Adopting a cat hits a snag

As a devoted cat owner, Brian Vanlandingham imagines himself running a sort of old folks home.

He doesn't want kittens or young, active cats. He prefers more mature, sedate animals.

"I like cats who want to climb up into your lap and be petted and loved," Vanlandingham said.

Since older cats are often more difficult for pet adoption agencies to place, it would seem an owner like Vanlandingham would be in hot demand. At 53, he is a lifelong bachelor who owns his own home and works in computer science in state government. As he put it to me: "I'm a boring guy. I live a quiet life."

He pays a lot of attention to his cats.

But when one of his two cats died recently, he learned he's not such a desirable cat owner after all.

The reason: he allows his cats to laze about on the front porch or stare up at birds under the nearby bushes for an hour or two every day.

Little did he know that he had stepped into a huge controversy in the pet world.

There are some people who believe that cats are hunters who need to roam. They let their cats prowl.

But the growing consensus among animal advocates is that it's safer for Fluffy to spend her days indoors. Entirely.

Not to mention that letting your cat roam is against the law.

Mondy Lamb, a spokeswoman for the SPCA of Wake County, said her agency would be happy to have a pet adopted by someone who would sit out on the porch with the cat or cats -- or put the cats on a harness or leash.

"We want to hear what your plan for containment is," Lamb said. Without one, "what are you going to do? Tell the cat, 'Stay?' "

As if a cat will listen.

The problem, Lamb said, is that thousands of cats are rounded up every year by animal control because they've wandered away from home, into neighbors' yards and the like.

The vast majority of those animals end up being euthanized: about two-thirds of the cats brought to the SPCA and a stunning 82 percent at the county shelter.

In seeking a playmate for his surviving cat Wally, Vanlandingham happily filled out long applications, detailing the fate of every previous pet. He gladly provided contact information for his vet.

What bothered Vanlandingham was that at some of the adoption places, they didn't even ask about the issue of outdoor time directly.

"It's like they tried to be tricky with the questions," Vanlandingham said.

For instance:

Do you care if your cat brings you a dead mouse?

(Aha! To get a mouse, your cat would need to be outside.)

Do you care if your cat climbs trees?

(Oho! To reach those branches, your cat would need to be outside.)

At some adoption outfits, the wrong answers were deal-breakers.

I knew that local shelters wouldn't allow cats to be adopted by people who planned to have them declawed.

But to deny a cat a happy home because of an hour or two on the porch?

Finally, Vanlandingham turned to the government-run Wake County Animal Shelter in Garner.

He paid $50 and filled out the paperwork. The folks there seemed to appreciate that he would provide a loving home for a cat that might otherwise be euthanized.

He plans to bring home his new cat today.