Thread: Advice about training/ keeping indoor cats in general.

Yes we in the UK do have flying insects. But either they're not that numerous, or they are around for relatively short periods when it's hot in the summer, or we are just not that bothered about them. Certainly it's not in our culture to have screens fixed on doors and windows. That's just the way it is over here.

Could you elaborate on the washing line and pulley system you used? I am keen to set up our kitten with some access to the garden, and this would seem like a brilliant way to do it without spending loads of money on cat-proofing the garden. What kind of rope did you use? and what material would be best for the leash? Was it one that automatically retracts? What did you attach the lead to the rope with?

Originally Posted by RoxyKitten

Could you elaborate on the washing line and pulley system you used? I am keen to set up our kitten with some access to the garden, and this would seem like a brilliant way to do it without spending loads of money on cat-proofing the garden. What kind of rope did you use? and what material would be best for the leash? Was it one that automatically retracts? What did you attach the lead to the rope with?

Here are a few links I found to the kind of thing we did:
Penn Plastics: Everlast® Pulley Products Home Page
Unchain Your Dog.org | Install a Dog Trolley, Dog Run, Dog Cable
Dog Trolley 50' | All Dog Categories | PetSolutions

I bought a pulley like the Everlast one shown, and vinyl covered cord that is sold often as "clothesline." I did not buy any of the prepackaged "dog run" kits because the cables from pulley to animal are too heavy for cats in my opinion. I used two different types of clothesline/cord: (1) metal core and (2) nylon core. The metal core is best for tightly stretching the line that the pulley will roll on. We had trees in appropriate places to tie this line to (re-tie around the trees once a year or so, or the trees will grow and trap the cord). The nylon core line is very light, so it is ideal for connecting to a cat's harness. We had a large clip simply tied onto one end of the light line and then clipped onto the pulley. Like these: Bolt Snap w/ Round Eye on Keystone Mfg. & Supply Co.

The hardest part of this was getting light clips appropriate to clip onto cat's harness attached to the nylon line. Finding small, light clips is not too hard, something like the following: http://catalog.kmsinc.net/item/sprin...001050|3001055

What was hard was figuring out how to securely attach the nylon cord to the small clip, without leaving a big knot or the like. I ended up stripping the outer cover off the nylon cord, tying the nylon strands to the clip, then using shrink wrap (with a heat gun/hairdryer) to enclose and protect the nylon. There probably is some other way, but this was extremely lightweight and would hold up for more than a year of daily use. I will try to get a photo of what this looks like if you want to see.

Karma used to be on 30-50' leads attached to 50-75' runs for the pulley, giving him access to a vast area. Works best if there are not a lot of things for him to get wrapped around, and also best if cat is not a tree climber. Certainly, though, if you check on him periodically and are fairly nearby, this can work quite well. Karma loved being able to go outside on this system.

We're hoping to cat proof the garden this summer but in the meantime we've got the boys some harnesses to get them used to being outside. I think we might try taking them out at the weekend if the weather is nice- I'm quite excited about it. The washing line system sounds really interesting too............