how do i get my cat outside

[6ofus]

my male cat use to go out all the time. we have moved into my partners house along with his brother with another male cat & a dog. they are all use to each other now. After a couple of weeks he started going out and using the cat flap(never had one before), but now refuses. we took his litter tray away so he went to the loo on our bed. His brother goes out quite often even though he didnt at our old house. any ideas?

[heidiho]

Why do u want your cat to go outside???

[Lucky Rescue]

Why do you want your cat to go outside?? He's obviously scared in a new area and prefers to stay indoors.

There are countless dangers for cats wandering around outside.

Give the poor cat his litterbox back and let him stay in. You are traumatizing him, not only by trying to force him out, but by taking the box away.

[CyberKitten]

Actually, I can't understand why you want your cat to even venture outside. There are so many dangers for cats outside! Read this and you won't ever worry about your kitty going outdoors:

http://www.siameserescue.org/educate1.html


Taking away his litter box is cruel! Poor baby! He does not understand why it is missing and you could end up with a cat with behaviour problems - or inapprpriate litter box habits. My Gawd! Give it back to him asap!!!!!

[sammiec]

I would pee in your bed too. That's just plain cruel for taking his litter away. If he's more comfortable inside you should not force him out!

[heidiho]

I missed that part,i would p*** in your bed also...hmmm starting to sound familiar again

[Shamrock]

Oh, yes, please bring back his box!
He may be frightened of another cat in your new area, forcing him to go outdoors would be tramautic.Taking away his litterbox would definitely be!

I have the opposite problem - I'm trying to wean an adult rescue "off" the outdoors. To me, letting a cat roam freely is like playing Russian Roulette with their life. One cherished boy of mine didnt survive a single night in the "great" outdoors.

I noticed you are in the UK. I believe that many people there allow garden access to their pets. Supervised outings can work but only if the cat expresses interest in this, and is deriving pleasure from the experience.

Insisting a cat stay indoors is to guard their health and safety.
Insisting they go out is to compomise it. :sad:

[6ofus]

ok, the only reason i was worried is cause he has always been on outside cat, and his brother an inside cat & they have changed roles. Didnt think there could be anything too scary out there as his two brothers are out lots.

[6ofus]

i just wondered why everyone was against cats going outside? they shouldnt be kept in cages, garden access is very healthy, cant believe its just a UK thing. i have grown up with cats all my life and they have always enjoyed being outside. i obviously do not want to traumatize my cat as he is very special to me, i just know he is use to enjoy playing out & wondrered if anyone had any advice, it seems not!

[Sneaky2006]

What does not going outside have to do with being in cages????
All of my cats are indoor cats and they are never ever in a cage.
Do you cage them while they're indoors??

[chico2]

My cats go outside with me to a fenced backyard and they love it,but when I go in so do they,never in a million years would I let them roam.I did once a loong time ago,with disastrous consequences.
Also,no we do not cage our cats,why would anyone????My house is their house :love:
Your cat if he wants to go outside,he will,but at his own speed...so please give him back his litter-box.
Cats are frightened by new surroundings,don't like their little worlds changed...so please leave him be,he'll adjust eventually,
Why do you need him to go outside????Do you keep your animals in cages???

[happycats]

I wanted my cats to be able to enjoy the outdoors too. So hubby built a large cage, off of one of our basement windows, so they can go out, they just can't roam free. There is just to many dangers, like, cars, trains, coyote's, fox, dogs,other cats, cruel kids, poisons, and neighbors who "hate" cats . Not to mention all the damage "they" can do, kill wildlife, damage gardens, disturb neighbors, scratch or bite someone, (here they treat it like a dog bite, you get reported nad possibly charged!!) .
I know sometimes people here may "seem" like they are being "mean" (not that I think so) But they just love thier cats so much they couldn't imagine any of the above happening to them, and don't know how you could. (maybe you are just unaware of the above?)

[100%doglover]

Originally Posted by 6ofus

i just wondered why everyone was against cats going outside? they shouldnt be kept in cages, garden access is very healthy, cant believe its just a UK thing. i have grown up with cats all my life and they have always enjoyed being outside. i obviously do not want to traumatize my cat as he is very special to me, i just know he is use to enjoy playing out & wondrered if anyone had any advice, it seems not!

Not only is it not safe for the cat BUT they kill an huge amount of songbirds. It is simply irresponsible to allow your cat to impact the the bird population is such a serious way.

Here's just a little info:

One of the most often cited studies on bird kills by cats was done at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by John Coleman and Stanley Temple. A five-year study ending in 1994, it focused on rural cats that lived in a house or barn and were free to roam. The researchers found that these cats killed an average of 23 birds a year, mostly ground-feeding species such as meadowlarks, robins, and sparrows.

“Recent research,” the authors wrote, “suggests that rural free-ranging cats in Wisconsin may be killing between 8 and 217 million birds. The most reasonable estimates indicate that 39 million birds are killed in the state each year.” This sizeable range makes me think that when Thoreau suggested it wasn’t worth it to go ‘round the world to count the cats in Zanzibar, he hadn’t even come to the hard part yet — trying to count the birds the cats in Zanzibar kill.

A study of urban cats in Wichita, Kansas, in 2000 by Carol Fiore and Karen Sullivan found city felines averaging around four birds per year. This number is low, since the researchers only counted kills they could physically verify, but it supports other studies that found urban cats killing fewer birds than their rural counterparts.

I would encourage you to read and research the topic further. I got the above info from http://chicagowildernessmag.org/issu...sandbirds.html

[100%doglover]

Since you're in the UK I thought you might want to look into this study:

In 1987, Peter Churcher and John Lawton asked the owners of cats in a Bedfordshire, England, village to keep any 'gifts' brought to them by their cats; owners of 78 house cats participated (all but 1 cat owner in the village), with the researchers extrapolating from these findings to estimate that the 5 million house cats in England were responsible for killing approximately 70 million animals each year, 20 million of which are birds. [PB Churcher and JH Lawton, 1987, "Predation by domestic cats in an English (UK) village. Journal of Zoology. (London.) 212:439-455.]

[Safyre]

To the respondants - this poster lives in another country, where it may just be normal to allow your animals to venture outside.
Instead of responding badly and telling them how mean they are, can't we just say 'it is not something that is common in Canada/US, sorry we are not able to assist'
In the UK, they don't allow things that we allow in Canada (ie: ear cropping) It works both ways. You can't fault a person for where they live and what they are accustomed to.

[Lucky Rescue]

i obviously do not want to traumatize my cat as he is very special to me, i just know he is use to enjoy playing out & wondrered if anyone had any advice, it seems not!

I did give you advice - stop trying to force the cat out and give him his litterbox back!

Maybe he'll go out when HE feels like it, but taking a cat's litterbox away is extremely stressful for him and you may be creating a real problem by doing this.

[heidiho]

I dont care how mean it sounds taking its kitty litter box away,is downright wrong.........I hope that cat keeps going to the bathroom all over your house.............What is wrong with u????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?????

[Trinitie]

Saphyre,
There are posters here from around the world. The OP is getting the best advice available that the members here can give. If the OP doesn't want to take the advice given, that's their perogative. Common sense is, however, to not force an animal into a situation it does not want to be in. If he forces his cat outside, if it's scared to go (as it obviously is), then he's traumatizing the cat. He's doubley traumatizing it by removing it's only source of bathroom - the litter box. A cat is SO clean, it's a great hardship to force a cat to be dirty. Only cats who are physically or mentally ill will remain in a situation that ends with it being dirty.

100%doglover hit the nail on the head when it was said that songbirds, and other animals, are victim to outdoor cats. A cat is a natural born hunter, as you can see when a cat plays (the wiggle butt isn't to be cute - it's bracing itself for a pounce). Since the OP is in another country, doglover posted results pertinent to that locale.

Nobody was calling the OP a bad parent, but outdoor cats are at greater risk of death/disease/preying on animals, than indoor cats.

[Trinitie]

Heidi...please be nice.

[heidiho]

Ok,I will stop,BUT,taking away litter box is soo sooo sooo mean and cruel.....................I dont get it........

[Rita]

Does anything about this thread look familiar to anybody???

[happycats]

candy, tally or maybe

[100%doglover]

Originally Posted by Safyre

To the respondants - this poster lives in another country, where it may just be normal to allow your animals to venture outside.
Instead of responding badly and telling them how mean they are, can't we just say 'it is not something that is common in Canada/US, sorry we are not able to assist'
In the UK, they don't allow things that we allow in Canada (ie: ear cropping) It works both ways. You can't fault a person for where they live and what they are accustomed to.

I moved from Europe to Canada 10 years ago and fly overseas on an annual basis so I am well aware of what the norm is in the UK and some other European countries as well. I think this is far too international of a board to argue this topic.

[heidiho]

Happycats,you got it............................

[Prin]

Whatever is normal or not where you live, if a cat decides to stay indoors and be safe and live longer and healtier, I think you should be glad. A friend of mine had a cat who couldn't live indoors, he was a wild cat. They let him out all the time and one day he walked home, I don't know how, with his scull soft and crushed and died on my friend's lap. It was either a dog or a car that got him.

Or a person who came to the vet clinic because his cat got kicked by a neighbor and had a broken hip ($$$$).

Please prolong this kitties life and let him stay indoors if he pleases.

[CyberKitten]

I am sorry you feel that you need to keep your cat outside - even if he used to like it. My guess is that the new home has him very traumatized. Add in the loss of his litter box, this poor kitty must be sooo upset!!

Re: Instead of responding badly and telling them how mean they are.

I did not say the porson poesing was mean - said taking away a litter box from a cat is a very mean thing to do. And that is not just my opinion. It is a fact of life if you really want to upset your cat, do that! I guess in this case, it was done without realizing the anxiety it would cause an already really stressed cat.

As for other countries - most cat loves think the same regardless of country. Except that at least in every other country except Canada or the US, declawing is illegal. And when I was in Ireland and Britain, people I knew with cats watched their cats outsdie VERY closely - they did not allow them to roam. They either had harnesses or a speceific area where they went outside WITH supervision.

My advice to this person is if the cat wants to stay in, please keep him inside. If he wants to go out - I am hoping you do what most other Britons with cats do and the cat goes out with supervision. I guess it may depend on how long you want your kitty to live - outdoor cats who roam have a much shorter lifespan! If you have an enclosed garden and back yard where you supervise your kitty, it's probably OK. I still worry about the parasites cats can pick up from eating small birds and other wee animals like moles, ugh!!

I hope your kitty gets back to normal once he has his litter box back, figures out his new surroundings (which can take some time and will take more now that he is overly stressed by the loss of his litter box - just hope he will go in it again or you may have a cat who wants to do his thing elsewhere and then you have to start the litter training from scratch).

Good luck!! (and pls keep your kitty indoors or supervise him ever so carefully if he goes outdoors)

[6ofus]

course im not physically pushing him out the door & he has his litter tray. i was merely illustrating what happened when i took it away to encourage him out. And the use of the word "cage" was to say that i dont agree with trapping your cat indoors. They have a cat flap, and his two brothers have never come to any harm, infact the neighbourhood is full of "outdoor cats". i thought this was a friendly advice line. just want you all to know they are all very healthy and loved cats and i will take your advice and leave it up to him, as i have been doing but i wont be asking your advice again! why is everyone fixating on the litter tray? of course i put it back as soon as it did not work. i think you are all cruel trapping your cats, convincing yourselves you are protecting them when really you are just trying to make yourselves feel better.

[chico2]

6ofus,I am sorry you feel we were not friendly,we are actually a real friendly bunch who love our animals and others.
I am glad you gave the kitty his box back,he will adjust to the new home and outdoors in his own time.
Your question really only had one answer,an answer you figured out by yourself after a wet bed
By the way,several outdoor cats in the neighborhood,can mean fights and expensive trips to the vet.
Oh also,I am not"trapping"my cats to make me feel better,I am trying to prevent having to scrape them off the street,because I love them,hence their supervised outings.

[100%doglover]

Originally Posted by 6ofus

i think you are all cruel trapping your cats, convincing yourselves you are protecting them when really you are just trying to make yourselves feel better.

I personally think it's very cruel and irresponsible not to take the local wildlife into account.... Oh well, I guess you've decided to ignore that aspect since you didn't comment on it.

[Lucky Rescue]

And I think it's VERY cruel trying to force a frightened cat to go outside by taking away his litterbox. I would never do anything so inhumane. How would you like it if someone put a lock on YOUR bathroom door?

it's very cruel and irresponsible not to take the local wildlife into account

You're right of course. Housecats take a terrible toll on birds and other small creatures.