Knowing when to introduce cats to the great outdoors?

[Sunshine49]

Hello everyone!

We've had our two very nervous rescue cats for almost 2.5 months now. They're just over one year old and when we picked them up, the rescue centre gave us a crate for them to use initially until they became comfortable in the house.

Fast-forward 2.5 months and they have the full run of the house and are confident spending time in all the different rooms and snoozing upstairs. The boy cat is also very open to strokes now, while the girl is really only keen on being stroked around mealtimes (!) She did sit on the sofa with us for 15 minutes the other day though, which felt like a massive breakthrough - especially as the shelter said she may never be a sofa cat!

The rescue centre also said they would need access to the outdoors eventually, and I've noticed that they spend a fair amount of time each day staring out the conservatory windows into the back garden, watching birds and squirrels etc.

I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on when we should give them access to the outside? Should I wait till they're even more comfortable in the house and the girl cat is more happy being stroked and generally spending time in our company? They're both still extremely shy of visitors and will run upstairs if someone comes over for a cuppa or even just knocks on the door.

When they were rescued by the shelter they were six-month old kittens living stray (feral?) in a derelict back garden with a group of other cats. I guess I'm just slightly worried that being so timid, if I let them out they may not come back and will revert to living stray...!

Any thoughts would be much appreciated as always!

You could let them out accompanied on harnesses, easier said than done I know or just put their blanket outside, sit on it and they may well sit with you. The other thing our cat liked was to sit in her carrier with a blanket in it and the door left open.

It is slightly more risky with shy cats... Is cat proofing your garden an option at all? That way they can't get out of your garden and can go out safely.

Otherwise I would be inclined to wait a bit longer.

Now it's getting warmer, you could leave the backdoor open for short periods, that way your girl can chose if she goes out, also hopefully would feel more reassured if you're around.

I think female cats tend to be more home loving, so you might find your male wants to spend more time outside than your female - that was certainly the case with our two. Toby would be outside in all weathers, whereas Lottie would be tucked up somewhere warm.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I’m not sure a harness is an option for these two sadly - I think it could make them feel trapped and they could totally freak out and panic. It could also be tricky to get close enough to the girl cat for long enough to put it on her! Unfortunately I don’t think cat proofing is very doable either, with the nature of our garden and the ones adjoining etc.

How will I know for sure when they’re ready to go outside?

We had the exact same dilemma with our nervous rescue. With the added complication that she'd been rehomed before and the owners let her out after 6 hours (!!!) and she was too scared and disappeared for days. We kept her in for about 7 weeks I think (would have been a bit less but we had some issues making sure she was confident with the cat flap first). We did let her out on a harness first - mainly so she didn't just scarper before we could show her where the cat flap was, and to be outside with her. We did that about 4 times just for a few minutes. And then we just unlocked the cat flap and let her go. It's always nerve wracking because you think they won't come back - but they do! She LOVES it outside now - runs around like a loon, climbs trees and looks at birds. We still lock her in overnight at the moment, but will let her come and go soon if she wants to.

I'd say 2.5 months was long enough to let them out. Do it when they're hungry so they are interested in coming in sooner rather than later. Good luck!

Thanks CanYouHear! I think I'll get a cat flap installed in the conservatory and see what happens. There's currently an internal cat flap they use to get from the kitchen to the conservatory (presumably installed when it was an external door, before the conservatory was built) so they understand how cat flaps work. If they start trying to use the new one into the garden then I'll know they're keen to get out!