Over time you can get rid of the leash and just walk side by side.
My cat was 10 when we moved to a ground floor apartment, so we couldn't realistically prevent him from escaping, so we started walking him. He lived over 16 years, the last two of which he would only go outside to lay in the bushes.
Deer, possums, raccoons, and other wildlife who live outdoors seem incapable of learning how to avoid it, so it's unclear my cat will either.
Further as mentioned in my post, my parents essentially ran your experiment already with the result being every male cat we had dying in under 5 years due to being hit by cars.
So no, I don't think it's a great idea to let your cat outdoors in most reasonably populated & dense areas of the US.
Or, you only notice the ones which have been killed. Otherwise, deer, possum and raccoon populations should decrease pretty fast. And of feral cats of course.
> Further as mentioned in my post, my parents essentially ran your experiment already with the result being every male cat we had dying in under 5 years due to being hit by cars.
I'm sorry to hear that, but I am curious why it was only the male cats. Perhaps they are less skittish? What happened to the female cats?
> So no, I don't think it's a great idea to let your cat outdoors in most reasonably populated & dense areas of the US.
Alright, but I would hope you can at least agree that keeping cats indoors all the time is not preparing them for the outdoors, in the cases when they do slip out.
That said, this product looks like it can help people who lose their indoor cats, which happens. I recently helped rescue a neighbors cat who snuck out and stayed outside for 2 full months.