Our area of Spring TX has had a problem in the last few years of lost cats. I myself knew of 8 that had disappeared in just a few months. We don't know for sure why they disappeared but we think it could have been coyotes. Our subdivision has always been out by itself but the city is moving closer and closer. The Woodlands is building a village literally a stone's throw from our house. As progress happens there's less room for the coyotes to feed. I personally think they started feeding on the cats in our subdivision. We have two cats and I did not want to see that happen to our cats so a few years ago we got one of them an invisible fence.
Calvin is our cat. We adopted him from a friend of our daughters. Elle is our daughters' cat. Our daughters' cat lives with us as our daughter is a flight attendant and commutes so is only here now and then. The problem was not with her cat but with our cat; Calvin. It is not hard too hard to tell which is
which. Elle is the fat one and could not go over or under the fence. I take that back she did go over the fence once. It was shortly after she started living with us and she had seen Calvin go over so she got up on our waterfall and was looking over. I turned on the waterfall and she fell in to our neighbor's back yard. I had to go knock on their door and ask them if I could retrieve our cat out of their back yard.
Calvin on the other hand is all boy. He was an indoor cat until he came to live with us but he found out that he loves to explore. He is a very good hunter and loves to bring us his prizes. He would go over the fence but would usually come back when I called but when all these cats started disappearing I became concerned. That was when we started looking in to our options. We talked to the Vet and she said we could make him an indoor cat again but I hated to do that as he loves the outside.
One of our neighbors made a very cool cattery off of the back of their house. We explored that idea but their back yard faces east and our back yard faces west. If you have been to Spring TX in the summertime you will understand why the direction your house faces makes a difference. We have a covered patio on the back of our house so we can even go out on our back porch in the heat of the summer. The only place that would work for a cattery was already being used for a spa. I did not want to
give up the sap so that idea was out.
About that same timeframe I went in to our veterinarians and saw the Invisible Fence people installing an indoor system. It seems that the vet cats were getting in to food at night and had destroyed about $1000 worth of food. That was when we started exploring the idea of putting an invisible fence in.
We found all kinds of do it yourself invisible fences but the reviews that I read were not good. On the other hand the reviews for the Invisible Fence sounded decent. Now mind you there is a huge difference in price but in life I have found you get what you pay for. We decided to go with the Invisible fence.
They came out and installed the wires all around the outside of our house and then two different times a trainer came out. The first time the trainer came out they put an indoor fence in our house. They use white flags and we started letting Calvin look at the flag and then he got a jolt. It sounds mean but mind you it was for his protection. I had to get Calvin use to wearing a harness also for the next round of trainings. To be honest I think the harness was probably the hardest part of the whole ordeal.
About a week later the trainer came out and put white flags around the boundaries where Calvin would get shocked. It was a good thing that I had the harness on him because he was having no part of it and went to bolt over the fence. He was in for a shock; literally. For about a week after that I would go out with him with the harness but he learned fast. He hated the harness and was thrilled when the trainer came out for the last time and we finally let him out without it.
Calvin has now had the fence for a couple of year and it has worked GREAT. We put Calvin's collar on when he goes out in the morning and we take it off when he comes in at the end of the day. It must not bother him as he sits and purrs as we put it on him. He has plenty of room to roam along the back of our house. He has a covered patio and beside the patio there are some bushes that he can hang out in.
The battery has to be changed every 3 to 4 months and we did have one incident where we forgot to change the battery and all of a sudden Calvin was exploring again. We have learned our lesson on that and now keep a better eye on the battery. This is a special batter that we order through the invisible fence people.
The only downside is that you can't keep cats from coming in to your property. Because of that I always make sure that I'm home when Calvin is outside. There have been two different times where we have had to go out and chase a cat away. Our dog Dundy is more than happy to chase the offending cat out of our yard.
I know that I raised a few eyebrows when I got an invisible fence for our cat but like I said it has worked GREAT. If you have a dog that roams you can use the same fence for them also. You just have to buy an additional collar for whatever pet you are using it for. Our dog stays close and with living in a cul-de-sac we don't have a worry; so for us it is just used at this point for Calvin. We have also protected a lot of wildlife as Calvin has a small hunting area now. I figure if a bird is dumb enough to come in to his area it is their problem.
We have only had one incident where he disappeared and that was just after the time that we let the battery expire. This post is getting long so Calvin's great adventure will have to go in another post.
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