Actually, our cats often join us when walking our dogs. We have two dogs, and when we walk them leashed, at night, one to three of our (six) cats come along and walk around us. They dart out in advance up to ten meters, using available cover (cars) to hide, and often laag behind in those places to ensure it is clear that they are not being walked but are simply following the same route of their own accord.
Not sure how this happened, so I can’t help you with training advice. But maybe it’s just our regular schedule of walking that does it?
This is honestly more of a cutesy-academic type consideration here. Unless i get a place in the countryside, like its almost 0% chance of being pratical :( ive come to realize)
One of our cats does the same. We go for a walk with our dogs and she just trails along like 3 meters behind. We didn’t train her to do this. Just decided one day that she wanted to walk with us. Sometimes it is scary since walk a bit away from home and fear that she might not fibd back when she loses us. So we don’t encourage it.
Cats out at night is a severe nono in my country (they aren’t native to the environment and kill the native animals) but we have done similar during the day. Less observant people probably have no idea they are being shadowed by a cat. I only ever did it in very-un-built up bush and farmland, however, can’t imagine achieving that with cars and traffic and other humans.
One time when I was coming back from a forest walkie with my dog, in the dark, there was a lady walking with her cat, off-leash. The cat did not give a single fuck about my dog barking at him
I tried walking my cat, it did work but the problem was other people walking their dogs and letting them loose in parks. So I stopped going since it terrified him. I tried keeping him in his carrier backpack like thingy, but he still didn’t enjoy it.
Now I have a tuxedo devil kitten, maybe I’ll try it again. Just have to think hard about how and where he can be safe. Maybe just start with his carrier and then move on to the leash?
I feel like the CatPack is an interesting twist. Take 'em somewhere naturey+quiet and see how he likes a 10 minute walk and maybe just slowly edge that time up. Have a way to give treats along the way
The bastards are so used to treats, it barely works anymore :). But dreamies has a new line out with catnip flavour they die for. I’ve been giving them very few of them, so that can help.
I’ll try it out. My friend is picking me up this afternoon and I’ll ask if we can scout a few locations.
It’s going to be next to impossible, but if you do try, I suggest attempting it with above average smart breeds that like to follow you around, such as burmese
Ime, no, but you can get them to follow you around the house while conspicuously pretending they’re not (they’ll just perpetually be about 3-6 feet away at all times when you’re lingering in any one area).
Basically you keep treats on you whenever you’re wearing something with pockets (I recommend a container that seals in case you wash it) and give them one every 15-30 minutes or so throughout the day, then steadily lessen over time, but never such that you’re giving them none. If they start pulling away start giving a little more for a little bit and give time for the behavior to solidify before lessening again. Eventually you’ll hit a plateau where you really just can’t give treats less often or they’ll give up.
I luv the corner stalking game. Nvr gets old, i just wish my place was way bigger so we could have a bit more extensive of roaming grounds to play hunt & seek
It is possible to an extent with certain breeds, e.g. Egyptian Mau. However, they are curious and skittish so may not follow you everywhere if they find something interesting or get spooked. When you get too far from their known “territory” they may stop and wait for you to come back, (while also yelling at you to come back to the concern of passers-by!).
I used to go for walks with my gf and her egyptian maus. They would follow along like a pride of tiny lions but spread out a bit, so while we walked on paths their parallel routes would go through gardens, over roofs, fields, fences, etc.
In fact it was more of an effort to train them not to follow us everywhere, e.g. to the shops, work, etc. They would often follow neighbours’ children to school and back (and sometimes follow the wrong child home and get lost!).
Maus are also more amenable to being on a leash than most breeds, although you need to get them used to it early in life.
The main problem is if they decide to run away from something they are blazingly fast and near impossible to catch and recover from whatever inaccessible perch or hidey-hole they run to. My gf’s cats had been trained to return to the sound of jangling keys, but that only worked most of the time.
Im super amused that Egyptian Maus has the German word for mouse in the name. It might be interesting to see if one’s amenable to catpacking but I feel like the traumatic bustling of traffic/cars are an inescapable contraindication for them
It’s Mau in the singular, Maus in the plural (in English anyway), but maybe there are still some amusingly ambiguous sentences possible in German! :)
I wouldn’t recommend walking cats anywhere near any significant traffic. Maybe some cats would be OK with being in a pack (I’ve seen YT channels with cats in baskets on bikes etc) but I imagine you’d have to train them from a young age.