Frequently Running out of the House

Many people think that indoor cats are quiet and seldom walk like dogs, but sometimes they do walk around not only inside the house, but also walk outside. They have this tendency either because they find it boring staying inside the house, or that they are not accustomed to a new house they just moved in.

Like any other pets, it is always safe to keep them inside the house unless we walk them with or without leash, but we do not have the luxury to walk them all the time, especially when we are at work or busy with our own matters. Fortunately, there are something we can do to make they want to stay indoors and/or to avoid going outdoors.

Create Interests

For the cats who find indoors life monotonous, we can find something interesting and exciting to keep them inside the house. One way we can do is to put some cat toy or catnip plant in the house, such as the cats’ own area, the living room, or other places where they can play with comfort and safety while this does not disturb us. This can be regarded as a short-term lead-in to arouse their interest indoors.

A more long-term solution would be to put a small animal in a small habitat that the cat can see and watch its actions. Compared with the toys, this is a more active and permanent entertainment that keep the cats eyes on it. This can be achieved by putting a mouse, hamster or other small rodent pet into a solid and transparent cage, tank or rotastak where the small animal enjoys normal life on its own.

The animal can eat, drink and play with some toy in it, so that not only the animal has normal activities on its own, but the cats will also be amused in the process. And this process usually will last for a long period of time. However, it is absolutely important that the cats should have no chance to get in the rodent habitat, or else a sad story will follow!

An alternative to the rodent habitat is a birdcage. The bird may have advantage over the mouse or hamster in that the bird can sing, and the cats may be more interested in it. Again, however, keep the birdcage out of the cats’ reach. We do not want to see what would happen if the cats would touch the cage and knock it down.

Create Obstacles

Apart from creating interests for the cats to stay in the house, we can also create some obstacles so that the cats would want to “avoid” going out. One way to do this is to set up some “guards” at an essential door of the house that would remove the opportunity for the cat to run out. If you have a dog in the house, it would be a wonderful hands-on guard on the house.

In case there is no dog in the house, we can put some other device to achieve this. For example, we can place a sprinkler and shallow moat in front of the crucial door(s) so that the cats would step back whenever they run near that so as to avoid getting wet. When this happens repeatedly, they would rather not to go out than to get wet.

This approach may not be practical for some houses, and yet it would be effective, and sometimes produce funny effect without harming the cats.

Some people may have heard of shock collars for dogs that produce a static electric pulse stimulation at varying degrees of intensity and duration so as to train dogs, and may wish to apply this to their cats. This, however, would result in cats as well as dogs suffer from physical pain and injury, as well as psychological stress and anxiety. Any cat lover would regard this as the last option if they want to shape their cats’ behaviours rather than hurt them.

Indoors Reinforcement

As mentioned, cats go outdoors for some reason. It is safe to keep them indoors, but staying indoors all the time can really be suffocating despite walking cats, even the fun with toys and small animals could lose their spice. To reinforce the cats’ benefits of staying indoors, we can give the cats their own window bed. As the name implies, this is a bed where the cats can sit and watch the outside world through the window.

It is also a good idea if we can open the window a bit with a screen in between, so that the cats not only can enjoy the view but also feel the dynamic flow of air from outside. As mentioned in “How to encourage a cat from hiding?“, ventilation is a vital element for cats to live healthily, as well as human beings.

If possible, it would be exciting if the window bed can be relocated within the house from time to time so that the cats can enjoy different views regularly. Of course we have to make sure all the relevant windows are installed with screens before the window bed is places nearby.