I cannot speak for a cat "psychologist" but only from my own
experience. A majority of my clinical time was spent at Capitol Hill
(Seattle) where a majority of the cats were indoor only, apartment
cats. The last five years were in a feline only practice in Federal Way
(Wa) where I would hazard 50 to 75% of the cats were in/out cats. We
saw far and away more behavior type problems then ever was seen in the
inner city practice.

Now that is not to say that it was location. The senior owner of the
feline practice is an internal medicine specialist and we had many
referals. Some of the behavior problems could be traced to a medical
condition. But overall I feel these cats were more problems for their
owners. Perhaps it was the TYPE of owners we saw. Night and Day to
compare these two neighborhoods.

I was increasingly frustrated at the attitude of the owners who
professed that it was cruel and UNNATURAL to keep a cat in. I tried to
point out that the presence of an unnatural preditor in an environment
has a great impact on the animals that live in the environment. People
are usually upset over the bird problem but are really not moved over
the death of a butterfly or snake. Some folks countered that " CROWS
kill baby Robins", as if that justified their cat killing too. All the
other logical reasons that you would keep a pet in or under control
(dogs) falls on numb ears.

These attitudes were part of the reason I left clinical work behind.

I cheer ANY effort to further educate people.

Marti Anderson
meander at biosupport.com