- Joined
- Jan 31, 2018
- Messages
- 3
- Purraise
- 1
Maybe.
My family has a cat that I found as a kitten with another cat in a pet carrier in my high school parking lot. Once they were adults I believe they became inside/outside cats. I'm not exactly sure how the timeline went after that because I was in college by then. The male, a Russian Blue, was pretty insane and all over the neighborhood. Long story short, it was basically adopted over the course of a few months by another household. The female, a tabby, set up shop around the house and didn't stray much. At some point over the years she became outside only. Again, I was away so the timeline is spotty. In the last few years she has basically lived under my parents front porch. She has am igloo-type structure on top of the porch to get out of the elements and a small heating pad to keep it from getting too cold. Its not great but shes happy, healthy with a super soft coat, my parent feed her, and if you wait patiently she becomes extremely affectionate, to the point where you can pick her up and hold her for basically as long as you want, purring away. Now I'm back in the area and would like to make this cat an inside cat, living in my apartment about 10 miles from where it lives now.
I know its possible to slowly introduce outside cats to the inside lifestyle, but that is going to be difficult here as my family has three dogs. The dogs don't chase her and I've sort of introduced her to them individually with mostly positive results but would be a lot of undue stress for my parents who would basically have to do all the work and I don't think I could ask them to do that. My only real option, if I want this particular cat, would be to just move her to my apartment and deal with whatever issues arise, and if she/we can't handle it I will bring her back and hopefully she can resume her life at my parents house.
What sort of issues am I looking at? My apartment is pretty big with tons of places for a cat to perch. I see her pretty much every time I go home, always around the porch. Never anywhere else. Maybe when she was young she roamed but she is 12 now and was always a petite, non-aggressive cat not looking to mix it up all over town. Unless I'm missing a secret life this cat lives, and I don't presume to know its daily whereabouts, I don't think I'm trying to tame a wild beast with a two square mile of territory here. I know I am going to have three to four litter boxes for a while, hiding places, lots of high sitting places. Maybe I'll bring the igloo to have something familiar around for her. What other issues might I run in to? Is a move indoors and to a new location at the same time possible, even if the cat seems to have the temperament to be a great inside cat? Am I way overthinking this?
My family has a cat that I found as a kitten with another cat in a pet carrier in my high school parking lot. Once they were adults I believe they became inside/outside cats. I'm not exactly sure how the timeline went after that because I was in college by then. The male, a Russian Blue, was pretty insane and all over the neighborhood. Long story short, it was basically adopted over the course of a few months by another household. The female, a tabby, set up shop around the house and didn't stray much. At some point over the years she became outside only. Again, I was away so the timeline is spotty. In the last few years she has basically lived under my parents front porch. She has am igloo-type structure on top of the porch to get out of the elements and a small heating pad to keep it from getting too cold. Its not great but shes happy, healthy with a super soft coat, my parent feed her, and if you wait patiently she becomes extremely affectionate, to the point where you can pick her up and hold her for basically as long as you want, purring away. Now I'm back in the area and would like to make this cat an inside cat, living in my apartment about 10 miles from where it lives now.
I know its possible to slowly introduce outside cats to the inside lifestyle, but that is going to be difficult here as my family has three dogs. The dogs don't chase her and I've sort of introduced her to them individually with mostly positive results but would be a lot of undue stress for my parents who would basically have to do all the work and I don't think I could ask them to do that. My only real option, if I want this particular cat, would be to just move her to my apartment and deal with whatever issues arise, and if she/we can't handle it I will bring her back and hopefully she can resume her life at my parents house.
What sort of issues am I looking at? My apartment is pretty big with tons of places for a cat to perch. I see her pretty much every time I go home, always around the porch. Never anywhere else. Maybe when she was young she roamed but she is 12 now and was always a petite, non-aggressive cat not looking to mix it up all over town. Unless I'm missing a secret life this cat lives, and I don't presume to know its daily whereabouts, I don't think I'm trying to tame a wild beast with a two square mile of territory here. I know I am going to have three to four litter boxes for a while, hiding places, lots of high sitting places. Maybe I'll bring the igloo to have something familiar around for her. What other issues might I run in to? Is a move indoors and to a new location at the same time possible, even if the cat seems to have the temperament to be a great inside cat? Am I way overthinking this?