Indoor and outside cats trigger all types of issues. GPS monitoring can clear up a few of these. | Cowl Collections
publisher’s Note
Man’s affection for pets occupies a unique status. Even the most loving human-to-human romances are referred to as “puppy love.” In the annual Monterey County Gives! In fundraising campaigns (conducted by The Weekly with partners, the Monterey Peninsula Foundation and the Community Foundation for Monterey County), animal-focused nonprofits routinely raise the most money. Maybe it’s because our pets are so innocent—there’s no blame, no politics, no score to settle in our relationship with animals. All our pets ask of us is food, water and, depending on the animal, a pat (sorry, fish). In return, they offer loyalty and affection.
According to a formula developed by the American Veterinary Medical Association, there are 0.568 pets per household in the United States. (Dogs are the most popular, at 0.384 per household, followed by cats, 0.254, then birds – 0.028 – and horses, 0.007.) This pack is dedicated to our relationship with our beloved animals.
-Sara Ruby
VIOLET HAS CHOSEN HIMSELF AS AN OUTDOOR CAT. As soon as I brought her home from the Animal Friends Rescue Project in Pacific Grove in 2017, she found an escape route. Her littermate, Bixby, seemed perfectly content watching the outside world unfold from the windowsill. (Though he’s also since embraced his outdoor lifestyle and has become a skilled tree climber. Yes, the fire department was once called by a neighbor who was concerned that Bixby might not be able to get down from a 30-foot tree . No, the fire department didn’t come. Yes, Bixby is fine.)
As a new cat parent at the time, I was rebuked by a stern lecture at AFRP that under no circumstances should I let these animals outdoors. I hadn’t really thought about that question when I brought my kittens for their first wellness check, and the vet offered zombie-movie-like advice: If I was just keeping the cats indoors, I should beware of dental health issues. Grinding on raw bone, she told me, is the best way to keep her teeth healthy. Not to mention it would also allow my cuddly little lap cats to live double lives and fulfill their predatory instincts. I would have the bonus of knowing that every mouse/gopher/lizard/bird would save us all from a horrific, expensive dental procedure later. To win.
Of course, it’s not a victory for the hunted. Everyone in my neighborhood, even my more squeamish neighbors, appreciates it when Violet or Bixby guts a gopher (point to the gardeners) or slowly torments a mouse for their own amusement. Pest control gives them additional recognition. But there’s a dark side: Predation by domestic cats is the number one direct human-caused threat to birds in the United States, according to the American Bird Conservancy. Free-ranging cats kill about 2.4 billion birds each year. Violet and Bixby probably kill 10 of them together.
There are other less obvious impacts on wildlife. A 2019 study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B found that parasites commonly found in domestic cat feces, such as Toxoplasma gondii, infected and killed sea otters in Monterey Bay.
None of this is why AFRP advises people who adopt cats to keep their cats indoors. “AFRP doesn’t adopt into homes where they know they’ll be out,” says Executive Director Darla Smith. “We can’t protect them if they’re not there.”
Nowadays, during the spring kitten season, AFRP receives 1- and 2-day-old kittens that need to be bottle-fed by their foster parents every two hours. “We love them and we want them to survive,” says Smith. “I truly believe cats can have a really great quality of life indoors.”
Smith herself always left her cats outside until one was hit by a car and another was poisoned. Since then, she’s built an outdoor catio—it’s elaborate and allows for tree-climbing adventures—to protect her pets.
Bixby rarely gets further than the front yard.
These are all factors to consider. But tragedies can happen indoors, too. Just a few months after I adopted Violet and Bixby, a visitor to my apartment wearing heavy boots accidentally stepped on Violet’s cock. She jumped to get away and dislocated it from her spine and her tail was paralyzed. What followed were thousands of dollars in vet bills for a tail amputation, a long recovery, and the cutest, smallest bobcat I’ve ever seen.
The first day Violet was allowed outside after her recovery, my neighbor reported that Violet was fine: before I had even had a cup of coffee, she was on the second floor patio watching the world go by .
In the years since, Bixby has had a few fights with neighborhood cats, climbed many trees, and caught an unknown number of rodents. He spends most of his time at home or a little bit away and doesn’t worry me.
But Violet continues to be fast and sneaky, and has pulled off more than a few get-away acts. Of all the dangers I worry about — and every time Violet doesn’t show up around dinnertime, I worry about everything Smith says I should do — napping is what I worry about the most .
Violet is the kind of cat who invites herself in. She’ll curl up on your couch or bed if you let her (please don’t let her). And she spends most of her day roaming the neighborhood. This sometimes involves crossing busy, dangerous roads. When I lived in Pacific Grove, Violet would sometimes cross Central Avenue and stroll into Zumba classes at Chautauqua Hall. Now I live on a quiet street in Seaside and I’ve bumped into Violet a few times on a busy corner like she belongs there.
Years ago I gave up all hope of keeping this outdoor cat in check. Many nights I could find Violet by walking up the block and calling her. Sometimes I couldn’t, but she always showed up the next morning.
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Living with an almost constant fear for my cat’s whereabouts just became the norm. Until I realized I could attach a GPS tracker to Violet’s collar and watch her every move.
A GPS tracker shows she is within half a block of home but zigzags from yard to yard an average of 3 miles a day. Tractive has approximately 500,000 subscribers worldwide, including 150 in Monterey County.
ANIMAL TRACKING DEVICES HAVE BEEN AROUND FOR A LONG TIME. Bird banding began more than a century ago, and the use of radio transmitters to track wildlife began in the 1950s. Hunters have been using GPS devices for well over a decade. But using home devices to track your pets — some are also marketed for tracking children or older adults — is relatively new.
Tractive started in Austria eight years ago and sold small GPS trackers for dogs. A device that attaches to a collar costs $50, and an annual subscription to the tracking software costs $96.
The company now sells devices and subscriptions all over the world (except in Russia and North Korea). There are more than 500,000 active subscribers. The majority are dog owners, but since January’s launch of a new device designed specifically to attach to cat collars, it’s a rapidly growing market, says Andrew Bleiman, executive vice president for North America, in a speech from Tractive’s Seattle office .
Bleiman attributes the popularity to nervous pet owners like me. “When your pet goes missing, whether it’s for two days or two weeks, it’s an incredibly scary experience,” he says. “Maybe the pet will come home on its own, but my goodness – most people would trade anything to avoid those panic episodes.”
The great evolution in technology from wildlife to domestic animal tracking is twofold: one is better cell coverage. This allows the device to run on a smaller battery – it connects to the GPS via cell towers like cell phones. (Another development is Bluetooth, which works best in densely populated areas with good connectivity and when you’re close to your pet.)
These devices are much smaller and ping more frequently than wildlife trackers. Tractive updates every two to three seconds to help a pet owner locate a missing pet. “If you’re tracking a shark off the coast of Monterey, a weekly update can be enough,” says Bleiman. “There’s a direct trade-off between the frequency of updates and the lifespan of a battery charge.” Tractive’s batteries last about eight days; Wildlife tracker batteries need to last much longer.
I got Violet a tracker from Tractive and set up her account. It’s like a Fitbit for an animal; The app now always tells me where she is based on her age, weight and hind leg length. I can click live from anywhere and know where she is in real time.
Heatmaps confirm that she spends most of her life within a half-block radius, in different houses and backyards. Haven’t found any cat sleepers yet – she’s coming home – but a few spots stand out.
One of them is my neighbor in the corner, Nitha Nandan, who says she was never a cat person until she met Violet. She likes her visits from Violet, but compares it to grandparents – fun and cuddles with no responsibilities. “I don’t want that kind of responsibility,” says Nandan. “At least I know Violet has parents who love her and that she’s safe at home.”
Violet gets stuck in Nandan’s house more than once; She was once woken up scratching the window in the middle of the night while Violet was trying to get out.
The maps of Violet’s life look like a wild scribble. She zigzags through the neighborhood, covering about 3 miles a day in her half-block zone.
I asked Bleiman — who has two guinea pigs, a miniature poodle named Mathman, and a cat named Hunky — if he thought I could use Tractive to find the Cat Napper. He suggested looking at the heatmaps. “If there’s a neighbor’s back porch [on the heat map]it’s a pretty good bet the cat has a secret Canadian family,” he says.
As it turns out, Violet has about half a dozen secret Canadian families. For now, I’ll keep sharing the love. It doesn’t feel like there’s no other choice.
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