Life Lesson

Never put a slightly skiddish cat on a retractable leash.

It's just a bad idea.

Phoebe (said slightly skiddish cat) loves going outside. It's her new favorite thing ever. So, not wanting her to get lost/go into the pool area when we take her outside, Sam and I bought her a retractable leash. We got the smallest one, but they don't make them for cats (should've been our first clue) so we had to get the kind for small dogs. I put it on her the next day to take her outside, and she HATED it. She rolled and fought and tried to get it off. But she loved going outside. (I could see her little kitty conflict playing out) I finally figured out that because she's so small, the leash was pulling her collar a lot and kind of choking her. So, I pulled it all the way out and locked it, so she could just run around as far as the leash would let her. She liked this a lot more.

That was late last week. Yesterday (Sunday), Sam and I put her on the leash and went out on the patio to study. She was running around pouncing on bugs and having a good time, so I put the end of the leash down and let her run uninhibited, but we could still catch the end of the leash if she started to get too far away. When she realized that the leash handle would move when she got so far away, she started chasing it a little. Mostly in a weird circle around Sam's chair. She got tired of that pretty quickly and went back to pouncing on bugs and eating grass. There were a couple of times where she went too far, and we had to retrieve her, but otherwise, it was going quite well.

Until -

Somehow she dragged the leash handle over a rock or obstacle that hit the lock button and caused the leash to start retracting. She apparently thought that it was chasing her. She took off around the side of the house, and Sam and I jumped up to catch her. We got to the sidewalk and she was gone. Half second of panic and we see her streak around the other side of the building and into the apartment. We ran in and found her puffed up and cowering in the corner of the kitchen. Sam reached down to get her and the leash handle moved - she bolted again. This time we found her in the bedroom, with the handle almost up to her collar. We finally got the leash off and tried to calm her down, but she was having none of that. She went into the bathroom and just kind of huddled there for a little while.

After calming her down, Sam and I went back outside to study. We left the back door open, to see if she wanted to come out again. She didn't. Pretty much the farthest she got was sitting in the doorway looking out.

Needless to say, the leash has been retired.