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- Jul 3, 2003
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(yes, she's been spayed)
I adore her, but sweet little Felixia is really wearing my patience thin...
I made the mistake of letting her out in the back yard a few times because the weather was nice, and she loved it, rolling in the dirt, sharpening her claws on the trees, nibbling on the grass, and chasing the dogs around the yard.
She's been a completely indoor cat ever since I found her 14 years ago, but since we have a yard with a tall wood fence, I figured it would be OK to let her out as long as I could watch her & catch her if she tried to jump the fence.
OOPS!
Now, she's decided she wants out all the time - she wanders around the house meowing forlornly at the top of her lungs asking to be let out again all day long.
She's begun dashing out the back door between our feet, and today she tore up the sliding screen door by taking a flying leap onto it and hanging from the screen near the ceiling (she's still pretty athletic for a 17-year-old cat), ripping holes in the screen and pulling it loose from its frame.
1) What can I do to keep her off the screen door? Mosquitoes are really bad here, so we really need to keep the screens intact.
2) How can I get her to stop the howling?
3) Will continuing to let her outside for supervised outings help, or just make the problem worse? Should I just try to get her to forget about the outdoors, now that she's rediscovered it?
Inside, she has a ton of toys, scratching posts, a climbing tree, a Feliway diffuser, and three other cats and two dogs to play with.
Letting her out unsupervised is not an option. She's getting old, plus she's not the least bit afraid of strange dogs or strange people - that's fine with our own dogs, but I'm afraid other dogs in the neighborhood might not be quite so gentle, and to be honest I worry about what some people might do to a friendly cat, too.
Any help or ideas appreciated!
I adore her, but sweet little Felixia is really wearing my patience thin...
I made the mistake of letting her out in the back yard a few times because the weather was nice, and she loved it, rolling in the dirt, sharpening her claws on the trees, nibbling on the grass, and chasing the dogs around the yard.
She's been a completely indoor cat ever since I found her 14 years ago, but since we have a yard with a tall wood fence, I figured it would be OK to let her out as long as I could watch her & catch her if she tried to jump the fence.
OOPS!
Now, she's decided she wants out all the time - she wanders around the house meowing forlornly at the top of her lungs asking to be let out again all day long.
1) What can I do to keep her off the screen door? Mosquitoes are really bad here, so we really need to keep the screens intact.
2) How can I get her to stop the howling?
3) Will continuing to let her outside for supervised outings help, or just make the problem worse? Should I just try to get her to forget about the outdoors, now that she's rediscovered it?
Inside, she has a ton of toys, scratching posts, a climbing tree, a Feliway diffuser, and three other cats and two dogs to play with.
Letting her out unsupervised is not an option. She's getting old, plus she's not the least bit afraid of strange dogs or strange people - that's fine with our own dogs, but I'm afraid other dogs in the neighborhood might not be quite so gentle, and to be honest I worry about what some people might do to a friendly cat, too.
Any help or ideas appreciated!