How does whole letting cat out thing work?

[Ironfloor269]

Our boy is 8 months old. He is chipped and neutered. We let him out if he wants to go but sometimes he goes out, sniffs around a bit and cries at the door asking to come back in.

A couple of times he's disappeared for hours. After a few hours, we called him and he didn't come back and eventually shook the Dreamies bag and he came back.

What I'd like to know is, should we just leave him be and let him come back whenever he wants to? What if we are going out and he comes back when we are not at home? What if night falls and we go to bed when he wants back in? How do cat people do it?

I know the obvious solution is a cat flap but our back doors are all glass and requires quite a bit of investment to install new doors with cat flaps. What is your advice until then?

Thanks for reading.

@violetbunny

Your colleagues are luddites. Who wouldnt want to check on their cats while their at work?.

Having a catflap is much safer than not having one - it's the same for your cat as having a key to your home is for you. If they feel threatened by other animals or humans, they need a way back in even when you're out. They are also much more likely to wander far and get in trouble if left out all day with no way back home. This is advice from a rescue I volunteered with and based on the experience about hundreds of cats they've known of and homed over the years.

It cost about £250 in total to have a microchip catflap fitted in our double glazed back door so not exactly a huge investment...

At 8 months he is actually quite young to be out unsupervised anyway. Most RTAs happen to cats under a year old, they don't really understand danger yet...

Client your cat sounds like mine so not that weird

Mine like to ask (wail) to go out...I open the door...they notice it’s raining and just stand there whilst I freeze, so I close the door. They ask again and actually venture out, if it’s still raining they’ll come straight back. If it’s not they have a little wander and come back in to wee or scratch their claws because they couldn’t possibly bear the indignity of weeing outside or claw sharpening against one of the many trees they pass to come back in .

One of them also likes to check that it isn’t raining at the other door. Quite why I indulge this clearly ridiculous behaviour I don’t know

In answer to the original question we don’t have a cat flap but if we are planning to go out we just keep them in. One cat has good recall (she’s food obsessed and probably worries she’ll miss out on a treat if she doesn’t come) the other one doesn’t but it’s rare she doesn’t ‘check in’ quite regularly and neither of them go far because one is lazy and the other is a wimp

@MetallicPaints It's occasionally things like, "Girlcat, don't you dare bring that inside!". Then I get the 'pleasure
' of watching the poor creature being decimated while I stand by helpless and ignored

We don’t have a catflap, partly because we have a utility room between the kitchen and back door, so we would need to either have two, or keep that door open. It works fine, though.

Our cat tends to go out when I get up at 6.30, then comes in for her breakfast once I am showered/dressed. She might wander out for 15 minutes or so after that, but is always in when we go to work. In the evening she goes out when I get home, then has dinner about 7, and likes an evening roam around 10.30pm. She is never out overnight.

I teach, so in summer holidays on nice days she will sometimes stay out while I go to meet a friend for lunch or whatever. Usually she just lies in the flowerbeds, sunbathing. She doesn’t go far, and always comes to her name. We trained her with Dreamies initially, so she does expect a treat when she comes in. She will sit on the kitchen windowsill or on the wheelie bin if she wants to come in before she’s called, and will go to the door if she wants out. She’s generally very much a follower of routines, though.

We do have a big litter tray in the the hall, and another smaller one in the utility room. She has probably used them half a dozen times in the last year - during really terrible weather, and after a GA for dental work.