We have a small patio right outside our front door that's enclosed by a wooden fence. It's a nice space, great for D to play in, and has been a nice place to let the cats out, too. The fence is about 5ft high or so, and Sierra has never shown any indication of having any interest in trying to jump it. She's really not much of a jumper, anyway. She debates for about 10 minutes whether or not to jump onto something that's maybe 3ft high, prepping herself for the jump but then seeming to change her mind at the last minute, over and over, before finally maybe attempting the leap. She's not the most adventurous cat.
In August we brought Nev home, and we've been allowing her out onto the patio as well but trying to watch her to see if she'd try to get out (other than patio outings, both cats are indoor-only cats and we intend to keep it that way-- Nev especially, since she was born into and raised in a foster home before being adopted so she has *no* experience outdoors and no learned survival behavior). So far she's been too small to be able to jump that high... or was, until one morning when I had the front door open while D played outside, and then I looked out to see Nev walking along the top of the fence separating our patio from the neighbor's. I walked over as quietly as I could so an not to startle her (and cause her to jump over), grabbed her, and brought her inside.
She is no longer allowed on the patio.
However, unlike Sierra who's always been super chill about the outdoors and enjoys it and all but has never seemed be upset by having to stay indoors, Nev has started darting for the door on a few occasions and so we really have to watch her. I even jave to close her up in another room when D wants to go out in the patio (unless I go with him and close the front door behind me, but it's nice to get to do things inside while he's happily playing, and we have big windows that look out so I can see what he's doing). But even with all that, there's a pretty high chance she'll escape at some point or another.
Which brings us to problem #2-- Nev refuses to keep a collar on.
I don't know how she does it, but I've gotten her a handful of those break-away collars, and each time I put one on she manages to get it off within a few days. I'll just look over and notice it's not on her anymore. Sometimes I find the collar, other times I can't. I then found a regular cat collar with a buckle on it and tried that, but she managed to get *that* one off, too (the buckle was pretty loose and easy to maneuver, so she might've been able to undo it somehow... who knows). Today I found dog collars that are the same size as cat ones, and this one has a plastic snap that's not meant to break away and is much harder to undo (even I had trouble with it) so we're trying that, and I'm making sure it's not loose, and we'll see how that goes. She has a microchip and so if she gets out and someone finds her and knows enough to take her to a vet to get scanned they'll find our info, but I'll feel a LOT better about it all if she can manage to keep a collar with her Home Again tag on it.
We've gotten so spoiled with Sierra, she's never given us any sort of trouble (other than the occasional hairball). So it's, uh, interesting to deal with a cat who's a bit more of a trouble-maker. Nev actually reminds Zach and I a LOT of Charlie, a cat we had up till our move to Switzerland who was also a bit of a challenge (it was her recurring habit of peeing in our bed while we were still in it that got her kicked off to live with my in-laws in their backyard... where she eventually escaped and found a new home-- shhh don't burst my bubble). So much so that we have often called Nev "Charlie" on several occasions. As a kid we had a cat, Jinx, that we joked must've been a reincarnation of a previous cat, Ginger, we had had and had died shortly before we got Jinx, and I sometimes wonder if Nev might partially be Charlie, reincarnated. If so, hopefully she's learned a lesson about not peeing on anyone's sleeping quarters.
I am so glad you posted about your kitty. She grew up so fast! I have been contemplating about getting our cat a kitten friend too.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine that Nev probably feels more comfortable outside since she's not old and set in her ways yet. I have never heard of a cat taking off their collar - that is a trouble maker! hehe Mitsy our cat actually likes her "jewelry" as we dangled it in front of her face a lot as a kitten and had her play with it. Maybe you could try doing that? I also took off any bells that cat collars come with because cats are too private of animals to always have their where abouts known. I think it sorta makes them hate life if they have a bell. Hope that helps. :)
Pukka took the cat collars off to so I use little dog ones and they work perfect.
ReplyDeleteI let Pukka walk outside on an extendible lead when we are in Paris but he does seem to want to walk forever and climb