How to Help a Previously Outdoor Cat to Adjust to Indoors?
Posted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 4:16 pm
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.
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.