Introducing cat to outside world or not?

[Edieunion]

I've had our rescue cat for nearly 2 months now, she's nearly 1. She had always been kept as an indoor cat and had never known the outside. My dilemma is do I keep her indoors or allow her to go outside? I live fairly close to a main road and as she has no previous road sense this does worry me. There are always lost cat posts around my estate too.

I worry about her getting bored indoors though. She has plenty of company, lots of toys, high shelves, cat trees etc, eats well, purrs ALOT and seems very content with her little world but she doesn't know any different, does she.

Has anyone had experience of the same situation?

We got a tiny rescue dkitten a year ago. She has only been popping in and out of the back garden a couple of months!! Isn't really interested. Prefers if we are sat out also. Take yours out when you are hanging washing etc. Shout her back in with you. Ours associates going out with me there and comes in and sits on the top of the dryer looking out! Seems happy enough with a small world!

That's reassuring to hear. Does she not try to jump the fence or escape?

I’ve had an outdoor cat that was, sadly, run over. It was devastating so the next cat I adopted as a 7 month old had never been out & my intention was to keep her as a house cat. She seemed perfectly happy watching the world go by from her windowsill, playing with her toys & cuddling on our laps.

Unfortunately she decided she didn’t want to be an indoor cat forever and made a break for it when we opened the door for the postie one day after she’d been here 4 or 5 months. Thankfully we had had her spayed in case it should ever happen.

Once she had had the taste of outdoors she yowled day & night to be let out again. We did measure up for a catio, so she could enjoy the outdoors in safety, but there was just no keeping her in. She’s happy going out, she loves lounging on the grass & chasing bugs in the summer so I’ve accepted it’s better that she hasn’t been forced to stay in.

You could always try to harness train her

I got boy and girl siblings.

Girl cat would be happy to stay indoors, never goes further than the garden, or tried to escape in our previous garden (the one time she snuck out the door, I found here siting on the windowsill right outside with a panicked look on her face meowing to come back in)

Boy cat, well. He once climbed out of a mostly closed upstairs window, somehow navigated tiny windowsills, and then went on a wander in the back garden (rapidly returning when next door's dog spotted him). He managed to shuck off the harness we tried to train him on behind a bush, and now we're in the country roams all the way to the end of the lane/across the fields. There was no keeping him in.

So it's cat dependant I'd say. If she seems happy enough, why risk it.

I've been very careful so far with doors and windows and she hasn't made an attempt at all yet

She has never gone out of the garden. Sat up in the wall but that's it! She is a feisty little thing !!

I wouldn’t risk it.

Lost our cat to our dog on our driveway all new cats since strictly indoors!

I’m having this debate at the moment.

We have adopted a 4 year old ragdoll a few weeks ago, rescue said she was an outdoor cat but didn’t roam far. My feeling is she was used for breeding and I’m not sure she went out much if at all. She has shown little interest in going out but I’m not sure it is right to unilaterally keep her in.

Everything I have read about ragdolls suggests they are not streetwise which worries me as our cat is daft as a brush. I think she would also go to anyone that shook some dreamies at her so could easily be tempted away🤣 Also a cat was found mutilated not far away quite recently and that is too awful thing to contemplate.

We had planned to let her out when we got her and have had a cat flap fitted. It’s just that reading more about ragdolls and how pretty she is, I've got more worried. Think we will let her out in a few weeks but only in daytime and just see how it goes.

We have a 10 week old kitten and are thinking of a catio to the back door come Springtime.
Busy road at the front and can't rely on him staying in the back gardens of our terraces...

@Pumpkinsonparade she's an absolute beauty

I'm hopeful that she wouldn't stray too far but you never know do you. Maybe catproofing the garden or a catio would be good but it's sods law I'd go to all that expense then she'd never want to go out. Such a dilemma.

Here's my little one, telling me what she's after

Ah it didn't post!