Indoor only cat venturing outside for the first time

[Primroseprimula]

A few months back we adopted out gorgeous 10 year old girl, she has settled in fantastically well and we are completely in love with her.

She has always been an indoor only cat, but we are nowhere near any busy roads and have a massive garden. I was wondering if anyone had any experience of introducing indoor cats to the outside world?

She is quite a shy cat, and she really seems to hate outdoor weather noises like gusts of wind etc, so I'm not sure. If going outside would help as she'd understand more, or if she will have no interest in going out! I also worry that maybe she will freak out and run away!

Picture for cat tax!

Hi, we have had cats all our lives, always been outside cars but these days there seem to be cats going missing daily on Facebook. We now have a beautiful Brother and Sister aged 6, they are house cats but we let them in the garden with us now (enclosed fences) and they love it, best of both worlds, they have a good root around then we get them back in with their favourite food, they're happy and we don't have the worry of them going missing.

Awww beautiful cat. So we rescued an indoor cat about 3 years ago. He’s not that bothered about going out really. He follows me out to the bin and sits on the steps but then comes in . Maybe give it a go in small stages i.e let the cat follow you into the garden and see how this goes . I’m a bit wary of letting our cat out all the time as we live near a road .

You could leave the door open as you go and hang the washing out/do some tidying up in the garden - if she's interested, she might come out and see what you're doing.

One of mine was an indoor cat for 12 years, but followed me out into the back garden when I was doing exactly that - she then had the joy of sleeping in the sunshine whilst I was outside, but only if I was out with her. Her littermate took longer to decide it was safe and then spent the rest of his life happily scrambling up a ten foot wall to visit the nearest Takeaway for scraps, returning to curl up in a planter half barrel for the afternoon in sweet prawny bliss, smelling of Five Spice powder.

The two I've got now are not huge fans of outside - one likes wobbling out to mow the lawn a bit and the occasional sit and think (used to have a nap in a windowbox occasionally, but is too ancient to be that bothered), the other one prefers it to a litter tray, but can't be arsed with that exploring lark, so goes out, uses his corner, harasses some mice and then wanders back in again.

Our rescue was indoors for the first few years as we lived in apartments abroad.
Now we're back in the UK and we've let him out for the last year. He loves it and he basically treats our house like a hotel.
He's had a few scraps with other cat and gone awol for a few days at a time, but I like him having the freedom.

My parents cat was supposedly indoors. He'd lived in a flat. It quickly became apparent that he's not an indoor boy at all. He's fine going out on patrol and round to the neighbours.

Growing up, we had 3 indoor cats who adjusted really well to going outside when we moved to a safer home. We just left the back door open in summer in the new place and they gradually ventured out. The older, more timid, one didn’t ever go far but the other two really took to it. We installed a cat flap too so once it got colder, they could get in or out whenever they wanted (we had to teach them how to use it).