New cat
When can I let my new cat outside?
It is one of the questions we are asked most by new adopters. Our answer is six weeks. Here is why, and how to do that first trip so they come back.
Why we say six weeks
A cat needs to believe your house is home before they will come back to it. That takes longer than people think. In the first few weeks a newly adopted cat has no bond with you, no reason to think of your house as theirs, and often a strong pull back towards wherever they came from.
Cats adopted through us are more than capable of walking for miles trying to get back there. Six weeks gives them time to lay their scent through the house, learn the routine, and attach the safe feeling to you and your back door rather than to somewhere else.
The cost of getting this wrong is a cat that never comes back. Six weeks is the margin we would rather have.
Six weeks is our guide, but what really decides it is the cat in front of you. A nervous one may need three months. Nobody has ever regretted waiting a fortnight longer.
Wait if your six weeks lands near fireworks
If the end of your six weeks falls anywhere near Halloween, bonfire night or New Year's Eve, do not start then. Wait until it is all properly over, including the weekends either side, because when the dates fall midweek people set fireworks off and go trick or treating across the whole weekend as well.
A cat that is only just finding its feet outdoors and then gets a firework going off nearby will bolt, and a cat that bolts in its first fortnight outside often cannot find its way back. A few more weeks indoors costs you nothing. Getting this one wrong can cost you the cat.
What needs to be done first
Before that door opens for the first time, all of this needs to be sorted.
- Fully vaccinated, including any boosters that were due after they came home.
- Neutered. An unneutered cat will roam for miles and fight. Kittens should not go out before they are done, usually around five or six months.
- Microchipped, and registered to you at your current address with a phone number you actually answer.
- Properly settled. Relaxed in every room, eating normally, using the tray, coming to you rather than hiding when you walk in.
- Coming when called. If they will not come to the tin from upstairs, they will not come to it from three gardens away.
The microchip is the important one
Microchipping is a legal requirement for owned cats in England, and the chip is worthless if it is still registered to us, or to the address you moved out of last year. Log in, check your name and mobile number are on it, and check it before the cat goes out rather than after they go missing.
Keeping them in for six weeks
Most cats that go missing in their first few weeks got out by accident rather than being let out. Cats are patient, and they only need one open window or one propped door.
- Windows are how most of them get out. The two we see again and again: a window left open only a little, which a cat will push wider or even pull open, because they are cleverer than people give them credit for; and a top opening window that somebody assumed was too high to reach. Cats jump far higher than most people realise. Check every window, every day, upstairs included.
- Lock the cat flap, and block it physically if the lock is the sort that can be pushed through.
- The front door. Deliveries and visitors catch people out, so warn the whole household. If you are going in and out, put the cat in another room first and make sure they are well away from the door. They move a great deal faster than you expect, and this is one that catches a lot of people out.
Teach the food noise now, not later
Start this on day one. It increases the chances a cat comes back to you once they are out.
From the first week, shake a treat tin or tap the bowl every single time you feed them, then feed them straight away. Do it for six weeks and the sound stops meaning nothing and starts meaning food, reliably, wherever they are and whatever they are doing. That noise is what you will be standing in the garden making in the dark, and you want it to have six weeks of good associations behind it, not two days.
The first trip out
The first time out
- Do it before a meal, when they are hungry. Never after.
- Pick a genuinely quiet time. Avoid early morning, the school run at either end of the day, and the evening rush hour, when the roads and pavements are at their busiest.
- Open the door and let them decide. Do not carry them out and put them down.
- Go out with them and stay out there. Ten or fifteen minutes is plenty.
- Call them back with the tin and feed them the moment they come in.
- Repeat over several days, building up slowly, before you leave them to it.
If they will not go out, that is fine. Shut the door and try in a few days. A cat pushed outside before they are ready is a cat that panics and bolts, which is exactly what the six weeks was meant to prevent.
Cat flaps
If you have a cat flap, do not simply unlock it and hope. Set it to let them in but not out first, so their first experience of it is coming home. Prop it open at the start so they learn it moves, and encourage them through with food from the other side. A microchip flap is worth the money, because it keeps the neighbourhood toms out of your kitchen.
If they do not come home
If they do not come back that first night
- Search the house first. Frightened cats hide indoors far more often than people expect
- Go out at night when it is quiet, with the treat tin, and stop and listen
- Check every shed, garage and greenhouse within a few streets, and ask neighbours to look in theirs
- Put their litter tray outside the back door. The smell carries and it helps them navigate home
- Knock on doors and hand out flyers with a clear photo, the street they went missing from and your number. Ask people to check sheds, garages and cars
- Mark the microchip as missing on the database, and post in local Facebook groups. Use the ordinary community groups as well as the lost pet pages
- Register them as missing on the lost and found databases: animalsearchuk.co.uk, petslocated.com and nationalpetregister.org
Most cats who go missing in the first week are hiding within a few gardens of home, not miles away. Look close and look often.
This is our own advice, based on the cats we rehome. Every cat is different, so if you are unsure about yours, ask us rather than guessing.
