Letting my 7.5 month old kitten outside

[Candercat]

Hello

Looking for some advice about letting my kitten outside alone.

He is 7 and a half months old, chipped & neutered and wears a collar when out. We have been letting him play in the garden for a few months while supervised and he got used to the garden and would climb up and sit on our fences.

We recently got a cat flap installed for him and have been allowing him out while we are home and keeping an eye on him every half hour or so as we increase the time he is allowed out for. Generally, he comes and pops his head in every half hour - 1 hour. So far he has probably been out for about 4 hours max at a time and only when we are home. We see him ~5/6 times at least over that period. He tends to roam the gardens in our back alley but have noticed he is starting to venture further to the neighbouring street (and visiting neighbours in their houses!)

Looking for advice on how/when/if we should build up to letting him out when we are not home? We are out for 9h a day for work Mon-Fri so he has only been out at weekends in the day or after we get home.

Thanks

[Ruth B]

It sounds like you have already done a very good job in introducing him to the bigger world and he is doing as you would expect a cat to do, he is enjoying exploring it, but knows where home is when he wants to return. My suggestion would be, one weekend or if you have some annual holiday coming up when you will be at home all day, let him out in the morning and don't try and get him in after a few hours leave it until the time you would be getting in from work and call him then (assuming he isn't already in). After you have seen him come and go on his own schedule for a couple of days, hopefully you will feel a little happier about letting him do it while you are at work.

It's always a worry when we first let them go off by themselves, but I'm sure the benefit they get from going out out ways the risks involved, fortunately I live on a quite cul de sac so the biggest danger to them is far more limited than someone living on a busy road.

Unfortunately visiting neighbours is something you can do very little about if you aren't willing to confine him to your garden by cat proofing it. As long as your neighbours are cat friendly, or at least cat tolerant then normally the biggest problem is them giving him treats leading him to put on weight, cats can be very good at convincing people that they are starving even when they look in good condition or even overweight.