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Fascinating. I’ve viewed imprisoning a cat within a single set of rooms for the entirety of its life as cruelty.

They wish so clearly to roam, to hunt, to mark territory and to meet other cats. A full life excels a maximally long one, no?

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By that logic attempting to "own" a cat is the root of the cruelty, no?

Once you've committed that root cruelty, it is more cruel to imprison it in safety or allow it to roam in an environment with known dangers?

If they feel like it, outdoor cats are quite free to adopt secondary or tertiary owners, or set up residence in a rail station or at a grocery store, and I'm certain I could find you 20 BBC local news stories about these kind of shenanigans, "well-loved cat famous in town" sort of thing. Or "incredible journey", also common.

I’d disagree. As domesticated, bred familiars, the natural state of cats, as with dogs, is symbiosis with humans. They’re not wild animals in a zoo. As the common jokes go, they own us as much as we them.

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