Do house cats, that roam around outside, have multiple owners?

It’s possible. Like Tramp’s multiple owners in “Lady and the Tramp.”

No. Cats don’t have owners.
They have multiple staff.

Some cats adopt multiple people!!! I used to have a neighbor who had an indoor/outdoor cat & he disappeared for 6 months at a time. He’d return home looking fat & sassy & stay for 3–6 months & then he’d be away for another 6 months or so. This went on for years until one of those times he never returned. He NEVER once looked malnourished, so we assumed that he had another human feeding & taking care of him while he was gone. We’ll never know IF he died or IF his other human moved, took him with them, & he couldn’t figure out how to get back to my neighbor’s home. So, YES, I believe that cats tend to choose multiple people to be their companions when it’s in their best interest!!!

We had a tomcat when I was a kid. The cat came and went sporadically. It was obvious he was getting food from somewhere besides us, perhaps several places. One day he came home wearing a blue collar.

I have also known cats which disappeared to later be found voluntarily living with someone else a block or so away.

Since they are not actually pack animals as are dogs, it is doubtful they consider themselves owned or part of a family group. They can be companionable and even live in colonies, but consider themselves free and independent

For the record, I am not a cat & neither is my wife!

@ucme Are you sure??? HaHaHa

Positive, although I do have multiple staff!

“Owners”. Ha! You are not the cat’s owner, you are its slave.

Maybe. My cats have always wandered at will, but they all came home for the night.

I’ve NEVER been a slave to my cat!!! I allow them to be themselves until it becomes an inconvenience to me…then they go into reprogramming where I teach them what is acceptable behavior!!!

The cat we have now, and have had for 5 years, was a little feral kitty who was dropped off by her mum at about 5 weeks of age on our back deck. She apparently came pre-programmed. It’s the dangdest thing I have ever seen. She has never, not once, crapped in the house.

I’ve never known a kitten that wasn’t pre-programmed to use a litter box!!!

@Dutchess_III

Cats have a natural inclination to use a litter box.

Maybe all the cats you had before this one were really dogs, @Dutchess_III

Not a cat owner and interested, so can everyone enlighten me – by “pre-programmed to use a litter box”, you mean that the kittens were taught by their mum before they came to live with you, right?

@longgone I had one kitten whose mum was run over by a car & died. I had to bottle feed the kitten until it was weaned. As soon as it went on regular food, I took it to the litter box & sat it down inside. I walked off. When I came back, he had pooped n the box & covered it up. After they use it the first time, they automatically go back to the box whenever they need to do their business & they seem to instinctively know to cover it up. In some cases, the mum may have taught them; but even without mum, they seem to just know what to do. If you watch an outdoor cat, they dig a hole, poop in it, & cover it back up. So, cats are born to dig, do their business, & bury it. It’s how they are wired. They don’t do it the first few weeks of their life, but they will once they are 5–6weeks old. I didn’t show my little guy what to do, he just knew to do it.

I don’t use litterboxes @Darth_Algar, except when they’re very little. I train them to go outside.
I had this theory that if you start them on a litterbox, and then when they’re 2 or 3 months start slowly moving the litterbox toward the back door, eventually to the back deck, eventually to the yard…then dump out the litter and take the box, the cats will just crapitate outside.
Of all the cats I did that with, Vanta is the only on it worked flawlessly with.

@LadyMarissa

“I didn’t show my little guy what to do, he just knew to do it.”

It seems to me that a human trying to use a litter box, even just as a demonstration, would be quite challenging! ;-)

True. When you demonstrate, those cats just get big-eyed, stare up and down, and run!

@Dutchess_III

The point, which you seem to have missed, wasn’t the litterbox itself, but the act of burying their waste. Cats have a natural inclination to do this, whether outside, in a litterbox, whatever. That’s why, with rare exception, cats don’t really require housebreaking the way dogs do.

House cats don’t roam around outside.

Short answer is, they have multiple resource people.

@Sagacious House cats don’t, but Kitty Cats do.

The proper name for the genus is Kittesciean Catsers. They are known for catwork, such as catwalks and catapulting.

@Sagacious, with the best answer.

We used to have a neighbors cat come over every day for lunch.

I had walked down the sidewalk and all I did was say hello to this Black cat. It decided that it was going to follow me. It moved in with us lock, stock, and barrel. A short while later we found out she was pregnant. She was hungry and broke and couldn’t see no hope. Her back was against the wall. Nobody in the neighborhood ever claimed her, so yes we kept her.

I had a house cat that roamed around outside!!! When I was at home, he was inside with me; but let me go to work, he had a secret way of getting out & I assume that he remained outside most of the day. Since I NEVER discovered his secret escape route, he might have let himself back in off & on during the day. IF I came home & he was outside, he walked back in with me. While I was at home, he laid beside me snuggling up comfy. He only left my side to go to the litter box.For whatever reason, his outside time was as important to him while alone as his inside time was to him when I was at home.

All of my house cats roam around outside. They come home for food and sleeping and attention. Then they’re back outside, climbing trees, chasing squirrels, being chased by the dog, jumping up on the fence, and from there, jumping on the neighbor’s roof. I can’t imagine denying them that.

^I didn’t deny my previous cats either. One died from a gunshot wound to the head by a neighbor who was pissed our cat kept getting into his garbage. We lost at least two to coyotes and three to cars. Now that we keep our cats indoors we’ve had the longest relationship with a cat because outside predators aren’t a problem. Our cats are happy. We have lots of windows and they have each other.

Correct. When a domesticated animal, is allowed free run of the area, it becomes part of the food chain. Cats, in general, don’t do well against cars, coyotes, wild dogs, raccoons, and other things that are just doing their thing. Trying to survive. They also kill lots of birds, and destroy property. Letting them roam, is inviting disaster. A domestic animal, should be kept inside the house. Or they are susceptible, to the non-domesticated world. Like a person, in the ocean, or jungle.
Sure, cats enjoy outdoor freedom, but they are out of their respective territories. And therefore vulnerable to all of the most dangerous situations.
It’s just that simple…

As I’ve said before: allowing a cat to roam outside is just straight up irresponsible pet ownership.

I didn’t allow my guy to go out. He made himself an escape route that he ONLY used when I wasn’t at home!!! He lived to be 15. I still don’t know HOW he managed to gain his freedom when I was away. I’ve had 3 cats since him & NONE of them discovered his escape route…or, IF they did, they failed to use it!!!

My cats lived to be 12+. One cat, Smokie lived to be 16.
We’ve had Vanta for 6 years now.

So?

I was responding to @LadyMarissa. My cats were long lived too.

Yeah. My cat, Bob, lived to 16. He could have lived longer, but was a jerk, at the vet’s office. He bot me really bad, multiple times, if he felt like it. He had asthma, so we kept him oral steroids for most of his life. I was warned, that it would probably lead to him being diabetic. Which would be a death sentence, because he would have never allowed insulin injections, and BG checks. The prophesy, finally came true. He developed diabetes, and only lasted a few days. I can still picture him, as a 2 lb kitten. I adopted him from the Emergency Veterinary Hospital, I used to work at. I have a soft spot for orange cats. He had a white face, and white feet, with pink little toes. I never thought he’d be, what we used to refer to as a Cat 5 danger. Once when he was having an asthma attack, I brought him into the hospital. He bite my arms up.SO bad, I had to drop him. He proceeded to latch onto my shoe, and tore it off. Then we had to chase him, all around the hospital…
But I still loved him dearly, and I miss him VERY much. Sadly, he died only about 3 months, after my baby girl Wanda (tiny pit bull.) She was 15. Bob never liked her either. He attacked her multiple times as well. She never hurt him…
Bob escaped from the house several times too. It Hell trying to get him back inside. I’d have to throw a thick blanket over him, and usually he’d try to kill me, all the way back home.

We humans, are strange creatures. I wonder if aliens have pets?...