Letting a savannah free in the garden ?

[lucky1958]

God,

I did generate quite a reaction, your comments may involve “philosophical concepts” on relationship between human being and pets.

Leaving for the moment the specific aspects of SV, it is clear that your remarks apply also for our common cats. This made me mumbling and start discussing in the family, about the future of our cats in the new house, house I repeat, bought also in consideration of some more freedom we wanted to grant to LEO and TOBIA; LUNA, the third one, is quite an old Siamese (sort of) very happy indoor.

The danger of loosing the cats (or getting them injured) is proved by the fact that Leo was found by my wife in the Library garden. Although without identification collar, It was a clean and healthy cat (so the vet said after visiting Leo) with a full trust for people. This proves that he was belonging somebody else’s who lost him (or got rid of him because of his extremely exuberant character). We put of course a lot of advises but nobody claimed him back, so we kept him.

Well it is obvious that this may happen in the future where I will be on the other side of the rope, although I thing that a lot depends on how well the cat feels at home.

No discussion than on the fact that, keeping cats indoor is a guarantee of a long-safe life but this choice is however not “free of charge” (especially for the animal).

It is quite a common sentence “ do not take cats and dogs if you do not have a good space to give them “. There are of course some particular races (or single characters) that do need big spaces but, in general, I believe that most of animals (if they could choose) would be very happy to have some freedom coming than back for foods and caresses.

I did not study cats behaving, and I will try to get more info on this crucial point : “how intense is for a cat the wish of going around hence how much would he suffer for not being able to do so ”.

All this is valid for common cats, with SV I presume that the issue is further complicated by the possibility of being stolen, being costly, and probably having in their DNA the instinct of walking long distances . When I thing, this last aspects is very “cruel” as it works as one more reason for keeping him at home but, at the same time, makes me thing that his need of some freedom is even higher than for common cats.

I hope that is clear that I am not contesting with this message your advises (as you can see I started already to take them into account even for my actual cats), but I just wanted to bring to your attention “the other side of the medal” (I hope that this Italian expression is clear in English) .

Surely I will find a solution, (maybe an high fence) and I am greatfull to you all for not letting me underestimate the issue, either for SV or for my actual cats which are really part of the family .
Luciano
PS .: was I good with the colour ?

 

[lucky1958]

Now I can't do anything else but thinking to the problem. How high should be a fence to prevent an F3 from escaping ?
What about a small voltage in the fence to prevent from climbing ?

 

[admin]

can you not build an enclosure in the garden? This way your cats can have the outside, but not the ability to escape.

 

[lucky1958]

maybe yes but not over 10 M2. Anyway now, also in view of what you all said, I have to discuss with my family about this point. The problem of cat's safety exists even for our common cats. We have time, house will be finished not before next summer.

 

[americansafaricattery]

Oh no.. We do not Ever let out Savannahs out without a harness, lead or leash. We are designing a large enclosure for the babies outside. Our babies are chipped and wear their tags also. We are also looking into putting GPS chips into the Savannahs. These cats are to precious to us to let them "wonder".

 

[Laura W]

My cats have their own room with plenty of enrichment available and they are happy to be in there when we are at work, and have to leave the dog door open. Working on enclosing the outside area to make it safe for them.

I always put in it the category of: Would I have risked my children getting into the street or any other possible dangers I could prevent? My Fur Kids fall into the same category as my children did. When I brought them into my home, I pledged to do everything I could to make them happy and keep them safe. Personally, I would never let any of my babies roam.

 

[ScottKelly911]

Luciano, first i'd like to commend you for doing the research first. As you said previously, SV's do have an instinctual curiosity about being outdoors. For this reason many of us have trained our SV's to walk on a leash and harness. This allows them to placate their instincts while still being in the care ofour watchful eyes and supervision. As others have also suggested building a small enclosure is a wonderful option if you have the space. They dont need to be very large, maybe 3 meters wide by 3-4 meters long by 2-3 meters tall. Obviosly if you have more room to build a larger one, its even better but a small enclosure like I described would be plenty for them to enjoy the outdoors. Just so you know, nobody is trying to disuade you from sv ownership, they just want to be upfront and honest with you. I think we're all very happy that you are asking these questions now rather than after the fact. Good Luck!