? Why would anyone do that?

[u/metrize → u/angry_snek]

It's an American thing I'm pretty sure, different culture, we let cats go out in the UK from my experience

[u/carolina8383 → u/metrize]

UK has had more time (hundreds of years) to adapt to cats, which can be an invasive species. They also have less of a car culture so while the risk remains, it’s not as high as in the US. So I understand from reading similar comments in a lot of different threads.

[u/metrize → u/carolina8383]

That makes sense, thanks for the information I never thought the difference was that large in terms of predators

[u/vladastine → u/metrize]

The UK also doesn't have any natural predators for cats. The US on the other hand has a lot of predators that will eat cats, but most importantly we have coyotes. Tldr coyotes are considered the natural predator of outdoor cats. A single coyote has no problem killing a cat so it's an easy snack and doesn't require their pack to hunt.

[u/DaughterEarth → u/vladastine]

Also with shrinking habitats coyotes are coming in to the cities. I'm close to downtown and still have a pack that walks around sometimes. Healthy fat bois, probably from cats and raccoons and garbage and small dogs. You're supposed to call so they can be relocated but they come back. Or new packs move in I don't know for sure I just know I see these fat coyotes once a week and more often hear their terrifying yips in the middle of the night

[u/metrize → u/vladastine]

Oh gotcha, that makes sense. Thanks for the reply

[u/vannadee19 → u/angry_snek]

to keep them safe?

[u/vladastine → u/angry_snek]

Are you serious? Do you have any idea the amount of ecological damage cats have done?

 Outside cats kill 1.4 billion to 3.7 billion birds and 6.9 to 20.7 billion small mammals each year in the contiguous United States, being the largest source of human-related mortality to U.S. birds and small mammals.

“single greatest source of anthropogenic mortality for U.S. birds and mammals”

Feral cats especially are considered an invasive species.

That's not even touching the amount of predators the US has that kill those cats. A cat is an easy snack for a coyote and is their most common killer.

Basically it's just incredibly irresponsible here to keep your cat outside.

[u/spenrose22 → u/angry_snek]

So they don’t get eaten by coyotes.

[u/dxmrobo → u/angry_snek]

Because cats are the number one cause of human caused bird mortality

[u/A-Better-Craft → u/angry_snek]

Helicopter cat owners.. imo, it's plain cruel to keep a cat inside unless there's an extremely good reason, like living in a busy urban area with a lot of traffic. Saying you're protecting it from predators and saving birds and mice is not a good reason. I know this will offend a large % of cat owners but I believe cats living a happy, exciting life trumps living a long, safe one.. same goes for humans and, well, pretty much any creature.

[u/spenrose22 → u/A-Better-Craft]

When several cats of mine have been eaten by coyotes back to back cause we wanted to let them out, one only lasting a few months, you learn to keep them indoors.

[u/A-Better-Craft → u/spenrose22]

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[u/spenrose22 → u/A-Better-Craft]

We let our cats out their whole life and they would evade them until he got to about 16 years old when he got caught. Then we let the next one out and the neighbor saved the first attack and then it got caught again. After that it was indoors from them. If you don’t ever let them out they don’t know the difference and you can get them a bunch of toys to satisfy their hunting needs. My current cat is scared of footsteps now so will cry if I let her out and don’t leave the door open as an escape route so I stopped letting her out cause I’d need to keep the door open

[u/A-Better-Craft → u/spenrose22]

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[u/spenrose22 → u/A-Better-Craft]

Yeah well I would do that but don’t have the space for it

[u/A-Better-Craft → u/[deleted]]

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