Taking your cat for a walk

[jonny jeez]

I've never seen this before.

However, my office overlooks some converted flats. The family from a flat on the ground floor take their cat out for a walk every day. The older members of the family use a lead and the younger use a formidable amount of patience and coaxing.

I find it distracting (in a good way) and more than a little therapeutic to watch them as they each patiently wander about the place whilst the cat stalks, climbs, sits and yet always returns.

anyone else take their cat for walks?

 

[gavintc]

When we moved back from Italy, we used a cat lead for the cat. He was put into the harness at the start of the road trip and a week later released. We visited friends and hotels on the way and we always took him from the car to the room using a lead. It was actually easier than it sounds and he did not seem to mind too much. The lead was useful when we stopped in motorway services as it allowed us to keep control of him when we had the car doors open.

But, we used it for a specific purpose. I do not think the cat would like to be taken for walks on a regular basis on a lead.

 

[carolonabike]

I'v heard about people who do this but never seen it. Not something you would do if you're in a bit of a hurry, I would imagine progress would be fairly slow and erratic involving as you say a lot of sitting down. I would love to see it, it must look really funny.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I saw people doing it in France about 20 years ago. Sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

I regularly used to see a chap walking 3 ferrets on leads. That was a sight.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I'd walk the goldfish if I could.

 

[Maz]

When I had a cat many years ago, whenever I went out walking to the shops it would follow me, but only up to a certain point (and the same place every time), beyond which it seemed to instinctively know to stop following me. Maybe it knew it was in another cat's patrol zone or something!

 

[tyred]

All the cats I have had and others I've been in close contact with do what they bloody well like so I think it would be difficult to take one for a walk.

The big difference between a cat and a dog is that you train the dog what you'd like it to do, the cat trains you do what it would like you to do.

 

[bikepete]

Gromit and I did it for a short period - our cat went deaf and lost her traffic sense (through old age) and it just wasn't safe to let her out loose, but she hated being kept in. It was a great way to get to know more of the neighbours (terraced street) although probably not one for the shy and retiring. Our cat had a thing for sniffing car bumpers and would go slowly up and down the street doing so before settling down in the sun somewhere, at which point she usually got picked up and taken home so we could get on with other stuff. She didn't seem that bothered by the lead so long as you let her go where she wanted.

In the end we cat-proofed our rear yard so she had a secure outside area and stopped taking her for walks, much to our relief anyway.

 

[Archie_tect]

In laws regularly took their cat on holiday to Devon from Cumbria... they had a caravan and put the cat in a harness, clipped the lead to the harness looped onto a washing line so the cat had total freedom within the limits of the washing line which included shading under the caravan in hot sun...
It loved the fact it had such [relative] freedom in strange locations where otherwise it would have to be confined, even though it was the most unfriendly, irritable and vicious [deaf odd-eyed white] cat I have ever met.

 

[Matthew_T]

My grandparents live in Stretford, Greater Manchester and have 2 cats. Because of how busy Manchester is and what some of the people in the area are like, they take the cats out for a walk using leads as well.
My grandparents are fairly well known in the local elderly community (they run St Matthew's church (which is where my name comes from)) so I suppose getting them out of the house is a good excuse for taking the cats for a walk.

 

[buddha]

When I had a cat many years ago, whenever I went out walking to the shops it would follow me, but only up to a certain point (and the same place every time), beyond which it seemed to instinctively know to stop following me. Maybe it knew it was in another cat's patrol zone or something!

My cat does the same. Last time was almost 2 miles, including a main road until I realised.
Only follows me to the end of the road when I'm on the bike.

I have seen (some years ago) a couple walking a cat, on a lead, in Hyde Park. From what I remember they had to keep waiting every time the cat randomly stopped to lick itself.

 

[GM]

Up until a couple of years ago we had a Bengal cat 5th generation, absolute beauty. Mrs GM used to take her for a walk on a lead up and down our road several times a day which was recommended for this breed of cat. A few of the neighbours were amazed by this and came out just to see and stroke her, and in the garden she was on an extended lead so she could a little run and climb. Then me and my two teenage kids ganged up on Mrs GM to let her off her lead in the garden as we thought it did'nt seem natural, two weeks later the inevitable happened.

 

[Night Train]

I did try walking a cat on a lead in London.
The cat refused to walk forward and simply reversed out of the harness every time.

 

[Gromit]

Up until a couple of years ago we had a Bengal cat 5th generation, absolute beauty. Mrs GM used to take her for a walk on a lead up and down our road several times a day which was recommended for this breed of cat. A few of the neighbours were amazed by this and came out just to see and stroke her, and in the garden she was on an extended lead so she could a little run and climb. Then me and my two teenage kids ganged up on Mrs GM to let her off her lead in the garden as we thought it did'nt seem natural, two weeks later the inevitable happened.

View attachment 10127

I bet you were popular after that?