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> "Sixty percent of cat owners sleep with their cats, which may enhance their sense of security and improve their quality of sleep" I regularly open my eyes in the middle of the night and my cat's face is about 5 inches away from mine, just sitting there perfectly still, staring at me.
He is planning your murder.
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In my case, it demolishes any chance of restful sleep. She literally walks all over me. She'll meow at the door if I shut the door. So it's either meows or walking. It's a ... nightmare.
It may be frowned upon, but we communicated to our cats that meowing at the door was not acceptable by discouraging them with a vacuum cleaner. Flip the switch on the vacuum and run the cord under the door to your bed side. Upon meow, quietly plug the vacuum in to activate -- if the cat senses that you activated the device, the process doesn't work. If "the environment" doesn't want them to meow at the door, they lea…
Some cats carry Toxoplasmosis gondii .
There is a comical conspiracy theory that people only love cats because they have a brain parasite. I mostly hear it from people who think cats can't be sweet.
While it didn't say so directly, a theory I took away from that article was that gut bacteria affects longevity. That is, couples live longer because they have more robust gut bacteria; pet owners much the same.
Might there also be an emotional component to a longer and healthier life? Absolutely. Humans are complex systems. Nonetheless, the science and data seem to also be saying The Gut plays a significant role as well. It will be interesting to see how pandemic isolation (as well as ongoing WFH) affects long term (gut) health.
My family and I are all sound sleepers who sleep on our backs. Our cat, from the first day we acquired her at the pound until her last, would go from chest to chest during the night. There are few things nicer than waking up in the morning to a cat purring on your chest.
Serious brag right there
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We learned years ago that our cats get put in the lower part of our house with the door closed at night. We felt bad about it, but being able to sleep all night made up for it. Quick story: for several nights, I'd wake up in the middle of the night with horrendous stomach pains. I was thinking I needed to see the doctor it was so painful. Then on the fourth night when the pain hit I woke up fast enough to notice our…
...why not let them outdoors during night?
https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk491/files...
"Sixty percent of cat owners sleep with their cats, which may enhance their sense of security and improve their quality of sleep" Maybe, but now only between the hours of 10pm - 5:30am, for me anyway.
New rule: never, ever, open a door when a cat meows. If I'm ready to get up and my cats hear me rustling around and start meowing, I wait until they have stopped meowing for 15 minutes before opening the door.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may be frowned upon, but we communicated to our cats that meowing at the door was not acceptable by discouraging them with a vacuum cleaner. Flip the switch on the vacuum and run the cord under the door to your bed side. Upon meow, quietly plug the vacuum in to activate -- if the cat senses that you activated the device, the process doesn't work. If "the environment" doesn't want them to meow at the door, they lea…
Sounds like a good reason for a robot vacuum cleaner. "I'm just fiddling with my phone over here entirely not related to your meowing and the vacuum coming to get you!"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We learned years ago that our cats get put in the lower part of our house with the door closed at night. We felt bad about it, but being able to sleep all night made up for it. Quick story: for several nights, I'd wake up in the middle of the night with horrendous stomach pains. I was thinking I needed to see the doctor it was so painful. Then on the fourth night when the pain hit I woke up fast enough to notice our…
...why not let them outdoors during night?
The corollary to that is I don't want my cat to endanger/kill wildlife or bother my neighbors
Earlier quoted context omitted.
...why not let them outdoors during night?
Letting your cat outdoors for a significant amount of time is a great way not to have a cat: https://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/sites/g/files/dgvnsk491/files...
I'd contest that this is true in general but depend a lot on location - most of the points there don't apply everywhere (albeit I can just assume the vast majority of residential houses in the US).
One more thing that's not mentioned explicitly in that paper that can be good to keep in mind is also that cats can be territorial with the core territory generally having a diameter of 100m - so any neighboring cats close enough can often become an issue.
In general I do think that cats are thriving best when they can roam the outdoors, but it's a very small and shrinking amount of global human-habitated land where that is a good idea. Thinking of this makes me a bit sad for the species.
Growing up we had cats who could come in and out as they wanted. Very rural area in Europe with little traffic or predators. One got hit by a car, one got taken by a fox (both within their first 5 years), one disappeared at 10 (also fox?), one lived to 17 until she died of old age, and one is still around at ~12 (estimated; local stray cat that came included with my parents' new house).
That being said, I am sure you have considered everything and is doing what's best for the cat within your abilities. But maybe see if you can get him some exercise ;)