Encouraging going outside

[matercatta]

We have a rescue cat with us a month or so. Very keen for her to start going outside, we have plenty of room in the garden. Ideally we’d love her to toilet outside as well. Plenty of covered and private spots for her outside. She has only shown interest in briefly going out to the front where there’s a driveway and road (it’s not busy but still) and then comes straight back in via window. The back is quieter and our neighbours’ cat adored basking in it but this one seems daunted by the patio and steps down to the garden.

Any tips to get her going, she is very confident inside the house now! Perhaps better in good weather? She came
from a chaotic house apparently and we were told she would go outside but I’m genuinely not sure if she did much.

Do you go outside and encourage her to follow you? Might be easier when we have better weather

Try feeding her outside, maybe start close to the house and move gradually further away.

She will need to bury it so maybe while the ground is cold it might be putting her off. You could try adding some soil on one side of he litter tray or having two litter trays one with litter and one with soil. This is how I trained all of my cats to go outside.

It took our boy about six months to start being happy going outside on his own after the initial exploring and rampaging period - that was with good weather and us having the door open a lot in the first few months. He'd been a stray kitten and I think he needed to feel totally confident he would get back in. Now he loves being out (but doesn't especially roam which is good) but also loves the litter tray and will come in to use it then go straight back out.

Our previous cat pretty much never used the litter tray again (unless it was absolutely dire straits) after we started letting her out.

It took our little rescue cat quite a few months before he stopped hiding behind a plant pot on the patio and started to creep around further. We stayed with him and kept the door open.

Ours were a bit cautious initially but they go in and out all day now it just took a while. Still use their litter trays all the time though, but we never intended taking those away as we know the neighbours don’t like cats shitting in their garden. However we do spot them toiletting in our garden occasionally in summer, I leave some bare soil in the hope they’ll do it there and not go next door.

Thank you so much everyone — definitely going to put these into play to try to coax her for some outside time!

Mine don’t go outside much at all this time of year - it’s cold and wet and windy! I wouldn’t force her and always keep a litter tray for her inside too.