Thoughts for Thursday – More Outdoor Kitties

Not all cats will tolerate being kept inside. My mother has such a cat and he drives her crazy when he doesn’t come on command when she wants him inside. He’s 8 and he has survived nicely over the years. Many cats do. But what do you do when your cat causes problems in the neighborhood? Some do absolutely nothing. There’s little recourse when it comes to retraining a cat. Most owners won’t go through the hassle of trying to keep an outdoor kitty inside. Some neighbors come up with their own solutions—and some of them aren’t pretty.

There is something you can do to keep your cat in your yard, however. Build an enclosed catio. Run a string of electricity around the top of your fence. One little zap will generally keep the cat in the yard. One of my friends has just started allowing her kitty outdoor time and she says that he will return to the house when she calls him? How is this possible? She doesn’t just open the door for him. She greets him with exuberant petting. Gives him a wonderful massage AND offers his favorite treat.

I wish one of our neighbors had done something like this with their cat when he was terrorizing the neighborhood. He ruined a couple of our screens trying to get at our indoor cats. He broke into another neighbor’s home and attacked their elderly Abyssinian. Thankfully they moved and took their cat with them.

This entry was posted in About Cats. Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *