How to Help a Previously Outdoor Cat to Adjust to Indoors?

[ChonairJazz]

Hi!

I'm a newbie to this forum so sorry if this isn't posted in the right place! Sorry also if it is long.

Several years ago my partner and I were adopted by a cat. He had no collar and wasn't chipped or neutered. We think he might be quite an old boy, about 13 or 14 at a guess, as he has a few scars, a tattered ear and missing teeth. When he first came to us we let him come and go as he pleased. He kept coming back to us with fleas and looking a bit thin and scrawny. He's also come to us with abcesses from fighting on a couple of occasions, one time with what the vet thought might be cat flu, with various scratches, and on another occasion a grazed ear (we think he might have snagged it on a fence).

Recently, due to a number of reasons (the road we live on has got busier and will continue to do so as there is a new huge housing estate being built right in front of our house, people speed on our road, there is a lot of crime in the area, including violent crime, some people around here just aren't very nice, and he's just slowing down and becoming less mobile) we felt it would be safer for him to be inside. It was a difficult decision to make, but we just aren't comfortable with him roaming unsupervised anymore. There is a whole load more building planned in the local area and he has no road sense, he just runs across. Over the last couple of years several cats locally have been lost to RTAs on the surrounding roads, poisoning, or by people deliberately harming them. We also wonder that he might not have a great immune system.

Over the past year and a half he's been spending more and more time here sleeping, and back just before Halloween he was barely going out, only really to do his business. We were keeping him in at night because of trick-or-treaters and fireworks and he was using his tray in preference to going out, so we decided to bite the bullet and locked the flap.

It's been about two or three months now. For the first few weeks he was fine, he didn't seem bothered at all about being inside, and actually seemed more chill, so we thought we'd got away with it, but then he started asking to go out again. We got a Feliway plug in, which seemed to help for a while until it ran out (which may just be coincidence!) and some new toys to help keep him occupied. He's not a massively playful cat but he did get some use for a while out of some of them. He then started getting more insistent again.

What I wanted to ask:
1. Will getting him neutered stop him asking to go out all the time, and help him adjust to being inside only?

2. Besides getting him done, is there anything else we can do to help him settle inside?

3. He's not a massively playful cat, and doesn't show an interest in the majority of toys. What can we do to provide him with some enrichment to help keep him occupied and distracted?

4. I spoke the other day to a couple of ladies who work as animal care assistants in a pet store, and they said that it sounds like we're doing the right thing, and that he will probably adjust given more time as he's still getting used to it. Do you think this is the case? If so, how long roughly do you think it might take? Has anyone else here had any success with transitioning a reluctant outdoor cat into an indoor cat? What worked for you?

5. If we do have to let him out again, how can we keep him in our garden and away from the road? We did try just letting him out when the road is quiet and calling him in before it starts to get busy again, but the traffic on it can be really unpredictable, and once he's out of the garden he completely ignores us and won't come when called. One of the ladies I spoke to in the shop suggested maybe trying a harness to take him out in the garden. Is this likely to work? Has anyone else tried this?

Obviously, at the end of the day if he doesn't adjust, and if being unable to roam freely is making him stressed and miserable, we will of course reconsider. We want him to be happy! But we want him to be safe and healthy too. What would you guys suggest?

Sorry again that this is long, I appreciate anyone taking the time to read it.

[Cathyday007]

Hello.
I too am transitioning an outdoor cat to an indoor. I'm having trouble settling our one with my existing cats but also with getting our new one to play. The only toy she shows any interest in is a laser pen. Have you tried that?
If your lad wants to go back out you can cat proof your garden by fitting fencing on top of your existing which leans inwards towards the cat. Cats hate anything over their head and instinctively won't jump up onto it, hence he'll stay in your garden. It's available on the internet and I believe isn't that expensive.
Please do get him done and also chipped. As an entire male he could still wander miles looking for a mate. He will also be quite aggressive. May also be worth testing him for FIV / FELV. If his immune system isn't too good it could be he has an underlying condition. If he tests positive for either he'll be okay to stay with you but not to mix with other cats as he could pass either on.
I wish you all the best with your lad. Our newbie (ex golf club cat who's lived outside for 10 years) has just started sitting on my lap every evening. Just need her to stop fighting my boys now....

[ChonairJazz]

Hello.
I too am transitioning an outdoor cat to an indoor. I'm having trouble settling our one with my existing cats but also with getting our new one to play. The only toy she shows any interest in is a laser pen. Have you tried that?
If your lad wants to go back out you can cat proof your garden by fitting fencing on top of your existing which leans inwards towards the cat. Cats hate anything over their head and instinctively won't jump up onto it, hence he'll stay in your garden. It's available on the internet and I believe isn't that expensive.
Please do get him done and also chipped. As an entire male he could still wander miles looking for a mate. He will also be quite aggressive. May also be worth testing him for FIV / FELV. If his immune system isn't too good it could be he has an underlying condition. If he tests positive for either he'll be okay to stay with you but not to mix with other cats as he could pass either on.
I wish you all the best with your lad. Our newbie (ex golf club cat who's lived outside for 10 years) has just started sitting on my lap every evening. Just need her to stop fighting my boys now....

Hi Cathyday!

Thank you so much for your response!

Sorry to hear you are having trouble too. Cats can be so bloody finicky with toys can't they?! We haven't tried a laser pen in ages. We did have one years ago he did seem to enjoy it, but it broke and then we forgot to get a new one. Might be worth another shot! We have had some success over the last few days with a couple of those catnip kick-toy things. It's literally stuffed entirely with catnip, he seems to really enjoy that, he loves grabbing and chewing it and his back legs kick up a real storm! I've put the other one aside for when he gets bored of this one!

I also spend about 10 minutes, twice a day right before his meal, teaching him little tricks like sit down, turn around, sit-up-and-beg, with treats to keep his mind that little bit more occupied. He's picking it up faster than I thought! Is your little lady food oriented? Maybe it's something you could try with her and work up to interactive toys? That's what I'm hoping for with our little chap! Our cat has a couple of interactive feeders which he got the hang of quite quickly and seems to enjoy, (the CatIt Digger was a particular hit!) and a toilet roll tube with the end folded over that I fill with a few treats or a pinch of catnip and throw on the floor for him. We did get 2-3 minutes of play out of him the other day with a ball of scrunched up tin foil too, and he has a couple of times started playing on his own with plastic ring-pulls and caps from sports bottles, but we have to watch him with those for obvious reasons!

He came to us as a stray, the only reason we didn't get him done years ago was because I was worried he still had an owner and that we'd get in trouble for fixing him, but it really doesn't look like anyone else out there is looking out for him. He came to us about 5 years ago now, maybe 6. I suppose I'm just still really anxious about getting him done. We will eventually. I do however absolutely believe that it is the responsible thing for cat owners to do. At least now that he's inside, even if we don't get him done for a while, he's not out getting sick, hurt, or contributing to the kitten problem.

He's a really strange cat. He's usually quite affectionate (at the moment less so, as I think he's still a little stressed by the change). The only times he has ever been aggressive towards us has been when he had an injury and we were accidentally hurting it (understandable), and he has only sprayed inside a couple of times, when the neighbour's cat managed to sneak in and stink up the place! Again, understandable. But yes, he can be quite aggressive towards other cats. Makes sense really. I hadn't thought of the fencing, no. I'm not 100% sure if it'd work with our garden, but it's definitely worth considering if it gives him that little more freedom, once he's a little more settled and less angsty! Does it stop other cats getting in?

He does seem to have been a little calmer over the last couple of days although he does still howl to go out a couple of times a day and his tail does still seem to be lashing a bit. I'm not holding my breath just yet, as like I say he can be fine for a few days and then "flare up" again, it's still early days, but he has seemed calmer over the last two days than he did before his last flare up, so we're hoping that maybe he is slowly adjusting. I'm constantly stressing and asking myself whether we are doing the right thing. Whether we are actually justified in bringing him inside, or whether we are just making him depressed, but then I watch the massive digger on the other side of the road lugging rubble about, and even though the road isn't crazy all the time, 15 cars have gone past in the last five minutes (and a couple of them at speeds which I know would get them in trouble if a police officer were to see them), and I worry all over again.

I did wonder a while ago whether we should get him checked for FIV. Of course if that were the case we would have to keep him in anyway. When we first took him to the vet about 2 years ago, for a URI, she did a basic health check, said he was in relatively good health otherwise, and that we were doing a good job looking after him. I'm not sure if she did test for FIV/FELV, is that something you have to ask for them to test for? I think she just did a basic check.

I wish you all the best with your little lady, I hope you manage to find something soon that gets her playing!
Good luck!

PS: Wow, that got really long. Sorry!