Looking for advice on training my adventure kitten
Meet Silas! He's a 4 months old birman and super curious and brave.
The reason I'm training him to be adventurous, is because my family lives across the country and we'll have to visit for Christmas. I also don't have a car, so transportation will be by train, bycykel and maybe airplane. Also, I love the outdoors and would love to share it with him!
I got him at 3 and a half months old, and we are having great success with going out for small walks in a cat backpack, and we are now beginning to explore in a harness.
I would like to ask all of you experienced adventure cat owners, how you have trained your cats and handled different situations:
- I know that the younger a cat is, the easier it is to normalize things like going on walks in a backpack and taking the bus. So I know that now's the prime time. But I'm worried that I'll go too far and he'll be scared and stressed, yet I need to start introducing him to going on a bus, taking the train, being in crowded places etc.
For now we have walked by a somewhat calm road and watched cars go by with success.
How did you guys go about your training?
- it would be nice for me if I could have him with me on my bicycle sometimes. If we're going to the vet, I can walk or take the bus, but I would prefer my bycykel (the streets are very calm and I live close by).
Does anyone have any experience training this?
Usually when he's in the backpack and I'm walking I'm giving him treats from time to time, but it would be difficult when on a bike.
He really enjoys exploring outside in his harness, but even though he always comes to me when I call for him at home, he is too distracted when outside when I call him. What to do? Also if there are other cats or dogs walking around, I'd like to get him in the backpack quickly. Or let him jump on my shoulder (he likes this too), but how do you train this, if he listens when we are inside but not when we are outside?
Did you do anything to prepare for traveling to another place and sleeping in a new apartment/hotel?
Should I train him to use a litterbox when we're out on a trip to prepare for traveling by train? We'll have to travel 6 hours by train to visit family.