I have a rescue cat who I’ve had since February. He’s my first cat! Previously to that he was a stray/feral and he’s had a huge number of health problems that we have under control now (I’m a vet), but he still takes daily medication. For the first few months he lived with us he was quite poorly but he’s much better now. I’m guessing him to be around 8YO. Anyway, we used to live in a flat so he was indoor only (and seemed absolutely fine with this) but a couple of months ago we moved into a house on an estate. A couple of weeks ago he escaped out of the front door and went missing for nearly 48 hours. We only got him back because I went outside calling him at 5am and found him in the neighbours garden. I was beside myself with worry whilst he was gone, it was awful. He is such an affectionate cat and keeps me company as my DP works away a lot, I was really lost without him!
I do feel like he would like access to the outdoors. He does sometimes go to the door and ask to go out, only occasionally so he is definitely not distressed indoors, but I’m sure he would like to explore. However I’m worried, as as far as I know he has always been a stray and I have no idea how long he would be likely to go out for at once/how far he would roam. He’s also on daily meds which he could miss for a night or so but if he went missing for a few days he would start to become poorly. If I knew he would just head out, potter around our road then come back in a couple of hours of course I would let him out. The other thing is me and my DP both work out of the house all day so we would have to get a cat flap as neither of us would be around to let him in during the day. Without a cat flap I would worry about no one being in when he tried to return.
I just don’t know what to do for the best. I’m a vet so I do know a lot about cats, but I’ve never actually had a cat so the owning one side of things is new to me😂