Cohousing-L Mailing List: Outdoor Cats

[C2pattee (C2pattee]

This certainly is an emotional, controversial issue.  

During a tour of a Massachusetts cohousing community, we asked if anyone had 
left the community, which led to a story that epitomizes for me the possible 
negative consequences of a group's failure to act.  It appears that several 
outdoor cats chose to congregate next to the centrally located home of a 
woman with a strong aversion to cats.  She objected and a committee was 
formed to investigate the situation, but since nobody else really cared, 
nothing got done.  The woman ended up leaving the community.

In my tour of cohousing communities in the greater Seattle area, I was 
interested to hear that Duwamish, the second cohousing group in urban 
Seattle, was started by a couple who had been involved in a different 
cohousing group that decided not to allow outdoor pets.  The conversation was 
sparked when my host commented that she was careful to keep her dog inside 
(it tended to nip children), and she objected to the litter and destruction 
of other's outdoor animals.

I've recommended to my group, currently searching for land, that we make the 
indoor/outdoor pet decision sooner rather than later (even if it leads to 
someone leaving the group because they disagree with the decision.)

Christine Pattee
Greater Hartford CT Cohousing
c2pattee [at] aol.com