r/outdoorcats

I am going to work for 3 months on an alpine hut. I have a male cat. Would it be fine to bring it with me or is it better to find another solution to leave him at my place?

I'm new to this. Long story short. I lost my 4 month old kitten because she was "set free" by someone else who lives in the house of mine. I told the original people who gave me the cat in the first place, and one of them was able to order me a trap which will arrive in a week or less. Is there anything useful to know? Or any tips? Also what do I do with the other cats I may catch accidentally? I know there's another group of cats around here that are strays and ferals as well……do I just let them go? Also how do I get my other indoor-outdoor cats to avoid the bait I set inside?

My cats, 2 brothers who are turned 6 yesterday. I live on an acre property with a single block of house, only a field across the main street. We used to have a major highway go by our house that has been rerouted, so the street is pretty sleepy now.

Years ago, I had an indoor/outdoor cat and overall enjoyed the experience. Because of society's change in expectations, I decided these cats would be indoors. But, I'm finding as the years go by that neither me nor the cats are happy with this arrangement.

My tabby boy is deeply unhappy in the house. I let him out more frequently, but not terribly often. Maybe once every 2 or 3 months. But he is getting to be frustrating. He yowls at the window of whatever room I'm in to open it. Yowls at the garage door because he loves escaping out there. He started peeing all over the house a few years ago. It seems to go in streaks, where he does it a couple times in as many weeks, then not for a while. Yes, he has been seen by a vet! There is nothing wrong other than stress.

My other big orange boy is not as street smart, so he rarely goes out. But he wants to, and is showing signs of boredom and frustration in the house.

Meanwhile, for me, I feel sorry for these poor creatures being held captive for 20 years in a house. The amount of pet hair and damages makes me want to cry. My indoor/outdoor cat NEVER destroyed my house. I use 4x's the litter (if not more) for the indoor cats, and no matter what you do, the whole house stinks from litter boxes. Furthermore, they are starting to gain weight like crazy. Orange can hardly jump to the window sill with confidence anymore. I honestly feel like I have two permanent, bored toddlers in the house, and it's starting to drive me crazy.

I've actually been thinking of rehoming them lately, because the mess and the stress is just too much for me, but I also worry that they'd end up with one of these crazies who thinks locking an animal up for 20+ years is a better life for them. On the flip side, I do have some worry about the dangers of the outdoors, although of the 7 other neighbors, I know at least 6 of them are old farmers and/or cat lovers.

Thinking about regularly letting the tabby out from now on and giving orange man some frequent, supervised time in the garden. Has anyone transitioned from indoor to indoor/outdoor and found success improving the quality of the lives or you AND your cats?

We recently moved from the city to the suburbs where there are bobcats and other predators out at night. My cat used to roam 24/7 but now I am trying to lock the cat door. It’s a mechanical lock and “in-only” feature allows my smart cat to use her claws to pull the door towards her then stick her head under and escape. I can lock it completely with success, but I really wanted an “in-only” feature that was foolproof as I often leave in the mid-afternoon for an overnight shift when my cats are still outside. I’ve seen some microchip doors, but then I’ve also seen some saying cats can outsmart these too.

I have 4 cats, 3 of which go outside through my doggy door, 1 sticks to my yard, 1 branches out to the adjacent yards and 1 roams with specific favorite places and it is starting to anger those neighbors because he’s killing all their little critters. I’m trying to keep them all in my 3/4 acre, but still let them go outside. Any ideas/opinions are welcome. TIA

my outdoor cat who is as very sweet and co mes home every week for 5 days then leaves again came back today clipped I am worried someone will think he a stray how can I make sure no one mistakes him for one because g h e doesn’t like collars and I don’ have the money to get him chipped get do I do?

I have 2 cats currently, One is a 2 year old 15 pound cat, My other cat is a 6 year old 5 pounds cat (she is unusually small and always has gotten mistaken for a kitten). We live on an acreage with my parents and I normally never let them outside without supervision or without putting a harness and leash on them. But my parents on the other hand sometimes(not often) lets them free roam when they are outside. I HATE IT when they let My cats free roam as I’m scared of potential hawks, coyotes, dangerous dogs getting them. They say I’m too overprotective of them but it’s not a risk I’m willing to take. But I actually found baby weasels outside and wondering if this is a concern and if they can harm my cats especially my 5 pound cat. If the weasels can harm them what should I do about them? I don’t want to kill or hurt the weasels but maybe relocate them if it’s a smart idea.

So I have two indoor/outdoor cats who have been living this way for two years. Recently our neighbors cat has been coming in our house, at first it was fine because he would just eat some food and sleep. Eventually he started attacking my female cat unprovoked and won't stop. We've talked to the owners who said they will keep him in but they have yet to hold up on that agreement. I live with them part time so it's my grandma who has to deal with this but she is to old be able to look under beds or in most hiding places and she refuses to keep them inside. Any ideas of how I can fix this?

We live rural and our cat was last seen in a paddock by our neighbours house in the morning on the way to drop the kids to school. He didn’t come home that afternoon.

Later that evening a Facebook post was made about a deceased cat that looked like our cat. The catch is that he was found 12km from our home. We have had him for 9 years and he has never roamed beyond the 6 or so paddocks that he hunts in on the farm. So for him to travel 12km in 7-8 hours just doesn’t make sense.

I went to pick him up and confirmed it was indeed him. Pretty sure our neighbours are responsible as the injuries are not consistent with a car crash but rather a sadistic form of harm inflicted by someone who has then driven across town and dumped his body.

They are our only neighbours and he was last seen near their home. What can we do here? I want to confront them and hold them to account. I can’t even bring myself to tell the kids he has passed as they will be absolutely devastated. I miss him so much and can’t get my head around how or why someone can do this to an innocent animal!!

I domesticated a feral cat last summer, and it's been living with me all winter. I have a flat in a major city and a cottage in the countryside where spend a lot of the summer. I found the cat starving in the woods injured near my cottage last summer. It didn't like or trust people, or know how to meow, and had clearly grown up feral. I fed it, and it started coming around a lot. Eventually it went into the house and let us pet it. We brought it to the vet and had it chipped and fixed then taught it to use a litter box, and it started sleeping in the house.

When winter came we brought the cat back to our apartment in the city, and kept it as an indoor cat for months. My partner and I work from home, and the cat gets really stressed if either of us leave the house. It started waiting on top of the neighbors mailbox next the road whenever we'd go out to eat, so it would see us pull up when we got back, before he even let us pet him.

Last summer when we had to go somewhere overnight, we just left him outside and he'd take care of himself, but back then he was still just a feral cat we were befriending. We have somewhere we'd like to go for a week later this summer, but he's domesticated enough now that doesn't feel right anymore. The problem is he's terrified of humans other than us, so having a pet sitter would just stress him out more. I'm considering leaving him an auto feeder and access to the outdoors, but I'm worried about leaving him alone that long. Any advice?

So our cat comes inside when we are home but stays outside when we are at work and overnight. With that, he has taken a liking to going under our house for sleeping/protection. We live in a single wide trailer. I have no issues with him going under there and was actually wondering if anyone had ideas how to make it better for him under there.

I was thinking of making that his outdoor area by creating some type of cutout so he can easily go in and out. In the winter, we could put his cat box in there with straw so he has a warm place to sleep but just can’t really figure out how to make it happen. Anyone have recommendations?

hi! my kitty got fleas about 6 months ago. i successfully got rid of them, and we also moved on top of that and replaced pretty much everything made of fabric. he’s been on meds since, but i missed a couple months of giving meds when he wasn’t going outside at all.

recently i had to take him out of the house, and i did his flea meds about 4 days before. when going back inside, i walked him a little around the neighborhood bc i saw someone else doing that and he always wants to go outside. i was hoping to make this a regular thing for his own enjoyment but now i’m hesitant. i live in an area that has fleas pretty bad bc it’s swampy. i was/am concerned because i know that his flea meds don’t prevent them from going on the cat, just kill the fleas after. i know the meds are effective on him because of last time, but im paranoid i didn’t apply it well enough or something. ive found two fleas and seen him itch just a little. one was crawling my head 😀, we were napping and my head was touching him. i just found another in the same spot we were laying about 10 hours later, but it seemed like it could have been dying? it tried to do a hop but didn’t go anywhere- just hopped in place. i vacuumed it up and the whole couch and surrounding area, and im washing all the blankets etc.

i guess i just wanna know a few things-

what constitutes thorough enough application of the medicine? i put him in a lamb outfit later that night and could smell some of the flea meds on it and got worried i wiped some of it off, but it had been like an hour since i applied. i was pretty good about getting it on the skin.

and is it okay that i skipped a couple months before that?

also, do people who walk their cats experience this regularly? do they just deal with the fleas coming in on the cat and then dying? or should i not be finding live fleas and be concerned? again, im in an area that gets them pretty bad just for reference. i say this because i asked my mom about our cat who was both indoor/outdoor and she said she never saw a flea.

lastly, is the fact that i found the flea in the same spot and not hopping/hopping away effectively a good sign?

Disclaimer:
I hope this is the right place to post this. I have never posted on Reddit before, so if there is a better thread I could find advice in, please let me know.

My male, 6 year old, neutered cat has been an outdoor cat since he was about 1 1/2 years old. When he was 4 years old he was hit by a car and suffered from a broken jaw, lost an eye and a canine tooth. He was fed through a tube in his neck for two months. I paid for every surgery for him to survive because I love him so much.
The last two years I have kept him inside the house because I am worried for his safety. At first he had no desire to go outside, but since I have moved to a more remote area with less to none traffic he has started acting out and has made it clear he wants to be outdoors.
Almost a year ago I got another cat (that I plan to keep strictly indoors) in the hopes that it would help with his activity and stimulation, they have gotten along very well, but at the end of the day he acts out and is not content with being restricted. I have also tried putting him in fenced outdoor areas , but he is not happy about it. He just cries and wants to be let free.
The last time I let him out at my new place, he got stuck in the neighbours yard that had high fences. He lost a couples claws and was bleeding. For the most part, he is very coordinated, in the sense that you wouldn’t know he was blind in one eye. However, I am very scared of other animals getting him now that cars aren’t a factor. I guess after all the context, im curious if people think it’s a bad idea to let my cat outside again? I know regardless there is always something that could harm him. Would you consider it cruel to let a one eyed cat back out into the outdoors?
Thank you for your feedback!

Our cat is mainly indoor but we let him roam the neighborhood during the daytime, as our dogs have doggie doors and go and out all day in our fenced-in yard as well and we’re in a very safe neighborhood. He has an AirTag on him and he’s only allowed outside when we are at home. But he’s taken a liking to the dried sewer drain in our backyard. (He got stuck once and we got him out with food and my long reach- and we never saw him go down again until today with the AirTag). When he was previously stuck We ended up temporarily putting a flimsy metal gate piece done there to help him out if he ever got stuck again but we recently removed it and I’m wondering if he has been going down there all this time and using that to climb and in and out.

Now that I know he’s going down there, I’m looking to put a more substantial climbing out device for him and was looking for advice (assuming he is going down there and is using that entry point- it’s for my peace of mind more than anything)- our criteria:

- we can’t block the drain for obvious reasons; and I can always get down there myself if needed but that’s a huge hassle.
- something to hold up in the elements- I don’t want a wooden ladder in the elements
- something cost effective as I’m not sure that he even uses our “assisted item” as his exit- it’s just a guess.
- something not obvious to the neighbors/sticks out too far to be an eyesore or disrupt mowing

The best idea I have is one of those Jute cat climbing ropes. But thought I would ask here. I can provide pictures tomorrow in the daylight- we just learned he went back down there tonight so this is a new project now for me. Thanks! (And as stated above, we have means of getting him out in other ways if needed, including pulling up a pothole and climbing down so please don’t attack us- I would keep him inside if there weren’t multiple avenues of escape for him and access for us- in all honesty- having been down there, it almost makes me feel better knowing he has a place to hide if he needs to get away from anything).