Cat Trying to Escape

areias

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Young Cat
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Jan 23, 2008
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What do you guys do about a cat trying to bolt out the door? He is not quite a year old yet, neutered male. We try and watch ourselves, but he gets out about twice daily (he's a quick bugger) but dosen't take off, we can usually run out and scoop him up-but I'm afraid one day we won't be able to. All our cats are indoors-wouldn't have it any other way. He's also taking up scratching at the seams in the doors to see if they will open. Any suggestions? Would a squirt bottle be a good solution?
 

iluvdevons

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May 31, 2007
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We had this problem with Ares, which ended up with me falling over him one day as I entered the house, and him escaping/hiding for an entire afternoon and overnight. (We searched and searched for him until 1 AM - words cannot describe how upset I was.) He banged on the front door twice at 5 AM, and once back, he hasn't tried to escape since.
It is a truly difficult problem. I know of people who made loud noises to scare their cat when entering the house or ignored their cat until they were inside for a mintute or two in order to make the front door less appealing. The results were mixed - I wish I had better advice, but try and stay vigilant to his trying to escape. Good luck!
 

robertm

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When you are leaving your home, have him chase a treat or a toy that you throw at the last possible moment before you open (and quickly close) the door.

When you are returning home, have an emptied soda can that contains several stones or pennies. While you are opening the door, vigorously shake the can. He'll likely consider the sound to be so unpleasant that he will bolt from the area. The hope is that after experiencing this numerous times, he will get in the habit of backing away from the door and you won't have to shake the can anymore, or at least not everytime.

These are just a couple of ideas; I'm sure there are other approaches that work equally as well.

I'm not crazy about the squirt bottle idea for when you return home. You'd inevitably have to spray him in the face because he'd be facing you. Even if this solves the trying-to-escape issue, he may wind up getting an ear infection if too much water ends up in his ears. Or you might make him afraid of water, which would be very unfortunate if you needed to regularly give him a bath later on in his life. Plus he might associate you with the unpleasantness of getting sprayed and fear/mistrust you to some degree as a result.
 
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