Kat, I guess you can keep cats indoors in an urban area, but I'm not sure how fair it is on the cat. Depends on the cat, I guess. I would certainly say that no-one should be allowed to let a cat wander around in an urban area (if anyone disagrees - would you be happy if I took a dump on your doorstep and dug up your garden? if not, why should I be happy that you let your pet out with the certain knowledge that it will do this to me or to someone else? Flame on, but I'm anti-cat except in the areas they're designed for, ie. farms)

Met a guy in Wales who owned an Akita - it was the size of an Alsatian and the owner said it was still only a puppy. He was planning on buying an SUV to transport this mammoth, simply bcos it wouldn't fit in his estate car (station wagon)! It was a lovely dog, really good-natured. His view was that pedigree dog owners raise their dogs so that the dogs never see other dogs or other humans, and so never learn how to interact with them. Accordingly when they do meet other dogs and other humans, the dog gets scared and so becomes aggressive.

Equally, you go round a sheep farm and the border collies will go insane at you bcos they've been raised to consider a particular set of humans to be "friends", and other humans are not friends until the dogs have got to know them. They'd gladly attack you given half a chance.

Graham.