Letting cat out after a house move.

[Fluffycloudland77]

We moved last week, the cats been kept in all week. I took him out for 10mins this morning and he wandered around the garden with his hackles up and a massive fluffy tail.

I took him in when I thought he was going too far.

What did you do when you moved? Let them get on with it or hover over them?.

To make it worse he went towards the road not the close which is quiet.

I have seen people letting their cats out almost straightaway when moving into a new home. I would prefer to play it safe and keep your cat in, with only supervised outings, for as long as the cat will put up with - e.g., 5 weeks?

I took that approach with my new 1-year-old cat and it allowed her to develop confidence and learn her territory's boundaries very slowly and safely. I only started letting her out when she was desperate to go out and kept trying to sneak out - around 5 weeks after I bought her, and she was fully comfortable with the house at that stage. I started with letting her into the back yard (furthest from the road) and gradually increased the amount of time she could spend outside (supervised) and when she was spending 1+ hours outside safely, started bothering less with supervising her. I always keep her and my other cat in at night. The thing is, the stakes are high - your cat could die/ get hit by a car/ run away if you throw him into this new environment unsupervised before he is ready.

A good tip is to let them out when they're hungry as they are more likely to come back than keep wandering too far.

If you can get them to associate being fed with a noise (eg. tapping cat food tin with a fork or shaking box of cat biscuits) then that's even better as you can 'call' the hungry cat back with the promise of food.

We moved house just over a month ago. We let our two cats out after being here for two weeks. They wanted desperately to get out, so wanted to control it! Over a few days we let them out for longer periods of time (when hungry!), calling them back for food and treats.

When we first got our cats we were told to keep them in for 3-4 weeks. If we moved I'd probably do the same thing.

When we moved, we always kept the cats in for a month. Even then, one of them disappeared for two days which was very worrying. You need to wait until the cat is sure that the new home is home, and won't try to return to the old one. And on the early supervised trips outside, you can make sure he knows the way around so he won't get lost.

We moved in April and kept Colin (the Cat) in for 2 weeks, we did have a couple of supervised outings before then.

At 2 weeks we had the cat flap fitted, so he could then come and go as he pleased.

He was climbing the wall at about 10 days, you could tell he was desperate to go out.

I've always let mine out straight away and they have always come back after checking out the garden. I've lived in a few places with them. I know what they are like but perhaps not all cats are as confident etc. It might depend on the cat.