Glad to see this thread, I am facing this decision right now. My previous cat wandered around this country neighborhood and ended up getting shot, crawled home alive, tried to save him for nine days (the vet and I) but in the end we couldn’t save him.
Now have two little ones. But my place is so small! One big room. I want them to go out sometime, I guess if I were out there with them, going for walks etc. it might be all right. They riot and gallop around and shoot up the curtains and are just full of it. I know they need to go outside but am in a quandary, I don’t want to lose them.