When we decide to try leash training, we will start our training indoors, for safety reasons. This means we won’t have the outdoors to distract our cat from this annoying contraption, and they won’t understand why we are doing it.

Chances are, this is when we will encounter the Cat With No Legs.

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It might seem tempting to put on the harness, see how the cat does, then put the leash on, walk around the house, and only then venture outdoors. However, this whole process will be blocked by the cat wondering what the heck we are up to now.

Most cats respond to this by looking up plaintively and not moving. Some even draw up their legs under their body, to make their point clear. How can I move? I have no legs.

If we leave the cat harnessed and unsupervised, they will occupy themselves with seeing if they can rival Houdini getting out of a straitjacket. And they can. This is not a skill we want them to acquire.

So we should simply bundle the cat into their setup and carry them outdoors.

This does many things. It immediately distracts the cat from the weird thing they are wearing, and makes the connection with their new attire and the new interests we only want them to explore on the leash.

This gets us past the Cat with No Legs.

This also reinforces our wish that they only go out the door wearing their harness and with us. Carrying them might become a moot point in the future, when they make the happy connection and are eager to go for a walk. But we cannot convey this unless and until they have actually experienced it.

If the cat has not been outdoors before, it will let them experience this dizzying array of sensation from the safety of our arms.

The cat might express the wish that it is all too much and they would like to get back to the safety of their comfy home. We should immediately comply.

We can’t make a cat like something that is not their own idea.

They might handle the next trip, longer. Or they might decide this is just a new way of getting them to the vet. If the cat is firm about foregoing the great outdoors, we won’t make them happier about it by not letting them get back to safety. So be prepared to let this process take as long as it takes.

Chances are, the opposite will occur. They will love it, bother us constantly, and even learn that playing with the setup and crying at the door will result in a trip outside. Maybe it’s raining or snowing, and they will be shocked and upset that we let this happen. Remind them it’s all part of the outside world.

If we love the outdoors, great! We will probably have as much companionship as we can stand. If we are not as enthused as the cat is, we might try one of the overhead trolley systems to let them hang around outside without us, though be aware that the Houdini re-enactment might appear again.

I have a friend whose first cat is a shelter rescue who cried and begged to go outdoors. At first, she let the cat out, but soon became so attached, and so worried that something would happen to her cat, that she uses a leash on an overhead trolley instead.

And the cat is perfectly content; not yanking at the end of the leash, not trying to throw the harness, just enjoying the sun on her fur and the constantly interesting activity going on around her. She skips it when the weather is bad, and has a water dish, and access to shade, for long stays when the weather is good.

So it is possible to make everyone happy this way. But if we run into difficulties, it’s unlikely we can make our cat into my friend’s cat. Then we should consider other possibilities, such as a cat stroller or an outside enclosure.

We must be prepared to go down that road if necessary. We are the ones who awakened the cat’s wild side; we are the ones responsible for letting them explore it safely.

We are the ones… who opened the door.

For more, here’s a whole site dedicated to leash training our cat.

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