Thread: Out walking ...

I walked our now departed MC mix male, Karma, virtually every night for four years. I started it when it looked like he wasn't going to live long due to HCM, but then he survived for several years. It was the highlight of his life, which is why it continued in spite of various negatives. I would ask him if he wanted to go walk, and he would race down the driveway, but then wait at the road for me to catch up and hook him to his leash (a 20-25' leash, as cats like to explore).

We always went at night, in part because that's when Karma preferred to skulk around the neighborhood, and in part because I didn't want to be too obvious. The problem with cat walking is that they tend to like to walk a short distance and then sit and observe for 5-10 minutes. If you can't handle the standing around, you probably won't be happy taking your cat out walking (unless they are very different from my cats about walking). In addition, certain neighbors might not understand why you are standing around in front of their houses at night. We have a couple like that--who I no longer speak to nor even acknowledge their presence (but I wasn't friends with these people before cat walking). The other thing I have found is that cats are much better at walking away from home than returning. Most nights I ended up carrying Karma back, and this actually became an important part of the ritual, where he would rub on my legs and talk to me when he was ready to be picked up to head home. Luckily, Karma was only 14 lbs. This would be tough with our two purebred boys who are both over 20 lbs.

While I occasionally take our girl Bella for a short walk, she is content to cruise around the yard, and that is much easier. Karma was a stray who was used to supervising all the cats in the neighborhood, so our yard alone wasn't completely satisfying for him.