Am getting very worried as our cat hasn't come home........

[girliefriend]

Our cat is only 6 months and has always been very much a home boy, he is also a bit of a follower and today when I went to pick my dd up from school he followed me quite a long way before I shooed him back as I was getting very close to a busy road. Assumed he would be waiting for us when we got back but worryingly there is still no sign of him and its been 3 hours. Have done a local circuit and called him but nothing. I wouldn't be too worried if it wasn't for the fact that he never goes far and it seems so strange that he has just vanished any advice anyone? Also while Im here has anyone ever had a cat that would walk on a cat lead as was wondering as he likes to follow if he might be ok on one?!

he is home looking slightly bedraggled and damp but safe!!! Although would still be interested to know if anyone has ever sucessfully walked a cat on a lead?!!!

Ahh that's good to know. But as for walking on a lead .... mmmm not sure! Haven't seen it very often but always thought it looked a leetle teeny bit strange. [hgrin]

yes I know what you mean....! Are you a cat person? as my other issue is getting him to poo outside! He insists on coming in to use the litter tray and stinking us all out!!!! Any ideas?

More of a dog person tbh although do have/have had lots of cats. As for litter tray just take it away. I've found after the kitten stage if it's not there they do just go outside. Obviously you need cat flap!

Although my sister has a cat that is 4yo now and because she hasn't the heart to remove the litter tray because "he prefers it" it is still in constant use... get tough!

Phew that he came back! My parents had a cat that walked on a lead - basically he insisted on following them everywhere, even into the local pub where they would always need an extra chair for him. They were so worried about him darting into the road on the way there / back that they tried him on a lead - he was a bit grumpy at first but seemed to accept it as a necessary evil if he was going to keep frequenting the local ...

Not sure about just taking the litter tray away - I did that with ours and she refused to go outdoors, though she had a cat flap, ended up hanging on for as long as she could, giving herself a very very nasty bladder infection in the process, and has had to spend the rest of her life on v. expensive special food to keep it from recurring - and I am now fully au fait with getting urine samples from a cat! (oh and she weed on the duvet ... and we're stuck with an indoor litter tray forever now!)

One gentler way to try is to move the litter tray gradually nearer the cat flap, then eventually just outside the cat flap, then on the flowerbed you want them to use, then eventually to put some litter down on the preferred flowerbed.

Glad he came back!

Thanks all bless him - he was neutered today!!! Doesn't seem any the worse for wear from it though!!! Did you worry about not feeding yours for 6 hours after the op?! Seems a tad excessive to me and have actually given him a little bit to eat because he was pacing around crying for food!!! Bless him he wolfed it down. Also how long after the op did you keep your cats in for? Im going to def keep him in tonight but do I really need to keep him in tomos?

We weren't told anything about not feeding ours when they'd been snipped. In fact I dropped them off at about 9am and picked them up after the school run, and they'd been prepped, put under, snipped, been brought back round and had something to eat within that time, so they must have had food well within six hours of their op. They stayed in afterwards as they were still indoor cats (no longer) but otherwise I would have let them out the following day as they were VERY perky after their little operation.

They used to have leads before we let them out properly. One kept escaping one day as I was trying to collect DD from school, and it was easier to put his harness on than chuck him back into the house, so he did the school run with me. Unlike dogs, cats don't really do A-B walking, so we spent about fifteen minutes doing a three-minute walk, with him disappearing into bushes, going backwards, riding on my shoulder ... amazingly I did manage to live it down, and am not the school's Mad Cat Lady.

We tried walking our immensely overweight cat on a lead when we were ordered to make her lose weight by the vet. We tried taking her to a nearby field for a run around and then a walk back home. It was absolutely not a success. She just cowered on the ground and refused to move. But then she is neurotic and scared of her own shadow.