cats & main roads

[ShortbreadFinger]

Hello,

I live on a busy main road. Neighbours either side have cats. It's something that's come up in conversation in our own household; but how do they "train" them to keep away from the traffic, and head out over the back instead? I'd feel awful getting a family pet cat only to sentence it to a potentially short life due to where we live. How do others manage it?

Thanks.

I had three cats when I lived on a main road and none of them went round the front.

Not sure why though..

You don't have to manage it. We cat proofed our garden and it's such a freeing feeling.

I have house cats.

I live on A main trunk route (artics day and night). A busy main road scares the cats and if you combine this with only letting them out round the back keeps them safe. Plus keep them in at night when mist accidents happen.
The most dangerous road is a country road with a couple of fast cars every so often cats take chances crossing with this kind of road.

Cats are generally sensible and tend to steer clear of large loud moving objects. If they are used to only going out the back then that will help keep them safe.

Mine was a stray for 4 years and sits looking left and right before crossing
I'm not even joking
He doesn't venture far, just enough so he can come home and shout about everything he's seen and terrorise some poor dog

Here he is before crossing the road

hollin that's so adorable

It would be if he wasn't sitting there to guard me and the house against "nasty dawgs" and traumatise anything passing. Including a Doberman
Small child that goes past is fascinated by him and has to be peeled off the railings. Child shouts, he miaows and on it goes

How do you cat proof your garden?

this should give you an idea

We are un a quiet cul-de-sac but only two doors down is a busy main road. We try to never let the cats out of the front door - always call them back if they slip out that way and they usually come back quickly. They have a catflap in the back door which is shut at night. Both neighbours between us and the main road have high fences/hedges, it does slow them down, also we have solid high gates on our side passageways - they can climb them but not see through them. I don't think our cats ever go further than next door each side of us, based on the fact that we pretty well always know where they are at any given time. When they do get out the front and ignore our calls they invariably come back in the back door or catflap a few minutes later. So I thnk they are pretty well trained not to stray out the front.

When I first got married (many years ago!) we used to live on a busy A road but had a huge back garden which backed on to someone's even bigger back garden. We had huge gardens to the left and right of us too. iWe got our first two cats assuming they would stay round the back. We lost them both to the road before they were a year old, one of them right in front of us when she ran across the road to greet us Awful.

My sister on the other hand lived on one of the busiest roads in Leicester. She had 3 cats who never crossed the road and lived into their twenties.

I don't think you can train a cat. I honestly think its pot luck as to how adventurous your cat is.

When we adopted ours we were told to get girls as they generally don't wander as much as boys.

Sorry you lost two that way IceQueen, that must have been terrible

We have lost cats to the road, even though the obvious way for exploration is out the back. Now I have 2 cats and keep them indoors - they are busy with each other and the dogs and have lots to do. I am looking into cat-proofing the garden when I have paid for the new boiler....but they are not going out until then. So many cats die on roads.

My instinct is that a consistently busy road - where a cat knows of the dangers - is almost less dangerous than eg a back road in the country where cats might think that the road is no problem and then be taken unawares when a car suddenly appears.

Perhaps impose a curfew in any case? People seem to drive more recklessly during darkness or dusk.

Thanks everyone - very interesting xx