Acclimatising an indoor cat to being a 'going out occasionally' sort of cat :)

[ASorcererIsAWizardSquared]

WizardCat is nearly 1yo, she's been completely indoor until now.

We're starting to think about letting her own, as i dont really want to spend another summer with the house all shut up, and want to be able to keep my windows and back doors open.

Last year she was teenyweeny (she's still only a 4kg cat now) and was spayed, so by the time her coat grew back in, we were into winter and we've had issues with anti-freeze poisoning locally, so i didnt allow her out.

She's grown a little plump over winter/spring and is showing interest in going outside for little bits here and there.

I have been allowing her out on sunny days, under supervision, initially on a harness for 5 minutes, 10 mins...etc. The other day i was outside with her for a good 20 mins, 30 mins today, just watching her roam the garden and next doors yard.

I've stopped leaving food down overnight, so if i let her out, i feed her when she comes back in.

Am i doing it right? or am i being too much of a worry wart? Is there something else i should/could be doing?

sorry, with the food i meant that i always used to have dry food available, but now if she's eaten it by the end of that day, i dont top it back up until mid morning/after shes been out for a bit the following day.

bump

I got my two rescue boys last summer, and they had been "indoor only" in the sense that they were taken into the rescue as kittens and I adopted them when they were just under a year old. I wanted them to be able to go out using a catflap during the day, so I started off with supervised excursions and then after a couple of days they both hopped off over a fence and went exploring further afield - my heart being in my mouth at the time! We had slight setbacks when they tried camping out under my decking, and my then slightly anti-social one tried living under there and refusing to come back inside for a day or two - so kept them both in for a while longer till they were more settled.

But if your cat is well grounded with you and your house as "home", and enjoys her garden excursions, then there shouldn't be any reason why she wouldn't always want to come back. Sometimes my boys go out at 8am and I don't see either of them again till 6pm - but they have always come back for dinner and cuddles, and more often pop in and out a few times during the day or sleep indoors all afternoon when the weather is crap like at the moment.

One thing that I found helped in the early days was getting them used to being called, so I could call them in from outside. Whenever I fed them or gave them evening Dreamies, I would call "boys! boys!" even if they were sat right next to me. That progressed to calling them downstairs for Dreamies with the same call, and now if they're outside in the evening and within earshot - I call "boys!" and they come running. We'd accidentally done the same thing with rattling a pot of biscuits for some of our cats growing up - they'd always come to see what was up for a rattled pot. It's useful to have a call like that to encourage her back inside for curfew.

Someone on here has has a cat who comes if she opens a tub of cream.

That cats a genius.

I trained all my cats to come to a clicking noise I made with my tongue! And if they decided to ignore that I'd rattle the Munchies box. As above, train with good as a reward.

Ours comes for the "pop" of the larder cupboard. Disappointingly, this is not a portable call. Make it something you can take with you (eg if they jump out in the car park at the vets!)