I've done a stupid thing

[Rollergirl1]

Kitten is coming up for 4 1/2 months old. The kids were out in the garden playing in the snow and Casper was watching them out the patio window forlornly. I had to go out and help DS with his gloves so I let Casper come with me. He absolutely loved it, was sniffing around all the plants and dead leaves, licking the frozen water in the buckets and watering cans. I brought him back in swiftly when it looked like he might try and venture further afield. Now he is scratching at the back door to go back out. I don't think he'd even noticed the back door before now.

Will I have another 6 weeks of this?!! Him scratching at the door? I shouldn't let him out before he's been neutered should I?

[SecretSquirrels]

Yes you may well have another 6 weeks of it.
I made the mistake of taking kittensquirrel out on a harness when he was about 4 months old. I thought I was doing him a favour, learning his way around the garden. As someone on here said what I was actually doing was tormenting him.
He then spent the next month campaigning to get out. We needed an airlock on the door.
He was neutered a couple of weeks ago and soon after he started to go out and loved it. Now it's all gone bad because he hates the snow

[Fluffycloudland77]

I had mine done at 5.5 months out of sheer desperation.

Does he have to wait until 6 months? it took fluffycat another 3 weeks to calm down and stop repeatedly jumping on the sofa to attack me.

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

TBH, I doubt he would venture very far. Our boys were out from the day after we brought them home. They had been used to coming and going through an open window at the rehomers.

[madaboutmadmen]

can you get him neutered sooner? it goes on weight rather than age I think so if he's a big boy you may be able to get him done now. My cat was done by the time I had her at 5 months, she's a big girl though!

[mad4]

i would give your vet a ring. all the cat charities now promote early neutering as a way to prevent unwanted litters. and many are neutering kittens as young as 9 weeks. certainly there are many vet practices who will neuter at 16 weeks.

there are studies to show that neutering early has no harmful effects on the growth of your kitten and you will be able to let him go out much sooner.

its worth an ask, or if you are still unsure try the cats protection website and search for early neutering.

[JasperAteACarrot]

Yes, our male cat was done early (he's not massive) because he was taking an unhealthy interest in his sister! I would check with the vet to see if they have a policy about weight etc.

[Rollergirl1]

A bit of an update: He has gone out both yesterday and today with supervision. He was our for about 2 hours in total today. He managed to climb a very tall tree twice and escape from a hole in the fence in to next doors garden (although I could still see his tail so he didn't venture very far in to their garden). I think he will want to go out all the time now so think i need to arrange getting him neutered. He also doesn't have a collar at the moment, although he is microchipped. What do people advise getting put on the collar? Tel no and address? And which collars are best?

Also we live on a pretty busy road and I'm really worried that he will get run over. I have already made the decision that we will keep him in at night. Is there anything else we can do to prevent him going to the road?

[ragged]

I may be wrong, but from what I've read, they don't turn into menaces to self due to full set of testes until after they go thru puberty, which is about 7 months old. So brief visits outside should be okay.

My 2 boys, same age, don't like the cold wind or wet, so although they like little visits outside, they never seem to want to stay for long. Luckily one of them is a huge chicken & should have no trouble deciding that the outside of cars is terrifying & passing on that impression to his daft brother (we live on a quiet road, anyway).

About your questions, I'm thinking maybe:

1. Most collars get slated for being lost quickly so I wouldn't bother spending a lot on any sort. We've had these for about 10 days & they seem to stay on better than I expected.
   
2. If the road is very busy I think I would think seriously about only letting him out when hungry & you can supervise & call him back easily enough.
   
   Around here most vet surgeries won't neuter until 5.5-6 months. But I would get it done soon if he were mine.

[DontCallMeBaby]

Collar - quick release (not elasticated). This may mean he won't keep it on, but I think that's a price worth paying for safety. One of mine lost so many collars so quickly I ceased bothering, and the other is currently collarless as well. I HATE seeing cats about the place in pretty collars that will hang them if they get caught on something. :( When they had collars, they had their names on, plus our landline number. I figure if your cat's done something to annoy a neighbour you don't necessarily want your address on the collar ... we had a number of phonecalls when people found lost collars though, always very pleasant, even from the lady who'd found one next to her fishpond!

Neutering - ours were done at 5 months, the vet said 'if we can see them, we can remove them' (and you could, ahem, see them). They (the cats, this is, not the tiny fuzzy balls) were not particularly big for their age, they're still fairly small cats now.

Both are, happily, utterly terrified of cars, although if there are no cars around I have caught them lounging about in the gutters, stupid creatures. They're utterly terrified of most things though, so I do worry that one day it'll be a choice of running away from a car and towards a dog*, or vice versa, and they'll make the wrong call.

• or a small child on a scooter, or a recycling bin, or me, or one of the many other things that spook them