Cat allowed out tomorrow. Scared.

[tippytap]

Our lovely lady cat Jessie, has been with us 4 weeks tomorrow and we've decided that tomorrow is the day we let her explore outside.

I'm scared.

We lost our lovely James when he was hit by a car. I will not let Jessie out when it's dark, but what if she doesn't want to come home? I'm worried she'll run away or something.

I'm going to let her out in the morning, but not give her breakfast. The plan is to follow her out, see how she does, the rattle the food and feed her when she comes in.

Does this sound ok?

Do I then build it up to longer out on Sunday or just open the cat flap and give her free reign?

Any advice would be very welcome!

Random Jessie pic. Just because

[cozietoesie]

It feels awful, I know. Fellow feeling here.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Sounds good to me.

[tippytap]

So Jessie went out (very) briefly this morning. She was very confident and no amount of Dreamie rattling would make her come in. In the end, she was startled by a neighbours cat and ran in.

Gah. The stress and worry of having a cat.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Always a shock to find out your not the only cat in the neighbourhood. Ours is constantly outraged other cats exist.

She's probably worked out a lot from looking out the window.

[cozietoesie]

That's not unpromising, tippy.

She was confident but came back to you when she became rattled? Sounds OK.

[tippytap]

Thanks all.

She was meowing pitifully and batting at the cat flap, so out she went again. She was much more confident and strayed further. I may have been sittImg by the door for 20 or so minutes and saw her wandering through a couple of neighbours gardens. She kept coming back to sniff our door though and when startled again, ran indoors.

Fingers crossed! Xx

[cozietoesie]

Hopefully she'll get some of it out of her system - although Spring isn't such a good time of year for first outing. (Better weather, smells, noises, flobbly small things etc etc - nowt you can do about that.) It's a real good sign that she's diving back though. She obviously knows where Home is.

[Fluffycloudland77]

I used to count how many fences I heard him scramble over. The first time I heard him having a scrap I ran out in dressing gown & slippers yelling "don't worry fluffy cat mummy's coming".

He was beating up next doors B&W girl.

Dh has never let me forget it.

[cozietoesie]

[RobotMenu]

Cat you cat proof your garden? It takes an awful lot of the stress away. I can't bear the thought of losing mine to a car.

[kernowgal]

I let mine out yesterday for the first time - I was terrified! He had a yowl-off with next door's tabby so I took him back inside. Then I had to nip out late at night to get something from the car, and thought he was asleep on the sofa - little blighter took his chance and legged it out of the door. Cue me wandering around in the dark, shaking a bag of Dreamies and whispering "puss puss puss!"... After what felt like forever but was probably only 10 minutes, he came running back round and went back inside - little bugger!

[Fluffycloudland77]

Always good to have treats in for this purpose