Hey guys, I'm new to the forum
I've been living with mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, everything since I'm 3 years old, now I'm 19, so I have a few years experience. I breed reptiles on my own time. Right now we have 3 dogs, 4 cats and 5 lizards (the lizards being mine, as is one of the cats, Venus, who's a diabetic but I got him into remission
and I should mention that the only reason we HAVE the cats is because of me, my parents are not very fond of them, though they love them, but I'd rather not get any more into detail about that)..
Anyways, one of our cats is a feral, he was born outdoors 13 years ago in a litter of 3, the mother and 2 other brothers have all passed on. Garfield is this cat's name. We've always taken care of him, he's had his shots, he has a cat house with heat lamps, twice daily food and ample affection day and night (especially at night when I go outside to sit with him, he protects me from the raccoons and skunks LOL). Over this past year I've noticed his jaw has been hanging open occasionally, and he just looks looks like he's aging over all. He moves slower than he used to, though we still find the occasional dead rodent on our stoop, he's not as active or with it as he used to be. He relies mostly on his sense of smell when I give him treats or even food as he has trouble seeing short distances too. He also gets into what are seemingly nightly altercations (even if it's just one paw to the face) with other cats and mammals.. He's been outdoors his entire life, but out winters here go down to -45C sometimes, and we get at the very least a good 3-4 feet of snow. I worry he may get stuck somewhere this winter and not be able to get out during heavy snow fall, or he may not see a car coming due to his poor eye sight, etc.
So my question is, at this point in his life, would it be unfair to him to bring him indoors (since he's had free roam his entire life) or should we maybe bring him in on colder/stormy days and let him go out after the storm type thing, or what? All of our indoor cats are declawed, so if we brought him in, he would have to either live in one room (not really fair) or wear nail caps of sorts, unless there are other options you could offer. I wouldn't want to jeopardize the safety of our current indoor pets however I feel Garfield is at the end of the line and he may not survive this winter, especially with the weird change in climate/weather we've been experiencing lately.
Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks so much!
I've been living with mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, everything since I'm 3 years old, now I'm 19, so I have a few years experience. I breed reptiles on my own time. Right now we have 3 dogs, 4 cats and 5 lizards (the lizards being mine, as is one of the cats, Venus, who's a diabetic but I got him into remission
Anyways, one of our cats is a feral, he was born outdoors 13 years ago in a litter of 3, the mother and 2 other brothers have all passed on. Garfield is this cat's name. We've always taken care of him, he's had his shots, he has a cat house with heat lamps, twice daily food and ample affection day and night (especially at night when I go outside to sit with him, he protects me from the raccoons and skunks LOL). Over this past year I've noticed his jaw has been hanging open occasionally, and he just looks looks like he's aging over all. He moves slower than he used to, though we still find the occasional dead rodent on our stoop, he's not as active or with it as he used to be. He relies mostly on his sense of smell when I give him treats or even food as he has trouble seeing short distances too. He also gets into what are seemingly nightly altercations (even if it's just one paw to the face) with other cats and mammals.. He's been outdoors his entire life, but out winters here go down to -45C sometimes, and we get at the very least a good 3-4 feet of snow. I worry he may get stuck somewhere this winter and not be able to get out during heavy snow fall, or he may not see a car coming due to his poor eye sight, etc.
So my question is, at this point in his life, would it be unfair to him to bring him indoors (since he's had free roam his entire life) or should we maybe bring him in on colder/stormy days and let him go out after the storm type thing, or what? All of our indoor cats are declawed, so if we brought him in, he would have to either live in one room (not really fair) or wear nail caps of sorts, unless there are other options you could offer. I wouldn't want to jeopardize the safety of our current indoor pets however I feel Garfield is at the end of the line and he may not survive this winter, especially with the weird change in climate/weather we've been experiencing lately.
Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks so much!