There's not much chance I could keep Sugar indoors. She has a way of appearing from nowhere and zipping out the minute she hears a door opening. But then, she hasn't been doing much hunting in her old age, and she left gophers and moles unmolested to make tunnels all over the yard earlier this year. She never was much of a rat catcher. She used to be the terror of birds, though, but lately she hasn't shown much interest even in the tasty avians. About the only thing she'll chase anymore is other cats.
I guess it's also unlikely that I'll be getting the plague, myself. I seldom have anything to do with rodents, and as long as I don't sit on the lawn, I never get flea bites. In fact it seems highly unlikely that there will be a plague of plague here. I mean, a Medieval-type plague, with guys roaming the streets pulling corpse-filled carts and calling "Bring out your dead!" as the church bells solemnly toll. Ah, romance is gone from the modern world.