Moving to HK - Indoor or outdoor cats

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  1. #1

    Moving to HK - Indoor or outdoor cats

    Hi, I’m going to be relocating to Hong Kong in the coming months with my husband and two British Shorthair cats. They are both outdoor cats who love roaming in the outdoors and bringing back little presents consisting of shrew and mice! Yuk! Even though we are both going to be working in Central, with the cats in mind, we are looking at living in Clear Water Bay Area to secure a village house with ample room for them to be indoor cats.

    My worry is that they will drive themselves stir crazy being indoor cats, so will look to buy them all sorts of climbing apparatus and games to stimulate them.

    Has as anyone has to convert their cats to indoor cats, or has anyone been fine in letting their cats be outdoor cats? I worry that they will contract something, get bitten by a snake or simply stolen if I let them out.

    Ive toyed with the idea of giving them up but it breaks my heart, they are my fur babies.

    Thank you in advance!


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Posts
    217

    A good compromise is to get a village house with a rooftop (i.e. top floor or whole house), then your cats can safely spend time outside on the roof. It's true that letting cats roam outside in HK is not safe - we keep hearing about instances of cats killed by aggressive dogs or snakes.


  3. #3

    Join Date
    Nov 2009
    Location
    Tuen Mun
    Posts
    2,074

    My own experience is that a cat who enjoys the great outdoors will find its way out eventually!

    I inherited one very friendly fella from a family where he had lived in a G/F village house - he learned to push around the side of the flyscreen and then nudge the window open so he could go and visit the neighbours! Fortunately I also live on the ground floor and he was happy to have a window left a bit open so he could come and go at will. The local dogs learned to leave him alone, but he at some stage acquired FIV (doubtless from seeing off one of the local strays), and he died an untimely death (7 yrs) of kidney failure.

    I then inherited a senior cat - at that stage living on 1/F. She stayed in for about 9 months, then also managed to get around the metal flyscreen and leaped to her freedom one night. 3 years later, aged 18, she's still absolutely fine, still talks to me and accepts food, but has no interest at all in coming inside again, even in the worst of weather.

    A neighbour's cat is fine indoors most of the time, but occasionally sneaks out (nobody knows how) and spends a few days exploring before returning home and waiting outside the door for the human slaves to let him in for the next several months.


  4. #4

    Join Date
    Dec 2013
    Location
    Hong Kong
    Posts
    12,323

    We live on a boat and a neighbour of ours has a cat. It ranges around on the outside of the boat and the dock. And occasionally even falls in the water. Even that has not convinced it to stay inside! I think cats are hard to change. We left our cat behind when we moved to Asia - it was sad but he was much happier with my parents.


  5. #5

    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Posts
    2,485

    Our cat managed to jump down from our village rooftop,I went down to top up my coffee and when I came back he was sniffing around the carpark! Still not sure how he managed it(on the aircons I think), needless to say he's not left alone on the roof anymore.