Hi,
My son and his wife are probably splitting up and it looks as if I will be adding their outdoor cat to my home. I already own two cats who are indoor/outdoor cats, who are mostly indoor cats but do like to explore around in my garden. For the most part, my cats usually stay within my own garden but do like to leave and explore the canyon, but they don't stay gone long. My own cats have a cat flap door so they can access outdoors and come back inside at will, however, I make sure that they are indoors by dusk EVERY NIGHT and I lock the cat flap until the next morning.
My son and his wife have three cats. Two of them are strictly indoor cats who have never been outside. The third cat used to be an indoor cat but for some reason began to stop using the litter box and started spraying cat urine in "special areas" in several different rooms of the house. For that reason my daughter in-law put the cat out of the house and the cat, who's named Indy, has been living strictly outdoors on the patio for around 2 years plus now. I don't agree with the way Indy has been living but he seems to be doing fine but does lack the loving attention he seems to crave so much. Every time I have seen Indy and we are sitting outside, Indy will jump right up into my lap and lay there for the longest time. She is VERY affectionate cat. I do feel so sorry for her and have offered to take her home with me several times but my daughter in-law refused to let me have her. Now that there is a great possibility of my son and his wife splitting up, my daughter in-law has asked me to take Indy. She feels she will not be able to keep her since they will be selling their house. Really, I will take all three of their cats if I have to because I don't want my grandchildren to have to give up their pets.
Anyway here is the problem or rather my question....I have always believed that Indy was not given the proper chance as an indoor cat. The children make him nervous and I think that Indy may have felt like a sitting duck and chose to do his business anywhere he could and then would hide under the bed. My daughter in-law said that Indy just was to nervous to be around the kids. What ever, right? Anyway, I told her that I will take Indy now regardless if she and my son do split up or not and that Indy will then become my cat and can live a nice quite life here as an indoor outdoor cat and be in an environment with my other two STABLE cats, who may be a good influence on her. (Yes, Indy is a girl, with a boys name lol) I think it would be so much better for Indy here but I am worried about it? Is it possible for Indy to change? I don't want to have a problem with her spraying indoors. Is there anyway to get her to stop doing that? I'm thinking that she may not have the same behavioral issues here as she did there? Indy is about 4 years old and has been living outdoors for at least 2 or 3 years now.
