Did you know?

That when owners let their cats run outside they live less than three years on the average?

I noted this when cruising through one of blogs on the New York Times website.

That happens to be useful information for this cat-owner, who has a black and white two year old who is always leaping onto the screen door, trying to escape. He's gotten out a few times -- watching him tree a squirrel and then get a paw on the grey guy's back was a scary experience. We keep him inside, but he requires a lot of play time. His destructive, " I'm gonna paw everything off her desk" instincts sometimes cause me to wonder if we are right in keeping him inside, but this piece caused me to realize that we are making the right choice -- for Inky, as well as for ourselves.

After all, we are dealing with a domesticated animal, not a feral one. Loving him and those crazy cat ways means making it more possible for him to hang around until the times, which will come, when he prefers to spend most of his time sleeping in the sun, and chasing birds only in his dreams.