Despite having several escapades from the house and getting lost once, Bart LOVES the outdoors. He is unfortunately not a suitable semi-outdoor cat. He’s far too curious for his own good and likes to wander off to locations without paying attention to where he is going or how he is supposed to get back. Unfortunately, this very unsuitable outdoor cat also demands he go outside. So our solution is a 50-foot leash that allows him the run of the yard, and while he is largely critical of this solution, he still gains great enjoyment from being allowed out into the great outdoors.
Now, as a city cat, you’d think that Bart is a mediocre hunter, and at first, it did appear that he was kinda incompetent. Birds flew away from him when he came nearby, and he tended to misjudge his leaping and stalking, and while he caught and ate tons of grasshoppers (nom nom), he never came close to catching a bird.
This all changed when we moved the bird feeder. Instead of being in the back yard where there was relatively low cover around the feeders, the front yard had TONS of coverage, and within the first day, he had caught his first chickadee. Thankfully, we caught it before it could be harmed, but the damage was done for Bart, and he was assigned to the back yard indefinitely.
Except that Bart is a devious and furry individual and he came to learn very quickly that if he just ran fast enough and lept, he could wrench the leash off its hook and wander all the way back to the front yard where he could continue to hunt at his leisure. Eventually, we were forced to take appropriate actions in securing his leash, but this did not stop Bart from hunting. Instead, he simply climbed the tree above the backyard’s bird feeder and lept out at any chickadee that chose to join him in the tree, a very amusing but very ineffective solution.
To this day, Bart continues to climb the maple tree and hunt chickadees, but they caught on long ago, and instead, Bart spends his outside time being mocked by the very things he once hunted.