Before we were married, my wife lived in Bennington with a couple of cats. She'd pick the wettest, slushiest, snowiest day of the year to give them their annual dose of "out", usually by directly inserting them into the wet snow. "See, it's icky out there. You don't really want to go out now, do you?"

Of course, it's pretty hard to make that case in the spring or summer with all the windows open and the scents of the Great Outdoors wafting through...