I hate my cat. I did not sign up for this

[Ragcatdoll]

3 year old male ragdoll. Bought from reputable breeder as a kitten. Researched the breed before buying. Consensus was I was signing up for a “living breathing teddy bear who will follow you everywhere”.

Reality is an unfriendly bored cat whose only aim in life is to leave his home. He has a 3 storey house to explore. Cat trees. Multiple toys. His 3 year old sister from same litter to play with. Attention all day from my grown up DS who works from home and my DH.

Did I mention I spent 4k professionally cat proofing my garden which he has access to 24/7 via a cat flap? Still not happy.Sits by front door screaming day and night to go out. Tries everything to get out the front including leaping from 2nd floor window which he did on Saturday. I’ve had enough.

Hes spent all day crying at the front door to go outside even though he has a secure back garden!!

I can’t cope with him anymore. Didn’t sign up for this. Not sure what else I can do except let him go outside the front where we have a road, a quiet road, but a road none the less. All I see on social media are ragdolls who lay around the house sleeping all day quite content.

His sister is lovely, loves her back garden & is a content little thing. He on the other hand is making the whole family miserable,

don't let him out.

I have had a cat hit by a car, I lived down a dead end road. He didn't come home and went to die in a bush (I eventually found him but he had gangrene).

You are increasingly the chances of your cat getting into fights, getting disease or being injured outside.

My advice would be to ignore the begging at the door. Make sure he sees you going out the back into your garden and it might seem more interesting.

If he won't use the cat flap, try getting a bigger one so he feels more comfortable.

People saying it's cruel to keep a cat in, are living in the past. Cats have been bred to be domesticated, not wild. A garden and a house are more than enough. Consider animals kept in rehoming centres in small enclosures, and some are there for years.

Yeah just like the penguins at London zoo can go outside in their enclosure. Can’t get out though.

There's a difference between a cat being allowed outside and choosing to stay in, and a cat being kept inside when they're clearly unhappy, though.

What an odd thing to say. Not sure if you understand, but Regents Park isn’t really a safe place for free-range penguins.

The entire state of Victoria in Australia has passed a law that ALL cats must be kept in overnight and preferably 24/7. They are funding backyard enclosures or 'cateos' and high fences, it's about protecting wildlife. I have a cat but I also would like to see a few birds in my garden.

You are getting such a hard time!! But we have ragdolls and I totally get it as the breeder stressed they are indoor cats / don’t have road safety etc.
but we agreed with our vet our make ragdoll cat needed freedom as he was unhappy and stressed without it. Better to lead a happy possibly shorter life than resist his urges.
quite frankly he is likely to get bored once you let him go out the front

She’s been that way since we fostered her at 5 months having been born on a rubbish tip, and she’s still at it 4 years on. Nothing I have done has caused her to behave that way, it’s just ingrained in her now and I have to prevent her from accessing things that might hurt her. The ‘not going outside unsupervised’ thing is BECAUSE she does that, not the other way round.

Your worst fear should be him being ran over. Ragdoll cats are not bred to be outdoor cats - I’d reach out to the breeder or to the breed club for support.

suggesting repeatedly putting it out the back door into the catio/ enclosed arden when it wnts to wander properly

Not necessarily, it could be pica. I enquired about a cat a while ago who ate plastic bags. Nothing to do with being bored, he had pica.

It is indeed pica. She’s a dilute calico with blue crossed eyes, very small and vocal so probably a Siamese mix which would explain the pica.

Let him out the front. He might have a raging case of FOMO and lose interest in the front once he discovers it's not that exciting.

Or start squealing to come back in. This is my boss' cat - never happy with his current state of affairs 😂

Are orientals more prone to pica?

She doesn’t need to. Trust me, he knows.

Seems to be! Most of the journal articles I’ve read in my lengthy quest to cure her have indicated that it’s more common in Orientals.

It’s not much fun to deal with, I had to rehome all my houseplants because she was chomping away and I couldn’t risk her getting sick. Anything packaged in cellophane has to be immediately unwrapped and the packaging buried in the bin, we have childlocks on the bathroom cupboards so she can’t access any toiletries. Even the toothbrushes go in a pot in the cupboard because I don’t trust her not to have a go on them while we’re out I can mostly control what she has access to in the house (although she recently ate part of the silicone mat that the water bowl was on, which was a surprise as it had been there for months before she decided to try it!) but I can’t control what she eats if she goes outside so I just can’t risk it as she would probably die.

I’m not against outdoor cats either, I have one that goes out to roam after breakfast and comes home at dusk, one who used to be quite the explorer but has chosen to stop going out all day now that she’s getting older although will sunbathe in the garden if it’s a nice day, and then the crazy one who goes outside if there is a human to supervise her.

Sounds like you have 2 choices
1 keep him but let him out- maybe only when he is due a meal soon so he is less likely to be out for long - and accept the risks of cars etc
2 re home him somewhere he will be happy

Rehome him or let him out.

Oh no photos of said cat ?

Starlight1984 up until last year I had an indoor cat. I also had 3 outdoor cats. The indoor boy was a hand reared kitten given to me by a vet. He was allowed outside but never wanted to go out. So he stayed indoors until he got sick last year and had to be pts. He was 14 and up until 3 weeks before he died was a happy, healthy cat. I have other older cats. One who used to be an outdoor cat but now prefers to stay indoors finding a warm spot to sleep in. Some cats are happy being indoor cats, some not. There are many fiv/disabled/brain damaged cats who would have to be pts if some good humans didn't take them in and keep them as house cats They are all different just like people.

Do you always go out the front or the back OP? If you always go out the front door I wonder if it's worth going about the back for a while and make that seem more exciting to him?

Some people might not get very far if their back door doesn’t lead to the street

I would let him out. I have tried many times to make my cat an indoor cat. She goes mental! Even jumped out an upstairs window once on me when she was still a small kitten.

Now that she has access to outside she doesn’t even go out that often - but she hates feeling trapped!

she is nearly six now and has become more of a lap cat then she used to be.

I think it was fairly obvious op that you were using the word hate as hyperbole /tongue in cheek and that you don't hate him really.

Take him out on a lead?

I think the only thing you can do is insure him, chip him and let him out. He's not happy being an indoor cat, some of them aren't.