Wow I have to say I'm suprised too. I knew that the life expectancy was lower on outdoor cats but I didn't think they would say it was that much lower.

Even sense I was a child we had indoor/outdoor cats and not one of then had a short life. Snowpaws lived to be 28! Tasha was 17, Tigger was 18, so on and so on. Of course we where lucky and lived in areas where they could be indoor/outdoor cats safer then the average area.

Maybe the study needs to have a thrid catagory: Live expectancy of a indoor/outdoor cat, with proper care. Not that I don't think that the study is right, but sometimes studies are to black and white. They most likely did full outdoor cats and fully indoor cats not acounting for the hafe and hafe group.

if someone is going to make their cats outside cats, the least they could do is wait until they are adults.
I think that's that's that most inportant thing, every stray kitten I've taken in lived inside till they reach a age where I felt they where safe/smarter etc. and then the outside time was supervised for ahwile. Not that I want them to be outdoors, but I have too many for them all to be indoors full time, but they ALL are allowed inside when they want. My only other choice would have been to take then to the shelter and in our area they most likely would live a caged life, so sometimes you have to make a choise of the better of two evils.