Help me take our outdoor stray cat with us!
We live in a suburb area in Florida and are planning to move to a suburb in Virginia. There is a stray that we’ve fed for about a year- but it’s more than that. He’s good with my small kids and dogs. He will come inside and spend all day (12+ hours) inside sleeping on our couch or beds. He will just sit there and purr amidst our chaos. He’s such a good cat. Now we are prepping to move and trying to get him to stay inside overnight. We got a litter box- I’ve seen him scratch in dirt to go potty outside so I figured he would like it. It’s been a week and he hasn’t used it. He has yet to make it through the night, he always asks to be let out. Then the next day after attempting to have him inside overnight he almost avoids us, and doesn’t want to stay inside all day like usual.
I am not taking a cat that doesn’t want to leave. There are several neighbors that also feed the neighborhood cats so he will be okay. Idk if anyone else lets him inside though. I want him to thrive inside, not just tolerate it, especially moving him to a colder area. The little bit of cold we’ve had here he hated. The thought of driving away and leaving him behind to show up to an empty house has me crying every time I think about it.
If he just uses the liter box I know he will be okay, but if he doesn’t get it we can’t take him. Please help!