Where I am,no… it’s very unusual.I’m in the centre of a major city, where most people live in apartment blocks, there is a lot of traffic, shops and offices.
You almost never see a cat here, never mind a stray cat!
There’s a lot of outdoor cats here, so most cats that you’d see would just be pets. There’s a few strays but the majority of cats outside have homes
According to official city statistics there are 30k wild cats living on the streets of Warsaw; volunteers take care of them, city council sponsors food and during winter they usually seek shelter in basements (edit: cats, not the city council), the city even used to send flyers for people to make their basements available for stray cats ([source](https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/najnowsze/warszawa-wolno-zyjace-koty-i-dzikie-ptaki-potrzebuja-wsparcia-szczegolnie-zima-st2980333)). Luckily no stray dogs whatsoever.
But truth be told it’s pretty unusual to see stray cats out in the open. I was really surprised we’ve got as many as 30k of them; I only checked that a second ago; can’t remember seeing even one this year and I walk a lot. My neighbourhood is ruled very firmly by squirrels, and there are gangs of them everywhere.
Here in our village are a lot of cats. I know a few of them but not all, so …. how shall know if they are all pets or stray cats?
Highly depends on where in Denmark you live. But in Copenhagen I would say no. I ofthen see cats, but they tend to be very obviously not strays.
I’m not sure whether the ones I meet are stray or someone’s outdoor cats (there are exceptions who are certainly not strays), but they are fairly common and I always try to pet them whenever I see them.
Definitely not in the city. I’m not sure about the countryside – in my childhood freely roaming barn cats were common around my grandparents’ place, but the small cattle farms have virtually disappeared and I suspect that cats with them too. Whether they were truly strays is another thing..
I highly doubt the ones I see around here are strays. They are all looking well (or even slightly obese) with clear eyes and shiny fur, and for some I know where they live.
But my own cats are limited to the house and only go out on a leash. Partly because of the risks to the cats, but mostly because I don’t want them to hunt birds. We always have robins nesting in our hedges and oftentimes blackbirds and wrens too, all of which have that certain phase in their development where they leave the nest but stay on the ground a few days until they can actually fly longer distances.
In the cities no, they may walk around outside but simply are indoor/outdoor cats. They have an owner. Countryside is different tho, there are many ats that kinda were left to become feral
not unusual but not like they walk around everywhere.
when i see a cat outside i assume they are an outdoor cat but have an owner
Yes, absolutely. Most people in the area where the cats hang, take care of them. I’ve always fed the strays wherever I’ve lived. And tbh, landlords are nightmares when it comes to pets, especially cats as they can scratch the furniture, so there is truly nothing better than taking care of an animal, when you can’t take one under your roof – it brings me such peace and joy.
My university even takes care of a few cats – we think of them as _our_ university cats, but they roam freely everywhere in the area, so technically they are strays.
Sadly, not all people are kind to stray animals, but I’d say most of them care about strays (cats and dogs, though stray dogs are much more rare than cats) and some of them even become members of animal protection organizations.
In Sweden no. You will see cats outside but that’s because it’s the norm to let your cats leave and enter as they please
Northern Bavaria: The cats I see on the street usually have a home and are not too far from it. Could be housecats, could be farm cats. Though a stray that tolerates humans might be indistinguishable from a cat with a home while some farm cats are halfway to feral.
How do you even know if a car is a Stray or just badly taken care of by his owners?
Also it could look perfectly healthy and be a stray…
To answer the question, here in Ireland where I live, I never saw a cat outside that I believed to be a stray.
I’m living in Madrid and I rarely see cats in the city centre but there are certain places where lots of them like to congregate a bit farther out
The average cat you will see in my country is not a stray, but a well-kept pet on their regular walk.
Stray colonies are quite rare.
Most cats I see in streets aren’t stray and do have a house. Their owners just let them enjoy the streets even if, since it’s the city center, most don’t.
I still see some stray but it’s rare (maybe they hide more?), you can see they are dirtier and skinny.
I see an average of under 1 cat per day in Vienna.
When I lived on the countryside I might see a few more but none are stray.
In Bucharest it’s very common. Maybe not in the center of the city, but there are a lot of them in residential neighborhoods. Some are friendlier than others. There are always a few of us that feed them, but of course this is not the same as having a home.
No. All cats that roam our neighborhood belong to someone.
When I was living in a nearby big city I would occasionally see cats that appeared to be strays, but here in this small town, there aren’t any.
Super abnormal.
The only place I’ve seen it is on the Norwegian countryside where some farmers let their (barn)cats reproduce like crazy, producing strays.
Unfortunately it is pretty common in Greece. Especially in the big cities like Athens or Thessaloniki, you can see stray cats and dogs everywhere.
I do see cats in the streets (UK) but they arent necessarily “stray”. They are usually someone’s pet that is exploring the area.
Not too much. In some village there tend to be the local cat man or lady that somehow take care of the dozen cats that roam around, but honestly overall I wouldn’t see much of them, in fact in busier city areas none at all.
Yes, it’s common to see them in Moscow, but they usually have an outdoor home of sorts: they live in a basement and patronize several shops or ladies with toxoplasmosis.
It’s normal to see cats out in the street. It’s not possible to tell by looking at a cat whether it is a stray or not.
Yes, I am often woken up at night during the spring and summer by the sound of cats fighting on the garden shed rooves. If you walk around the neighbourhood in the evening, you will see cats everywhere. Even my own cat’s mother was a stray. If you just put a bowl with food in your garden, you will make a cat friend and a lot of people adopt cats that way.
I’m in Vilnius. They exist but are not common. There’s one around our house but she has an owner, so not really a stray. But she does spend most of the time outside. There are some actual strays but also there are people who feed them and build them little insulated houses to sleep in.
We do have a large variety of stray animals here, not a huge number of individuals, but a large variety. Cats and dogs, deer, elk, moose, hedgehogs, rabbits, foxes, there’s a cute little slaughter machine living nearby too, a marten. I shout at it when I see it run past, it stops and stares at me with its cute pointy ears, adorable murderer. They mostly feed on birds and rodents.
Vilnius has tons of green spaces, many large parks, outskirts of the city are surrounded by wild forests and there’s a lot of animals in all of them. I once met a ma-fucking-hoosive elk just 20 km from the central Cathedral square, on the outskirts of Vilnius.
Germany
I sometimes see a single one on the street like every few months and mostly at night. Not common at all in the city but it’s also too dangerous to let your cats run free. If you mean wild cats, then no.
No. You see owned indoors/outdoor cats, but strays are rare.
It is difficult for them to survive winter on their own, so that keeps the population of strays down.
And the strays that exist generally get trapped and taken care of by cat shelters. It is mostly kittens and juveniles because, again, winter.
Cats are still pretty normal, although there are not nearly as much of them as say 20 years ago. Dogs, on the other hand, are not really common.
31 comments
Depends where you live I think.
Where I am,no… it’s very unusual.I’m in the centre of a major city, where most people live in apartment blocks, there is a lot of traffic, shops and offices.
You almost never see a cat here, never mind a stray cat!
There’s a lot of outdoor cats here, so most cats that you’d see would just be pets. There’s a few strays but the majority of cats outside have homes
According to official city statistics there are 30k wild cats living on the streets of Warsaw; volunteers take care of them, city council sponsors food and during winter they usually seek shelter in basements (edit: cats, not the city council), the city even used to send flyers for people to make their basements available for stray cats ([source](https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/najnowsze/warszawa-wolno-zyjace-koty-i-dzikie-ptaki-potrzebuja-wsparcia-szczegolnie-zima-st2980333)). Luckily no stray dogs whatsoever.
But truth be told it’s pretty unusual to see stray cats out in the open. I was really surprised we’ve got as many as 30k of them; I only checked that a second ago; can’t remember seeing even one this year and I walk a lot. My neighbourhood is ruled very firmly by squirrels, and there are gangs of them everywhere.
Here in our village are a lot of cats. I know a few of them but not all, so …. how shall know if they are all pets or stray cats?
Highly depends on where in Denmark you live. But in Copenhagen I would say no. I ofthen see cats, but they tend to be very obviously not strays.
I’m not sure whether the ones I meet are stray or someone’s outdoor cats (there are exceptions who are certainly not strays), but they are fairly common and I always try to pet them whenever I see them.
Definitely not in the city. I’m not sure about the countryside – in my childhood freely roaming barn cats were common around my grandparents’ place, but the small cattle farms have virtually disappeared and I suspect that cats with them too. Whether they were truly strays is another thing..
I highly doubt the ones I see around here are strays. They are all looking well (or even slightly obese) with clear eyes and shiny fur, and for some I know where they live.
But my own cats are limited to the house and only go out on a leash. Partly because of the risks to the cats, but mostly because I don’t want them to hunt birds. We always have robins nesting in our hedges and oftentimes blackbirds and wrens too, all of which have that certain phase in their development where they leave the nest but stay on the ground a few days until they can actually fly longer distances.
In the cities no, they may walk around outside but simply are indoor/outdoor cats. They have an owner. Countryside is different tho, there are many ats that kinda were left to become feral
not unusual but not like they walk around everywhere.
when i see a cat outside i assume they are an outdoor cat but have an owner
Yes, absolutely. Most people in the area where the cats hang, take care of them. I’ve always fed the strays wherever I’ve lived. And tbh, landlords are nightmares when it comes to pets, especially cats as they can scratch the furniture, so there is truly nothing better than taking care of an animal, when you can’t take one under your roof – it brings me such peace and joy.
My university even takes care of a few cats – we think of them as _our_ university cats, but they roam freely everywhere in the area, so technically they are strays.
Sadly, not all people are kind to stray animals, but I’d say most of them care about strays (cats and dogs, though stray dogs are much more rare than cats) and some of them even become members of animal protection organizations.
In Sweden no. You will see cats outside but that’s because it’s the norm to let your cats leave and enter as they please
Northern Bavaria: The cats I see on the street usually have a home and are not too far from it. Could be housecats, could be farm cats. Though a stray that tolerates humans might be indistinguishable from a cat with a home while some farm cats are halfway to feral.
How do you even know if a car is a Stray or just badly taken care of by his owners?
Also it could look perfectly healthy and be a stray…
To answer the question, here in Ireland where I live, I never saw a cat outside that I believed to be a stray.
I’m living in Madrid and I rarely see cats in the city centre but there are certain places where lots of them like to congregate a bit farther out
The average cat you will see in my country is not a stray, but a well-kept pet on their regular walk.
Stray colonies are quite rare.
Most cats I see in streets aren’t stray and do have a house. Their owners just let them enjoy the streets even if, since it’s the city center, most don’t.
I still see some stray but it’s rare (maybe they hide more?), you can see they are dirtier and skinny.
I see an average of under 1 cat per day in Vienna.
When I lived on the countryside I might see a few more but none are stray.
In Bucharest it’s very common. Maybe not in the center of the city, but there are a lot of them in residential neighborhoods. Some are friendlier than others. There are always a few of us that feed them, but of course this is not the same as having a home.
No. All cats that roam our neighborhood belong to someone.
When I was living in a nearby big city I would occasionally see cats that appeared to be strays, but here in this small town, there aren’t any.
Super abnormal.
The only place I’ve seen it is on the Norwegian countryside where some farmers let their (barn)cats reproduce like crazy, producing strays.
Unfortunately it is pretty common in Greece. Especially in the big cities like Athens or Thessaloniki, you can see stray cats and dogs everywhere.
I do see cats in the streets (UK) but they arent necessarily “stray”. They are usually someone’s pet that is exploring the area.
Not too much. In some village there tend to be the local cat man or lady that somehow take care of the dozen cats that roam around, but honestly overall I wouldn’t see much of them, in fact in busier city areas none at all.
Yes, it’s common to see them in Moscow, but they usually have an outdoor home of sorts: they live in a basement and patronize several shops or ladies with toxoplasmosis.
It’s normal to see cats out in the street. It’s not possible to tell by looking at a cat whether it is a stray or not.
Yes, I am often woken up at night during the spring and summer by the sound of cats fighting on the garden shed rooves. If you walk around the neighbourhood in the evening, you will see cats everywhere. Even my own cat’s mother was a stray. If you just put a bowl with food in your garden, you will make a cat friend and a lot of people adopt cats that way.
I’m in Vilnius. They exist but are not common. There’s one around our house but she has an owner, so not really a stray. But she does spend most of the time outside. There are some actual strays but also there are people who feed them and build them little insulated houses to sleep in.
We do have a large variety of stray animals here, not a huge number of individuals, but a large variety. Cats and dogs, deer, elk, moose, hedgehogs, rabbits, foxes, there’s a cute little slaughter machine living nearby too, a marten. I shout at it when I see it run past, it stops and stares at me with its cute pointy ears, adorable murderer. They mostly feed on birds and rodents.
Vilnius has tons of green spaces, many large parks, outskirts of the city are surrounded by wild forests and there’s a lot of animals in all of them. I once met a ma-fucking-hoosive elk just 20 km from the central Cathedral square, on the outskirts of Vilnius.
Germany
I sometimes see a single one on the street like every few months and mostly at night. Not common at all in the city but it’s also too dangerous to let your cats run free. If you mean wild cats, then no.
No. You see owned indoors/outdoor cats, but strays are rare.
It is difficult for them to survive winter on their own, so that keeps the population of strays down.
And the strays that exist generally get trapped and taken care of by cat shelters. It is mostly kittens and juveniles because, again, winter.
Cats are still pretty normal, although there are not nearly as much of them as say 20 years ago. Dogs, on the other hand, are not really common.