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

The washing line systems sounds great Ncarver thanks so much for all the info! So much to take in :-) We don't have enough bugs invading our houses to justify putting screens over our doors and windows in the UK.

I'll start off with getting him used to the harness indoors, then when he's used to that i'll have him in the garden attached to a rope. If he likes it outside i'll think about setting up something more sophisticated like you've done!

The harness training certainly sounds interesting i'll have to get my partner to help me with that one! Will be worth it in the end though i'm sure.

Originally Posted by Becky

We don't have enough bugs invading our houses to justify putting screens over our doors and windows in the UK.

I suspect this is more that Americans don't want any bugs in their homes. I grew up in northern climes here, and we still had plenty of bugs to justify screens IMO. I doubt most Americans would think you didn't have enough bugs to justify screens. Screens are hardly costly or difficult to deal with here since windows and doors are designed with them in mind, so there is no reason that anyone should have to have bugs bugging them in their homes.

Originally Posted by Becky

The harness training certainly sounds interesting i'll have to get my partner to help me with that one! Will be worth it in the end though i'm sure.

Some cats take right to the harness while others require quite a bit of time to get used to it. We had one guy that at first would just lie down and try to bite it off. He pretty much chewed through his first harness and wrecked it. The scariest thing is if they freak out with a lead tugging on them and shoot away from you (pull the lead out of your hand) and race around the house or away from you outside. This is why I suggest having a second person to assist the first time or twp. I wish I had done this.

The outside "dog run" setup worked great for us. One note of caution I haven't mentioned is that you have to make certain their aren't large dogs coming into your yard that might attack the cat, since when they are on the rope, they might not be able to get away. We were fine while we had Karma, but there are a couple of problem dogs now. If we still had Karma, I would be training them to stay out of our yard using pepper spray (or calling animal control).