This is a controversy I’ve wanted to write about for a long time.

I have a cat named Atilla. When I got her as a kitten I decided it would be raised as an outside/inside cat.

My decision caused tremendous alarm in my family because my mother has three cats all of them living indoors and never allowed to go outside.

I was told if I loved my cat I would not risks its life by allowing it to go outside where numerous predators wait to devour her first chance they get.

She told me if I did let my cat out I had to be prepared to lose her someday to the many perils waiting outside.

I was also told her front claws would need to be removed to spare the furniture in the house.

After about three seconds of contemplation I made my decision. Atilla would be free to roam and be a real cat and would not be raised as an animated decoration.

It just didn’t feel right to me to rip out my kitten’s claws and force her to live a life staring out windows and wishing she was outside having one.

I waited until she had learned all the nooks and crevices of the house and seemed to be yearning to find out what lay outside of her new domain.

So I began by leaving the door to the back yard slightly ajar and waiting there to see what Atilla would do.

At first she just peaked and sniffed at the door opening, looking back up at me to see if was OK to step out.

She took little baby-kitten steps out the door, staying real close, walked a foot or two along it than quickly running back in.

I could see she was sniffing the door, examining it, recording every iota of info she could and retracing her steps back and forth.

She kept this up for about an hour, expanding her territory until she had conquered a five foot radius around the door and she new she could safely navigate and get back into the house quick.

Then she ran in to her little bed in the bedroom, curled up and went into a very pleased nap.

This process went on with me next to her all the time as she mapped the back yard. I should mention this was in my house in Chandler and not Sedona.

She grew stronger and bolder unt

il she began getting curious as to what new adventure the top of the cement wall surrounding my backyard might hold for her.

Then came the dreaded day I knew I would have to live through sooner or later.

She jumped up on the wall and disappeared.

For hours my friend and I called her name and knocked on neighbor’s doors and combed the neighborhood. No sign of her.

Was she lost? Was she killed by pit bulls? Was she captured by someone and sold to a pet store? Was she suffering with a broken paw?

My guilt hit me and my mother’s dire warning came back to haunt me. But deep inside I knew, no matter what, if she was gone, she went being a cat and not an animated ornament. A life is a small price to pay for Freedom.

About 8 p.m. that evening I heard her tiny-little meow. There she was on the wall entangled in a thorny bush overhanging into our yard. I braved the peril and pulled her out, all scratched from the thorns but I didn’t care. She was back and that was all that mattered.

The next day she was at the door, trying to meow her way out, bored with all the extra love and petting she got the night before.

Again, I had to swallow my fear and think of what it means to her to be out, hunting, exploring, examining and killing little bugs – living the life a cat was created to live.

Next came her learning the Tao of trees. She picked a rather tall one to climb and of course she found herself unable to get back down. But she had to learn so I camped out beneath it and patiently waited for her to figure a way down.

She meowed and meowed then gauged the distance to the bottom and scurried down the tree like a squirrel and into the house in a flash.

Now I could rest easy she could escape predators by running up trees and coming back down when the coast is clear.

As she got bigger she gained mastery over her domain. I didn’t worry anymore she would not be able to find her way home. She only went out during the day and would always come back hungry and happy before dusk.

Then we moved to Sedona. The warnings about letting your cat out here were even more dire. Coyotes, Bob Cats, Owls, all kinds of predators were licking their chops waiting for Atilla to step out. I was told an outside cat in Sedona had a general life expectancy of about three months.

We moved into the Chapel area and she was out and about the first day we moved in. It was in Sedona where she matured into a real hunter, taking down lizards, small birds and eventually, rabbits.

I’ll never forget the day she pulled one into the house. I’ve seen horror movies showing mutilations and decapitations and blah blah.

But nothing could prepare me for the sight of a baby bunny with its head half eaten off. I spoke to her for an hour begging her never to do that again. It must have worked because she never brought one back into the house.

But, that’s life in the big world and Atilla I’m sure understands it’s an eat-or-be-eaten world out there. It could happen to her someday. I would suffer. I would cry. But at least she lived a real cat life. There is a price that comes with freedom.

But her need to hunt soon got us into trouble with a neighbor, an owner of five forever-locked-indoors cats.

It seemed Atilla was using their back yard as a hunting ground, spraying everything (Atilla was spayed) and “torturing” her cats by peering in through their deck window at her incarcerated brothers and sisters.

We ended up having a real big argument on the danger I was putting my cat in by letting her go out and the sorrow her cats were living safely locked in her house with no claws to scratch the furniture.

We also argued about what to feed our cats. I fed Atilla only raw meet purchased from New Frontiers (she won’t eat meat from Basha’s or Safeway). She fed her cats only dry food.

Her vet bills were about $300 a year for each of her cats. Mine were zero because Atilla never gets sick.

The argument escalated to the point where the neighbor threatened to “shoot” Atilla if she saw her in their backyard. It was get rid of the cat or move. So we moved out.

I believe everyone has a right to raise their pets as they see fit. I happen to think it is cruel to deny a cat a cat’s life. Other’s think I’m cruel for allowing my cat Freedom. I think they are wrong and maybe they should have their fingernails pulled out and live locked in a house for the rest of their lives so they could understand what cruelty really is.

We can apply this philosophy to humans as well.

The question is, is it better to live locked in a relatively safe environment? Or is it better to live free and take risks?

We, as humans, have that choice.

Domesticated cats, don’t. We make that choice for them.

I just feel so sorry for them.  I look at them  staring forlornly at the outside world they will never experience. I try to put myself in their paws and all I feel is this yearning to be free and this sense of imprisonment in a tiny world of walls I can’t climb.

Am I being a bit prejudiced here? I invite readers, cat owners, to debate or defend my point.

Should cats be allowed to be free or not?

What do you think?