# Stop cat from straying?



## Pharlap (Nov 23, 2008)

Help!! Please, anyone with any advice no matter how small would be most welcome and appreciated as my partner and i are at our wits end!
We own 3 cats between us, last year i decided to rent my house out and move in with my partner, all 3 felines seemed to settle in fine, no major problems, a few months on, we then decided to move again back into my house and rent my partners out as his house was the bigger and it made sense. Since then, our youngest cat 'Jack' (neutered male, 1.5 y/o) wont stay at home, if we let him out he will wander off straight away back to the area where my partners property is 1/4 mile away from my house, we never had any previous problems, but this has been going on for the last 6 months now, we have been to look for him and 9 times out of 10 we found him and brought him home, kept him in for a couple of months, then let him out again, only for him to go straight back up to this 'area'. There are a number of people that have admitted to feeding him and keeping him in, even though he is chipped and wear id collar, they 'assumed' he was a stray!! We pleaded with them not to keep him in as he is not their cat, and certainly not to feed him, in any attempt to make him return home to us. We now have given our contact details out to these people and they text us or phone us if they see him, we have tried so many things to try and coax him to stay with us, but nothing has worked, keeping him in is not fair and it doesnt work anyway, Jack wants for nothing, and is treated like a king with us, so why doesnt he like staying with us anymore? Its so heartbreaking and we love him so much and miss him, but we cant keep driving up the road to 'retrieve' him only to bring him home and shut him in again for a period of time, which just does not work. We even left a couple of weeks without going to get him, to see if he would return of his own accord, but he didnt. I just want Jack to be our loveable rogue again! What else can we do other than 'give up' on him ?


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## Saikou (Apr 2, 2008)

Behavioural issues with cats are really difficult as they are such complex creatures. You can never really get into their psychy to work out whats going on in their head.

If he was perfectly happy living in your house area before, has anything changed since you came back to it? He took to the change to your partners OK, I assume and didn't try and get back to your area when you moved in there, so it can't be that he doesn't cope well with change. The obvious thought would be there is something over there that he likes and misses 

Can you enclose your garden so he still has access to fresh air, but he can not get out of there. There are a number of different ways of doing that to suit all different budgets.

You could try a feliway plug in or two around the house, incase it is stress related. That may or may not work with another period of confinment.

Do you play with the cats? Maybe a daily play session with something like a Da Bird, something he finds irresistible may at least get him to come back home even if he still chooses to wander for a time during the day.

Do you know what these other people have been feeding him ? Maybe someone has been giving him something different to you give him and he prefers it  Although that is a long shot as cats don't tend to be very foody.

He is neutered so it can't be the pull of a girl 

Its a tough one.


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## lymorelynn (Oct 4, 2008)

Sorry to read of your trouble with Jack. I don't know what advice to offer that you haven't already tried or that Saikou hasn't suggested. He obviously preffered the other house for some reason and the fact that people in the area have been feeding him has not helped situation - so much that Jack now sees this as his home. You could try the old trick of settling a cat when you move house by keeping him in for a couple of days and putting butter on his paws. I know it's an old wives' tale but it does work.
I know how heartbreaking it is when a cat decides it would rather live elsewhere. When my daughter was very young she had a cat that did just that. We had had him from a kitten and not moved or changed anything and one day he decided to move in with a neighbour who would not stop feeding him. My little girl was devastated but we could not persuade Herman to come back.:sad:


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