smkindersley@water.UUCP (sumo kindersley) (10/02/85)
--- this "agoraphobia" or something like that has occured with two of my cats who were brought up in-city *inside* a small apartment then transplanted to a large house in a really rural setting. this house has a door explicitly for cats to go in and out at will. there is no litter box. both of them (females, in case that interests you) cried and cried when taken out of doors at the start, but i actually took both of them out just before their respective transplants to a small park and let 'em yowl for a while. (i had these cats in the city at different times). in the rural house, i put the cat outside in a dirt patch (flowerbed!) next to the house first thing in the morning - the wall right next to the cat might have helped. the door use we taught by pushing the cat in and out it a few times. they learned very quickly. both became dedicated outdoors cats. i do not think that your cat's fear of the wide open sky is likely a permanent problem as i have seen two get over it. as the previous paragraph implied, we have had to introduce new cats to old cats, and old dogs, and new dogs to both the previous. the method i had heard of was to place the new cat in a fairly open kennel thing in a very obvious place in the house. this got the other pets used to the new scent. making a big fuss over the old pets was very important. treats and attention while sniffing the new pet seemed to help. the new cats had to get used to a friendly dog, too. in all those introductions we never had a new pet fail to become great friends with the rest of the set. a word to anyone with outdoor cats who hasn't used the feline leukemia vaccine: we lost THREE cats to feline leukemia, back when not a lot was known about it and before they even knew how very contagious it is. two of those three were used for research while treatment was being attempted. one had to be destroyed because she was extremely infectious but had no outward symptoms. she was an outdoor cat and i could not let her out to interact with other cats or make her miserable by keeping her in. GET THEM VACCINATED. losing three was too much; i've not had another cat since. sumo kindersley