Need Help Changing Behavior

Karma was a stray we got her about 4-5 weeks ago. At first she showed no interest in going back outside. She would sometimes wait at the door but would always turn and run as it opened. Well yesterday she made a bolt for it twice and got out. We chased her down and got her back inside but now all she wants to do is go outside. Every time we go to the door she trys to run out. We both smoke outside so we are going out front every hour or so. We have started to lock her in the bedroom before we go out. She doesn't mind she has her own tv, dvd player and a radio that she has going all the time, she goes in to just chill on her own a lot. I don't want her to start thinking of the bedroom as punishment since we are putting her in there all the time now. She uses it for time out and so do we when she is getting out of hand. We just don't know what to do. Any suggestions would really help.

LOL! She sounds like a teenager - her own tv, dvd player and radio - I thought you were going to say cell phone as well!!

There are ways that you can train a cat, and they will involve rewarding her when she DOESN'T try and run outside. For a while, you may need to only go out the front one at a time, and have the other person distract her when you go out, rather than putting her in her room.

Trying to make going outside seem boring and untempting is what you want, here. If she has something better to do when you go out, then she'll want to go out less. If one of you stays behind to play with her with her favourite toy, or pet her, or otherwise just distract her while the other person goes out, soon she will start to not be interested in going out as much as staying in and playing. It's a little more complicated than this but it would be a good start.

Also, if she isn't already, getting her spayed will make a huge difference to her desire to go outside and see the world! How old is she?

She has been spayed and shes 2. Believe me if we could we would give her a cell phone in case she ever got lost. Getting her to use it would be the trick. The only time we get a break really is at 10pm. Every night she voluntarily goes into the bed room to listen to love line on the radio, no joke. She lays on the dresser with her head on the speaker. We will try distracting her and go out one at a time. Thanks for the advise.

Chances are good that if you invested in a black light and shone it at night on the outside of your home, you could see cat urine. Her interest in going outside sounds to me like a cat is marking your house to entice her outside. You can park your vaccuum close to the front door and when she runs for it, turn it on for a second and then turn it off.

Or you can go and buy those obnoxious smelling car fresheners, lemon scented and hang a few of them at various levels off the inside knob of your front door-