I felt bad for him because he used to lead such a carefree life, coming and going as he pleased, enjoying the fresh outdoor air. At the very least, I thought, we could let him go outside, with supervision since we didn't know if he would run away again. And so I embarked on a mission to train Smokey to walk in a harness.
When you read online guides to training cats, you will notice that the training generally involves familiarizing the cat with the new thing and making him think whatever you want him to do is a good idea. With cat walking, this means leaving the harness and leash around so that the cat thinks their presence is normal. I left the harness and leash laying around and even rubbed them on his whiskers so his scent would be on them. He liked batting his harness, too, if I dangled it in his face.
The next step is getting the cat to wear the harness for incrementally longer times. We had no problem getting Smokey to wear his spiffy yellow collar, so I assumed the harness would not be an issue. Turns out he does not like TWO things around his neck. But then you feed the little guy treats and soothe him so that he thinks it's not such a bad thing after all. (More on food bribing in another post.) Then you do the same thing with the leash attached.
Smokey is such a mellow cat, the first two steps took no time at all. So, how was the actual cat walking? Stay tuned for part 2!
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