Thank-you all for your good wishes! I am certainly 'up' for something new as is my husband. If I were a little younger I might even consider Khartoum for a bit. Well ... one never knows! My dear Gino is 18 and may have a few good years left. He's only lived here so I know it will be a big transition for the poor wee guy.Well he is certainly with us until the end!.
Oh yes, it will be a big transition for him. He is an inside cat isn't he? If so, that won't be too bad. Mine were both and I had to keep them inside for 6 weeks so they would get used to the new surroundings. But they adapted fine.
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No, he goes outside. We won't be able to let him out in the city. Vancouver has a very big coyote problem and it's just not safe for him. Well, we hope he'll adapt or maybe I can have a big dog cage that could go outside so he could lay in the sun. That's about all he does is lay about but he certainly gets annoyed if he can't go out. I think he just enjoys watching us open and close doors for him.
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When I had an indoor cat, I would take him outside occasionally and had a small harness with leash. It worked very well. You can put the small harness on your cat for just a few minutes at a time to get him used to it. Mine took to it really well and would get excited when he saw the harness. Yippee....play time outside. I didn't have to take hold the leash most of the time, but if it looked like he was going to try to climb something, I could take hold of it so he didn't get into trouble.
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Our Daisy (1/2 Maine Coon) loves her harness. I attach it to the leash and then a small dog extenda-leash and when she sees it she gets so excited I have a hard time getting her "saddled-up".
The year before last, when we first got her, I'm ironing when I feel something dropped on my foot. It's the harness. "I'm sorry Daisy, I have to get this done first". Then I feel the leash dropped on my foot. "I'm sorry Daisy I have to get this done first". Then I hear a THUD and a scrape, scrape scrape as she finds, retrieves and drags the the extenda-leash thing towards me before finally picking it up and dropping it on my toe. "OK - you're right, we could both do with a break - let's go".
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