From City Cat to Country Cat?

Ever since we moved West, Max has been very interested in going outside. He'll sit on the window sill and meow incessently. Our theory is that when we lived in Somerville, he didn't have many opportunities to see what was out there; and when he did, it was Somerville. Now that we're out in the country with lots of big windows, he can see what he's missing!

After lots of hemming and hawing on our part, we finally decided that we would give it a shot. He got his feline leukemia shots at his last 2 vet appointments, and we bought him a collar with a "nametag". He didn't seem to mind the collar too much - until we tightened it enough so that he couldn't get it off. But since we are only putting his collar on when let him outside, we hoped (and still do) that he will start to associate the collar with going outside and will put up with it.

His most recent experiences outside were rather stressful for him, so we tried to make the re-introduction as natural as possible. We put his collar on, propped opened the front door, and walked outside to wait for him.

He was very cautious as he crept outside.


His first few minutes were spent sniffing the grass outside the front door, followed by eating the grass outside the front door.


He slowly explored further from the house, gradually making his way around. We monitored him from a distance, but always between him and the forest; I don't think any of us are ready for him to get lost in the woods.


After about 45 minutes outside, he had made it all the way around the house. We knew it was about time to take him back in when he started rolling around in the dirt:

From black and white to dark gray and light gray, in only 5 seconds!

Our plan is to continue to let him out under these "controlled" conditions, giving him more and more freedom. We're going to try to train him to come back inside by giving him wet food whenever he does; we don't want him staying outside overnight, since there are plenty of coyotes that would enjoy himn for a snack.

Of course, we soon discovered that once he's been outside, his whining to go outside has gotten MUCH worse.

- Mike (& Corinne)