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[Mental]

Has anyone devised a fool-proof method of containing pets within the fortress, allowing them to roam freely within it, but not go outside?

My latest fort has a battle plan which requires the undivided attention of attackers toward a specific location complete with bait. However, given that entire goblin siege will chase a single kitten around the map unceasingly until it is dead, and then move onto the next 8 kittens also meandering about the outside of the sealed fortress, this has never been a particularly practical strategy for me. I tried pet-sealed doors, and apparently those don't actually work as the cats and dogs simply wait for a dwarf to open one of the high traffic doors as they move in and out of the fort

So, I am completely dumbfounded as to a solution which will allow my dwarves to move freely in and out of the fortress while also disallowing the cats and dogs from leaving the fort. Obviously I could simply seal them into a room with a forbidden or lever activated door, but that would prevent them from patrolling the entire internal structure of the fort and fulfilling their roles as vermin killers and thief/snatcher catchers.

Has anyone devised a solution to this problem?

[toomanysecrets]

Pasture all of your animals. For cats, make a pen/pasture zone that covers your entire kitchen/butchery area, another for your food stockpiles and anywhere else that vermin is common.  Large animals and birds should be pastured for obvious reasons, and any other animals (dogs etc) can be placed in small zones throughout the fort wherever they are needed as sentries.

[billw]

Animals will adhere to civilian alerts, so if you have a burrow that includes your entire fortress interior and set that as the civilian alert your animals will stay inside. I have the exact opposite problem to you in that I want to keep my civilians inside but allow my pets out to attack siegers as they are assigned to my military dwarves.

[thiosk]

Once cavern fungus grows, Can animals graze on that indoors? 

[Laurin]

Yes, but it will take a while until the floor is covered.