Indoor only here.....busy road in front of the house, woods in the back. My 14 year old cat has been an indoor cat all her life; I don't even know what she'd DO if she got outside! My hubby's cat was an indoor/outoor cat at his old home, but because of the busy road we decided not to let her roam when they moved into my house. She's old enough (11) that she wasn't spending as much time outside as she once did, so it's worked out pretty well. We do have to be careful about open doors with her, though...I think she'd still like to roam the great outdoors......
One cat is declawed but we do let him out during the day. He mostly sits on the deck and meows loudly to be let back inside. He's an older cat, so I don't want him to be outside too long, but like I said, he mostly sits or lays on the deck and basks in the sun.
The other cat is the Great Hunter and spends hours crouched over the mounds of dirt that the moles push up. I make him come in at night, we live on an acre in a semi-rural area just outside of town. I know there's squirrels, skunks, raccoons and maybe (probably) coyotes, plus lots of dogs, so I don't want him outside after dark. Our lot is wooded in the back, so there's plenty to keep a cat happy and the farthest he goes is next door, where they're happy to allow him to catch moles in their lawn too.
I like keeping ours in 100% of the time. It helps because they don't try to escape like some cats do when an outside door is opened. Mine are actually terrified to go out there! It's a good thing too, because there are a number of outdoor cats that lived in the neighborhood over the last few years, and all of them have ended up getting either run over by cars, or would show up mauled from fighting other cats. We've been woken up many a time by the sounds of nasty cat fights out there. Thanks, but I'll keep mine safely inside.
