Wednesday was a momentous day: we let Charlie out into the backyard for the first time. And it went great! Charlie swatted bugs and roamed around the ferns and a good time was had by all.
Thursday was . . . not so great. Charlie almost immediately hopped the fence into our neighbor's yard and then went roaming around all the nearby front yards. This was a wee bit more freedom than we were comfortable with, but he did come back when Marian came out for him. (He doesn't come for me. Only for Marian.)
We're not quite sure what to do next. In the meantime, here's Charlie on his first great outdoor expedition.
King of the jungle. Our neighbors use an invisible fence for their cats and it works
You're going to have to be master of the treats or whatever motivates Charlie.
Cats instinctively know who has the real power.
😉
My dog decided yesterday to go walk about. She discovered a hole in the picket fence (our local fox uses it to move around) and ended up, we found out later, wandering into visit three neighbors, going into their houses via opening patio doors.
Two neighbors found it amusing, one (who is scared of dogs) was not amused in the least. After running around calling her name for about a half hour (hubby in one direction, moi in another), I stopped back home and found her, grinning, in the yard, exceedingly proud of her little excursion.
In the meantime, I have to go apologize again to the neighbor who is afraid of her. Probably take flowers as an olive branch.
Sigh.
As someone who would also react extremely badly to that, the best thing you can do is to inconvenience the dog in favor of the neighbor. That is, place the person on a higher priority than the animal in some way.
The dog is 11 years old and has lived in this house for her whole life and this is the first time this happened. We do "inconvenience" her, we do not walk her off leash and we don't let her in the yard without one of us there. We were shocked and chagrined that she did this. In particular, we (and the neighbors) are puzzled as to how she got into their fenced-in yards (we found where she snuck out of ours).
We have a 16 year old male cat. 15 years ago we came up with a way of getting him inside each night. It's simple -- Greenies. He loves them and your cat will too, guaranteed.
We use the Cat Fence-In system (https://catfencein.com). Works great if you have a fenced-in backyard.
When he's older he'll spend most of his time napping, so when he goes outside what he'll probably do is conk out under a bush.
In the meantime --perhaps an exercise wheel to knock him out before he goes outside?
Terrible week with ll the violence. It is terrible that former PM Abe was assassinated in Japan. It would not be so terrible if a former politician in America were assassinated. It would be a gift from the gods! Smiting one’s enemies is biblically sanctioned. Let’s go with that.
Put a bell on him so he doesn't eat all the birds.
bells on the collar will train them to be even more quiet.
Loooong ago, I had an outdoor at day, indoor at night cat. (Actually came in when I called him.) Found a bird on my doormat almost every evening when I came home from work. So, cause I didn’t want him to hang himself on a tree branch, I got him a stretchy collar with a bell. ….. The carnage continued, and he came home every night with no collar. So I made him into an indoor cat in order to save the world’s cat population. …. A few weeks later, I found a large beautiful tree a few houses down the street with several stretchy cat collars around the trunk.
Charlie looks like he’s way too cute and adorable to cause trouble. So I ask this court to give the cutie his freedom.
Cats LOVE exploring until it`s meal time .
Have you tried harness training for Charlie.
When you first start letting him outdoors, put a harness attached to a lead. That way, he'll get to go outside, but will be limited in how far he can roam. After he's exposed to the parameters of your yard and the limit to how far he can roam due to the lead, after awhile you can let him out with just the harness and he will generally stay within the space the lead defined.
I got a nice mesh tent and tunnel for our indoor cat.