Cat owner education program

Cats are loveable household companions, but when allowed to roam free have a life expectancy of much less than half that of indoor cats. Cats are happiest and healthiest at home with you! This page contains lots of information on why cats are best kept safe at home, and lots of tips to help you cat live a long, happy and healthy life at home. To jump straight to the tips, click here.

Disclaimer: This webpage contains links to third party websites. The South West Group is not responsible for the content of any linked web sites and cannot accept responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or timeliness of the information they contain, or the suitability or safety of any services offered.

Would you let your dog do this………..????

What do cats get up to when they roam?

Led by Professor Mike Calver, a team of researchers and students at Murdoch University have been studying the behaviour of cats for some years. This video, created especially for this project, shows what cats get up to when they roam away from the safety of their house and garden and how you can help your cat live a long, happy life and avoid conflict.

How far do cats roam?

The South Australian Cat Tracker Project tracked over 400 cats and interviewed more than 3000 cat owners to find out how far pet cats roam and to help cat owners make informed decisions about the management of their pet cats. GPS trackers were fitted to pet cats by their owners and the cats movements were tracked over a 5 day period then mapped, and from this each cats home-range was calculated.

The project produced many interesting findings, including…

The size of the home-range (the area within which the cat moved in the 5 day period) of the 428 cats tracked ranged from 0.07 to 31.13 hectares, with a median of 1.04 hectares (1 hectare is equivalent to twenty 500m² residential properties).

Male cats roam further than female cats, and non-desexed cats roam further than desexed cats.

Sedentary cats (those with a home-range of less than 1 hectare) and wandering cats (those with a home-range of more than 1 hectare) were compared. Wandering cats typically crossed more roads per day, showed signs of being in fights with other cats more often, were seen with prey more often, and spent less time inside. Wandering cats were also typically younger and had less provided for them by their owners (e.g. toys and scratching posts).

88% of the cats tracked roamed over a larger area at night than they did during the day.

Of 177 cats that had been classified by their owners as being kept inside at night, 39% were found to have roamed over 1 hectare at night.

Most of the cats’ owners reported that their cats caught prey. However, only 28% said their cat’s hunting was a problem, 34% reported their cat’s hunting was not a problem, and 26% said their cat did not hunt. Overall, 66% of owners observed their pets predating mammals, birds, reptiles or insects.

The study compared the personalities of indoor and outdoor cats and found their personalities to be very similar.

The full report can be found here.

Roaming Patterns

One cat’s movement pattern revealed through GPS tracking (Map produced by the UniSA Cat Tracker project).

Another cat’s movement pattern revealed through GPS tracking (Map produced by the UniSA Cat Tracker project).

The home-ranges of six cats tracked. Note how they overlap, and how many roads these cats cross in their travels. (Map produced by the UniSA Cat Tracker project).

Responsible Cat Ownership

There are some things that all cat owners can do to be responsible cat owners:

Microchip, sterilise and register your cat with your local government by six months of age at the latest. Cats are often reproductive younger, so sterilising your cat at a younger age is possible if your vet approves.

Ensure your cat wears a collar with a bell or other anti-predation device, an identification tag, and its Council registration tag so it can be identified and returned if lost.

Keep your cat within your property boundary where it is safe and will not annoy neighbours or their pets, or harm wildlife.

Vaccinate your cat.

Never dump unwanted cats or kittens—contact the Cat Haven so they can be put up for adoption.

Contact Cat Haven

Never feed stray cats. It may seem like the right thing to do, but it leads to all sorts of problems. Instead, contact your local Council, or take the stray to your local vet or the Cat Haven where it may be able to be returned to its owner or re-homed if unidentifiable.

State and Local Laws governing cat ownership

The Western Australian Cat Act 2011 governs cat ownership in WA. You can download a summary here or watch the following video to see what legal responsibilities cat owners have.

Video: WA Cat Owners’ Legal Responsibilities

Local governments sometimes have additional local regulations or laws specific to their Council. If you live in one of these Councils, you can find your Local Cat Law here:

City of Canning Local Law

City of Fremantle Local Cat Law

Find out how to keep your cat happy, healthy and safe at home. There’s heaps of information on that further below! Your local Council also has lots of additional information and resources. Click on your Council’s logo below to access those.

So what can you do to ensure your cat lives a long and healthy life, happy at home?

There’s already so much information out there that we don’t need to create more, so here’s some links to a heap of great advice, tips and tales on how to keep your cat, entertained, stimulated, healthy and happy at home.

Hear from owners about why they choose to, and how they keep their cats happy at home

Tweed Shire Council (NSW) – “Cat Tales” videos.

Kingborough Council (Tas) – “Inside with cats” videos.

Tips for keeping your cat happy, healthy and entertained

US Humane Society – “10 tips to keep your cat happy indoors“
Cat Protection Society of NSW factsheets
Cat Protection Society of NSW – YouTube tutorials
RSPCA – ‘Keeping your cat safe and happy at home‘
RSPCA – ‘Safe and Happy Cats website‘
Good Cat South Australia – “Good cats play at home”
Safe cat, safe wildlife “Cat Hacks“
Safe cat, safe wildlife “Blog“
Perth Cat Hospital – lots of cat care and health tips
PetMD

Examples of catios and cat proof fences

Some local and online suppliers and/or installers of cat enclosures, fencing or DIY catio plans

Tips on how to transition your cat from an outdoor to an indoor cat

GeoCatch Catio Cast (YouTube)

Tweed Shire Council (NSW) – “Transitioning your cat from outdoors to indoors“.

US Humane Society – “Home sweet home: How to bring an outside cat indoors“.

This project is supported by funding from the Western Australian Government’s State NRM Program, the Cities of Canning, Cockburn, Fremantle, Kwinana and Melville and the Town of East Fremantle.