He really wants to go out!

[Mollysmummy]

My kitty really wants to go out! We have an older cat Molly who goes out whenever she wants. Our kitten Kevin will be 7 months old on 23rd Feb.

Molly is a little scaredy cat, and is scared of everything. She doesn't roam further than a garden or 2 either side of us and only goes out for half an hour or so at a time. She doesn't go anywhere near the road.

However, Kevin is into everything. He's so inquisitive and will investigate anything. He now sits at the window crying, tries to get through the catflap and even scales our bedroom curtains to get to our open bedroom window! I've got a harness for him but he's so wriggly I can't get it on. I'm just so worried tha he will wander (he's been neutered) or go on the road that I'd be happy never letting him out, but I know he's not happy being kept inside any more.

We've carried him outside in our arms before but never let him down. Am I just being overprotective of him?

[sarie]

You're not being over protective at all; my kitten is just coming up to 5 months and he's already getting really interested in the outside as my other two are always coming and going. I have no intentions of letting him out until he's a good bit bigger and has been neutered but I know at some point I'll have to go through that horrible stress of letting him loose.
There are some alternatives though, depending on your situation. I've been looking at various ideas on and off for about 6 months now regarding cat proofing my garden and I'm now fairly sure I'm going to have a new fence put up in the spring - I've decided when I have this done I'm going to install a cat proofing system to ensure that my cats can't roam.
My older cats are fairly safe and don't venture far but I know from my past experiences that young cats/kittens do tend to start out quite adventurous and I'm in the same position as you where I'm terrified that he's going to roam and get himself into trouble. He has no common sense yet - the other two are street wise after years of being indoor/outdoor.

Are there any options for you regarding cat proofing at all? Anything you could consider for him?

[meriad]

Personally I definitely wouldn't carry him outside just in case he does manage to wriggle his way out your arms.

As a first off - could you cat proof your garden; that way Kevin can come and go but still be safe?
If that isn't a possibility then as hard as it is you do need to give him a chance and see how he does. Let him out before breakfast, give him a few minutes to explore and then call him back for food. Do it over the weekend when you can be home the whole day to get him used to the outside. And in the meantime use the weekdays to train him to react to the food bowl being tapped or the treat tin rattled; so he associates that with good and will come running back inside.

How busy is the road and how would he get there? If you have a side gate could you block that off so he has to go round the back of the other houses vs direct access to the road?

Another thing some people have said they did was stand by the road and the moment they saw their cat approaching they'd make a big noise so the cat would go back to the gardens - again that may be something to try?

[meriad]

Are there any options for you regarding cat proofing at all? Anything you could consider for him?

snap

[Mollysmummy]

Unfortunately we live in a terraced house so it would be impossible to completely cat proof the garden as neighbours may always leave the gates open etc. It is a pretty busy road into our village. The only thing we could do would be to gate off the alleyway, but we'd need the ok from the houses either side too.

We would definitely use food as an incentive to come in, maybe we will try next weekend. I'm going to try getting him in the harness again later on.

[Kay]

I'd persevere with the harness myself - is it one of those wrap around ones? if it is, it should be safe to leave it on indoors so he gets used to it

even if he won't walk in it, you could attach a long lead and let him explore a bit on his own - if you took him outside just before meal times, and let him have 10 minutes or so, regularly, he might get into that routine and continue it later

it's always a big gamble with youngsters and busy roads though, and personally I wouldn't risk letting him loose for a couple of years, if ever

[bobbys girl]

Before my friends moved to Spain they got their cat used to the harness she was to wear (for the whole trip) by putting it on her for increasingly longer times and occasionally putting the lead on and letting her decide where she wanted to go. It worked very well and she was fine on the trip. They sometimes got some funny looks, taking a cat for a walk, but hey, what the heck, it worked. Cuddles spent her last few years chasing lizards and dozing under olive trees.

[mr_frisky]

Reminds me of these books:

kitten.bmp (148.34 KiB) Viewed 2332 times

[Mollysmummy]

If only he was ginger