Whether to keep cats indoors or allow outdoor access involves genuine welfare trade-offs. Evidence supports enriched indoor environments as welfare-positive for most cats.
The indoor-outdoor debate involves genuine welfare trade-offs. Outdoor access provides stimulation, exercise, and expression of natural behaviors like hunting and exploration. Indoor life reduces acute injury and mortality risk. The key insight is that indoor life is welfare-neutral or positive only when owners actively provide enrichment, play, and environmental complexity. Inadequately enriched indoor environments cause boredom, frustration, and chronic stress — the harms of outdoor access traded for different harms indoors.