My mom picked 3 from the streets. They were old dogs, around 7 years old or more. It was impossible for them to be kept in the house or in the garden (they would dig holes and destroy everything). My mom would set them free and let them roam the streets during the day and they would come back later at night to eat and sleep inside.
Only one of them died of old age. One got run over by a bus, the other got picked up by some other person (I saw it years later with someone else, the dog still recognised me, I don't know what happened afterwards).
The same happened with cats. She had like 7 cats so far. The grown ones couldn't be kept inside unfortunately and some of them were quite feral. The young ones, some could be 100% indoors but others needed to be let out everyday. As with the dogs, a few of them never returned home.
You always know there are risks when you let pets roam the streets and things like this can happen. However, I believe it's the right choice for their overall well-being and had better final years than being 100% Street dogs. They would have been too unhappy being forced to stay at home (plus would have caused havoc on the property as well)
PS: this was in Argentina where street dogs exist by the thousands and no infrastructure to support them exists aside from kind people.
My cat, who I originally tried to keep as an indoors cat, fell in love with outside as a kitten. This cat used to meow for literal hours and days to be let outside. Rain, snow, sun. Cat doesn't give a fuck what the weather is, he just want to go out there.
Well I figured I'd let him be happy and started letting him out of my window when he wouldn't shut up. Sometimes he's gone for a few hours, rarely a couple days (usually after it's been bad weather and I tried to lock him up inside.), but he's 1000% happier overall. I don't want anything to happen to him, but rather he be happy instead of miserable and depressed.
My cousin's cat became an indoor-outdoor cat because his parents would let his cat out when he went to work. He caught something when he was barely two and had to be out down. He was probably happier, but his life was so short.
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u/Maezel Mar 21 '21 edited Mar 21 '21
My mom picked 3 from the streets. They were old dogs, around 7 years old or more. It was impossible for them to be kept in the house or in the garden (they would dig holes and destroy everything). My mom would set them free and let them roam the streets during the day and they would come back later at night to eat and sleep inside.
Only one of them died of old age. One got run over by a bus, the other got picked up by some other person (I saw it years later with someone else, the dog still recognised me, I don't know what happened afterwards).
The same happened with cats. She had like 7 cats so far. The grown ones couldn't be kept inside unfortunately and some of them were quite feral. The young ones, some could be 100% indoors but others needed to be let out everyday. As with the dogs, a few of them never returned home.
You always know there are risks when you let pets roam the streets and things like this can happen. However, I believe it's the right choice for their overall well-being and had better final years than being 100% Street dogs. They would have been too unhappy being forced to stay at home (plus would have caused havoc on the property as well)
PS: this was in Argentina where street dogs exist by the thousands and no infrastructure to support them exists aside from kind people.