QUALITY OF LIFE ISSUES

October 2, 2005

“What kind of life do the cats have when there are so many of them living together? Wouldn’t it be better to euthanize them?”

We don’t euthanize healthy cats (see our “No-Kill Policy” elsewhere on this website). If their living conditions or “quality of life” were to be considered “poor,” we would do everything possible to make the necessary improvements.

            But, what is “poor?” And who says it’s poor? To a cat that has been living in the lap of luxury, is living in our outdoor habitat with other cats considered “poor?” By whom? The cat? Or by people who live a luxurious lifestyle? To the cat that ate out of dumpsters and garbage cans, is eating out of food bowls at the sanctuary better or worse?

Quality of life issues are often discussed by people who have no experience providing care for large numbers of cats. These people are typically from our industry: Animal Control people, animal shelter people, and animal adoption groups. They are often considered the “authorities” by the general public.

            But these people rarely have to deal with more than 50 animals at a time and the nature of their work is quite different from ours (i.e., we provide lifetime care; they regulate or do adoptions). We have found that many of their “quality of life” points of view don’t apply to our situation. In fact, often, when applied to our environment, they are wrong, impossible to implement, or unnecessary.

            What the "authorities" typically fail to recognize is that there are different “quality of life” standards for different environments. They tend to apply quality of life standards that are used for their services to our sanctuary – when, in reality, they don’t apply. What may be unacceptable at a shelter or someone’s home may very well be acceptable – and proper – for our sanctuary and our cats.

Quality of life issues start with “care” issues and proceed to “environmental or living condition” issues.

Good care

Good food, medical care, and activity are the essential care issues for a healthy life.

            We use dry commercial foods for our general population and special foods for our “special diet” cats. Our general population’s food is periodically changed from a “chicken” based mixture to a commercial “lamb and rice” formula because cats can develop, over time, allergies to chicken based products. After the allergies dissipate, we go back to the chicken based mixture. Food mixture changes are done slowly, about 10% per day over a 10 day period.

            Fresh water is available at all times.

            Monitoring the health of our cats is a daily responsibility. Every day all of our animals are looked at by our staff. When a problem appears, the cat is brought to our “infirmary” for evaluation. If we can treat the cat, we follow medical protocols that have been established by our veterinarians. If we can’t treat the problem, we take the cat to one of a number of vets, including specialists, for evaluation. The cat is brought back to our infirmary and given the vet’s recommended treatment.

            Activity keeps our cats mentally and physically healthy. Our daily cleaning and feeding routines often create “play” opportunities for them. And since they are healthy, they can find all kinds of mischief to get into by themselves!

Safety

“Environmental or living condition quality of life” issues start with safety. A safe environment is a “low stress” environment that adds years to a cat’s life. In our habitats there are no dangers, no streets to cross, and no dogs (or wild life) to fight. Life is easy, tranquil. The hardest decision for our cats is whether or not “to sleep” or “go back to sleep!” Nothing to worry about – because everything about living at the sanctuary is safe.

            Contrast that picture with living in the shrubs of a restaurant’s drive-up window, darting between cars to get to the dumpster for food. No matter how good the survivors are at avoiding the cars, stress not only wears them out, but often causes them to make deadly mistakes.

Design of the habitat: to fence or not to fence?

The “design of the habitat” is next on the list of providing a good quality of life.

            When we first started thinking about building a sanctuary, we wanted to create an unfenced habitat that resembled a thicket of small trees, bushes, grassy areas and waterfalls where our cats could freely roam. Many of our cats come from a similar environment.

            If all of our cats were friendly, we might have been able to create this vision. But, most of our cats are feral and don’t want to be picked up. So, how would you pick up a sick feral cat in an open, unfenced, environment?

            There are a number of people who extol the virtues of a “cageless” free roaming cat sanctuary for feral cats. We like the idea, but how are they going to catch a sick feral cat?

            We know it’s virtually impossible – and chasing a sick feral through a wooded habitat will stress all of the cats.

            If we are going to provide medical care for our cats, we have to provide the best possible care. That, to us, is more important than a fenceless habitat. We know first hand that to catch a sick feral cat it has to be confined inside a fenced area or room. To leave the habitat unfenced, compromises our promise to provide the best medical care. Anything less means that we would be willing to let a sick cat go untreated – and to us, that is cruelty.

            Elsewhere on this website we say that “sometimes, we let Mother Nature take over” when there are medical conditions that we can’t treat (e.g., feral cat eye problems). But, to “let Mother Nature deal with all feral cat medical problems” is an irresponsible cop-out when confinement in a fenced habitat, such as ours, allows shelter management the ability to capture and treat almost all sick cats.

            And, those who advocate unfenced free roaming sanctuaries for feral cats are ignoring the fact that sanctuaries have many more cats (with many more medical problems in a more confined space) than colonies in the wild. A sanctuary is not the same as a colony found in the wild.

If you’re feral feeder and have been around cats for a while, you know that when you find a feral male trying to pee over and over and over again it means that he probably has a urinary tract blockage. If it’s happened to you, do you remember being unable to trap it so you could take it to the vet and have the blockage removed? Do you remember being totally helpless knowing that if you didn’t catch the cat soon, it would die? The only hope you had was to wait until it went into a coma when you could finally grab it and rush to the vet to hopefully save its life – if you could find it in the thicket of woods when it collapsed into a coma...?

            Do you remember the hopelessness, the praying to God to help you catch the cat??

            Yes, it’s less expensive and faster to build a fenceless sanctuary. It would be our first choice – if none of our ferals ever got sick, or if all of our cats were friendly (because we could reach down and easily pick them up when they got sick).

            But, because you can’t pick ferals up, we’ve compromised our vision of a fenceless habitat and decided to build totally enclosed habitats.

            It’s a design that helps us provide the best possible quality of life. It’s a design that lets us get “that male feral who can’t pee” to the vet.

Square footage, per cat

How many cats can you put into a fenced habitat? When do the living conditions become too crowded for a decent quality of life?

            Is it too crowded if 12 cats are contained in a 7'W x 7'D x 2'H enclosure (total: 49 square feet, 4.08 square feet per cat)? Guess what! It’s not too crowded according to USDA, State of Florida, and almost all Florida county laws! Four square feet is the legal minimum.

            We think 4 square feet per cat is a bit crowded, but it is legal and if we wanted to put 1,000 cats in a 4,000 square foot habitat, we could do so, legally. We wouldn’t, but we could.

            Depending on where our cats are (inside our “barn” or outside in the habitat), we usually allow 7-10 square feet per cat. This is not counting the additional square footage provided by all of the installed shelving. When the flooring and shelving square footage are combined, it works out to 17-20 square feet per cat.

            We’d love to double or even triple this number of square feet per cat just to let them have more room to roam, more places to sleep! But, for the time being, it’s adequate – particularly in view of the following information.

Virtually no fighting

Square footage per cat, alone, should not, in our opinion, be the only factor when considering how crowded is too crowded? The most important factor is stress: it is too crowded if there is constant fighting among the cats.

            People in our industry – who have no sanctuary experience – usually presume that there will be constant fighting, and, therefore, conclude that the quality of life in a sanctuary must be horrible for the cats. If this were so, we too would agree with this conclusion.

            But, what we’ve found is that if all the cats are sterilized, fighting virtually stops when there is enough “space” per cat. The most that happens when all the cats are fixed and are living in our conditions is an occasional spat when one cat jumps onto a shelf and into another cat’s space. The spat lasts one or two seconds as the first cat looks for someplace else to go.

            It is real easy to judge the stress level at our sanctuary. Just listen for fighting. It’s not too crowded if you hear nothing. It is too crowded if you hear a lot of fighting.

            You hear nothing at our sanctuary.

            Therefore, the square footage allocation per cat that we use must be enough because there is virtually no fighting. And, no fighting means that our cats have a decent quality of life.

Our cats look healthy

Another factor to consider when determining “how crowded is too crowded,” is to look at the cats. Not just for wounds (due to fighting), but to determine if they look healthy and well fed.

            If there are a bunch of skinny unkempt cats, it’s an indication that these cats are unhappy – they’re not eating and grooming themselves. If you find just one or two skinny unkempt cats, they’re probably sick (and need to be brought to our infirmary for medical care).

            The usual reason that there might be a bunch of skinny cats is “timidity.” Timid cats will be the last to eat. If another cat is “guarding” the food (as some do), then these timid cats may not eat and become weak and susceptible to disease. To avoid this “guarding the food supply,” we have multiple “feeding stations” in each habitat so even the timid cats can find unguarded food.

            After listening to our cats (for fighting), the one thing everyone notices about our cats is that they are remarkably healthy and well fed. They look “real good!”

            Sure, with a large population like ours, some will become sick (even die), but our cats are a tad on the “fat side of normal” and have really healthy coats – good signs that they are not “too crowded.”

Cleanliness

How clean is clean? How clean does it have to be?

            The floors in our barn’s “cat rooms,” infirmary, and isolation areas, and the floors in our outdoor habitats are cleaned once a day (365 days a year), usually in the morning.

            Cages and carriers are cleaned daily. Litter pans are scooped or changed daily.

            Sure, some cats will poop on the floor immediately after we clean it, but it’s okay because it gets picked up the next day.

            Food and water bowls are washed on an as needed basis. When we can, we use disposable food and water bowls and litter pans (they’re cheaper than the cost of labor to clean them).

Human contact

Does a good quality of life require human contact? Will the cats be happy without it?

            Most people who don’t deal with feral cats think of all cats as friendly cats who need human attention. They think of their cats at home who constantly beg for attention and, therefore, assume that giving all cats human attention is a necessary ingredient to create a good quality of life.

            Feral feeders know that it is unnecessary. Most ferals don’t want human attention – in fact, they usually run from it. Yes, they will come at feeding time – but will run if you try to touch them. If strangers approach, they run.

            After most ferals eat, they move a few feet away, clean themselves, move again and usually go to the bathroom. Then, they wander away back into the woods. They may hang around to see what else the feeder may give them, but in general, they go back to the business of being a cat!

            The same is true of our feral “10th Lifers.” They know our staff, but once fed, wander off wherever they please! They want to be left alone.

            For the cats that are friendly – and who want attention – it’s hard not to give them the attention they want when we are busy cleaning and feeding them because they swarm around our feet! We give them as much attention as we can.

            But, when we leave, they don’t sit around and cry... they go back to being a cat and seek a soft spot to sleep!

So, how much human attention should we give our cats? Is 24/7 enough? Or, do we need to have 2 people giving each cat who wants attention, attention 24/7? Or do we need 3 people to do it?

            Is one hour enough? Is what we do, enough?

            It is true that we’d like to spend more time with all of our cats and would if we could. But, do our cats need it for a good quality of life? Our ferals don’t. And for the moment, those cats that want attention get enough from our staff.

            It’s enough.