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I have a cat, his name is Jules, this is him taking a big dumb nap on the couch: We got him from my cousin, whose cat had a litter of 3, Jules' two brothers went to other friends of my cousin's. Today my cousin called to tell us that one of his brothers got hit by a car. His brother lived in the city, while we live in the countryside, but this still got me thinking about protecting my cat more and preventing him from going on the roads. I'm considering maybe using an electric wire for this. Although the picture might suggest otherwise, Jules is a very energetic cat and doesn't really tolerate being kept indoors (we tried), he loves going outside and hunting mice and stuff and having a good time. I tried walking him on a leash too but he doesn't tolerate this either, he just straight up boycotts it and lies down on the ground in protest, won't even take a single step with a harness on. Here's our situation: we live in the countryside and have a big plot of land, a garden that's surrounded on the south and west by a beech hedge and a road, this road isn't very busy but cars do pass through. We tried to make sure Jules doesn't go on there by clapping our hands and getting him back into the garden whenever he gets close, but we did catch him walking on the shoulder of the road a few times and he's probably gone on there. I want to keep him off the road by laying an electrical wire along the beech hedge that separates our garden from the road:  The red dotted line in this image is where I'd like to put the electrical wire, this is a long stretch of about 135 meters. My goal is to discourage him from venturing onto the road to the south and west and instead to have his adventures in the north and east, which are just empty, cat-safe fields of grass. He actually already once got shocked by an electrical wire that was on one of the fields nearby, and didn't want to go there after, so it seems like an effective way to keep him from going to a certain place, and while getting an electric shock isn't pleasant, it sure beats being run over by a car. Here's the problem: our land is far too big to surround completely with wire, so it's really only feasible to put it on one side. Is this even possible, or does it have to be a closed loop? Can you make just a single stretch of it somehow? Also: does it matter if the wire touches vegetation? The place where I need to put it has a hedge and a shallow ditch full of plants that would be very difficult to remove. Most of the retail electrical wires designed to keep cats in/out of yards are made for city lots with fences that can easily be made into a closed loop. Does anyone have any experience or other ideas on how to solve this and keep my cat away from the road? Shibawanko fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Sep 20, 2019 |
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Sep 20, 2019 20:06
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Have you considered instead making him a cat run or outdoor enclosure instead, or special cat fences? I'm not sure how cats react to shock collars, but i think in general they're frowned upon in use, and if he gets past the barrier then you've now possibly got a cat stuck outside getting shocked when he tries to come back, if he even lets the shock phase him. https://www.paws.org/library/cats/home-life/outdoor-enclosures/ I found this page of possible options from a cursory google search, which includes both kit enclosures and fence options for cats.
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Sep 24, 2019 18:36
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Bremma posted:Have you considered instead making him a cat run or outdoor enclosure instead, or special cat fences? I'm not sure how cats react to shock collars, but i think in general they're frowned upon in use, and if he gets past the barrier then you've now possibly got a cat stuck outside getting shocked when he tries to come back, if he even lets the shock phase him. Well, we did try something like this, we have an old chicken enclosure from back when we still had chickens, it's pretty big but he still whines a lot if we leave him in there and he doesn't seem to enjoy it. I got the idea of the electrical wire because he once got shocked by accident from a cow enclosure in a field around here, and wouldn't go anywhere near it after (it's on the east/right hand side of the picture), which is why I thought that might actually be the best way to keep him inside the garden. I caught him on the road shoulder again today and chased him back inside. I guess the wire might make it more dangerous if he ends up jumping over it and unable to get back in though yeah... Not sure what to do at this point, we've always had cats but never one who was this adventurous (and reckless, he has a habit of climbing trees that are too high to jump out of too).
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Sep 28, 2019 16:35
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