Hi,
I'm new to these forums, hopefully I'm posting in the right place. I have tried to find a similar question to no avail.
We adopted a young shorthaired kitten 8 months ago, Heidi. She is now about 14 months old and shares the house with our other cat (who we adopted on the same day) who is slightly older, at around 3 years.
Heidi is very confident around us and our boisterous 4 year old boy. She runs around, jumps on people and acts generally like a young cat but as soon as the front door goes she gets scared. She then checks who it is and if she doesn't recognise the person as being myself, my wife or our child then she runs off to hide behind the sofa or behind the TV or even in boxes and carrier bags. She puts the chest to the floor and focuses on finding somewhere to hide. When the person has gone and I go to recover her from the hiding place, her heart is beating out of her chest.
She loves nothing more than chasing and catching a fly but she'll climb on doors, shelves and cupboards to catch it... with scant regard for health and safety.
It has come to the point where we want to let her, and her housemate, out into the garden and beyond to enjoy the outside. We live in a lovely part of England and the area we live doesn't have a main road close but we are on a bit of a through-road.
We have taken them both out, several times, on a lead to explore but Heidi is scared of any noise or lights... anything really. She only really came out of her shell when she saw a fly and was trying to get back into the house most of the time. This behaviour doesn't seem to have changed whenever we have let them out.
SO! Does anyone have any advice on what to do with her when we let her out? I worry that she will run out into a road if she sees a person she doesn't know or do something crazy.
It would be easy to leave her inside forever but she needs to be outside with how active she is. Hopefully it will bring her out of that shell, but there is a slight fear that she wont keep herself safe or will be so scared that she gets herself lost when running away from things.
Any advice would be appreciated.
I'm new to these forums, hopefully I'm posting in the right place. I have tried to find a similar question to no avail.
We adopted a young shorthaired kitten 8 months ago, Heidi. She is now about 14 months old and shares the house with our other cat (who we adopted on the same day) who is slightly older, at around 3 years.
Heidi is very confident around us and our boisterous 4 year old boy. She runs around, jumps on people and acts generally like a young cat but as soon as the front door goes she gets scared. She then checks who it is and if she doesn't recognise the person as being myself, my wife or our child then she runs off to hide behind the sofa or behind the TV or even in boxes and carrier bags. She puts the chest to the floor and focuses on finding somewhere to hide. When the person has gone and I go to recover her from the hiding place, her heart is beating out of her chest.
She loves nothing more than chasing and catching a fly but she'll climb on doors, shelves and cupboards to catch it... with scant regard for health and safety.
It has come to the point where we want to let her, and her housemate, out into the garden and beyond to enjoy the outside. We live in a lovely part of England and the area we live doesn't have a main road close but we are on a bit of a through-road.
We have taken them both out, several times, on a lead to explore but Heidi is scared of any noise or lights... anything really. She only really came out of her shell when she saw a fly and was trying to get back into the house most of the time. This behaviour doesn't seem to have changed whenever we have let them out.
SO! Does anyone have any advice on what to do with her when we let her out? I worry that she will run out into a road if she sees a person she doesn't know or do something crazy.
It would be easy to leave her inside forever but she needs to be outside with how active she is. Hopefully it will bring her out of that shell, but there is a slight fear that she wont keep herself safe or will be so scared that she gets herself lost when running away from things.
Any advice would be appreciated.
