How can I keep my cat inside when the doors are open?

[Needabitmore]

Hi all, hope you can help me find a solution to this.
We are thinking about getting a ragdoll kitten soon. We've had cats before but they were outdoor cats so don't have any experience with indoor cats. I have been thinking/ researching about what differences there are and what we need to do before we can get our kitten.

One thing I can't find a solution is to how to keep the cat indoors when we open the back doors. We spend most of our time at home in the kitchen/ dinner which has 6m wide sliding doors opening to the back garden. I thought about netting but it's such a big area and my husband is not keen. I thought maybe chicken wiring over the fence. Anyone tried that?

DH would like another outdoor cat but he travels a lot and I can't deal with their thoughtful presents anymore, our last one brought one in almost weekly. I love ragdolls but I cannot get one if I can't keep it safe. Any suggestion?

Our catio is 12ftx6ft

We have a new indoor cat (15 weeks) and big patio doors - obviously not an issue at the moment, but come the summer when we want to be out in the (small) garden we were thinking about a harness and a long lead - what are people's thoughts on cat harnesses?

I'm sure she will enjoy lying in the sun and having an explore. I didn't really know about cat-proofing gardens so I'll investigate that as well.

We had ours installed by Cat Pole Systems. Darren was great, he checked every nook or possible escape route in our garden and made individualised adjustments so everything was covered. The rollers aren’t obtrusive. He said he would come back and re-do things if the cat ever got out, but we never had to do that.

https://www.catpolesystems.co.uk/

Edited to add: it’s been worth it for peace of mind, as both next-door neighbours have very large dogs. We can leave the doors open in summer and our cat enjoys the outdoors with us, going in and out.

@MissSueFlay we tried a harness but she hated it

Also if you were planning to leave the cat unattended with access to the garden on a harness and long lead, that might be a hazard as things could get tangled

Thanks @Brambleweft - we wouldn't leave her in the garden alone on a lead, it would just be for when we were out there.

With the cat proofing - netting or rollers - if another cat gets / falls into the garden from outside, presumably they are trapped until you can get them out? We have a lot of neighbouring gardens and quite a few cats use the fence network to travel around. Also, would the cat-proofing keep foxes out?

Hi @MissSueFlay I don’t think it will keep cats or foxes out, though in ~6 years it’s not happened to us. There are quite a few cats where we are and they don’t seem interested in our garden.