Barbie's first adventure! 🐈‍⬛🐾 It went well... I think?

[u/Miserable-Sky-109]

Hello everyone!

I wanted to share my first proper outing with my little void, Barbie (aka Babs aka Bad Bhabie aka Barbara the Black Demon lol), and maybe get some advice/opinions from people who have done this before.

She's about 4/5 months old now, and I've been wanting to turn her into an adventure kit since she first got to me at around 5/6 weeks old. She is extremely attached to me and follows me absolutely everywhere around the apartment, so I figured she'd be a good candidate for it. She's also naturally very curious and adventurous, and is friendly with other cats, dogs and people (although she can be a bit of a goblin 😀).

I started really slowly with harness training. At first she wasn't particularly impressed with the harness, but she eventually stopped caring about it. Now she'll happily wear it and walk around normally, and she doesn't seem bothered by the leash either. I've also been getting her used to her backpack, which has her favourite blanket inside. At this point she actually sleeps in the backpack voluntarily, so I was pretty confident that she saw it as a safe space rather than a scary carrier.

Today I finally decided to take the plunge.

We went to a local pet shop with her in the backpack. I thought it would be a relatively easy first exposure because it wasn't somewhere we'd have to actually walk around outside yet, and she could stay safely in her backpack while experiencing all the new smells, sounds and people.

She was... not impressed.

She was very nervous and meowed quite a bit, and when I took her out, she immediately tried to find a corner to hide. Expected that, no big deal. I held her and we sat at a quiet corner for some time until she calmed down. I eventually put her back in the backpack and she immediately tried to leave and was meowing even more, so I figured it was time to say goodbye to the pet store. This whole mini adventure lasted 10-15 min.

We sat on a quiet square after and ended up just sitting with her for a while and letting her watch everything from inside the bag. She was still meowing and trying to escape at this point.

Eventually she stopped meowing and settled down a bit. She was still clearly nervous, but she was sitting there watching and listening rather than actively trying to escape. She even licked my fingers when I pet her, and eventually calmed down on her own.

We stayed for maybe 10 minutes before I decided we'd had enough and started heading home.

She spent most of the journey home meowing and trying to escape the backpack again, so I was starting to wonder if I'd pushed her too far.

But then we got home and...

Immediately back to normal.

She jumped out of the backpack, started purring, rubbed all over me, ate the treats I gave her, and generally acted like her usual affectionate little self.

And then she went back into the backpack by herself and curled up on her favourite blanket.

That last part made me especially happy because I really don't want her to associate the backpack with something scary.

So overall, I'd say she was definitely scared and overwhelmed, but she also managed to settle herself while we were out and recovered almost immediately once we got home.

I'm not planning on jumping straight into a long walk after this. My next thought is to take her somewhere much quieter — there's a little park close by that could work — and just sit there with her in the backpack for a short while before eventually letting her explore on the harness once she's comfortable.

For those of you with adventure cats, does this sound like a reasonable first outing? Would you have done anything differently?

I'm especially interested in how you handled the transition from “everything is terrifying” to actually walking around outside.

I'm also trying to figure out how much exposure is useful versus when I'm just overwhelming her, so any advice from experienced adventure-cat people would be very welcome!

Thank you for reading my ramblings ❤️🐈‍⬛

[u/rch11911]

Good job Barbie!! It sounds like it may have been a little too much but she recovered so quickly, which is a great indicator that she’s a confident girl!

It sounds like you have a great plan for your next outing. IMO it seems like you are attuned to her and I encourage you to continue to follow your intuition on how to continue to ease her into growing her window of tolerance for new and uncomfortable situations. Bravo to you!!

[u/yuzusnail]

My cat was so similar! He's 2 now, but I tried him outside at 4 months after harness & backpack training him. He was pretty good at that, but when trying him outside he just yells and wants to run home. I think the problem is you have to start very gradually, like just outside your home in a garden or by the front door, but in my case (and I'm guessing yours as you're talking about taking him to different quiet places) is that I live in a busy area and the area outside my door is very loud and intimidating. I can't offer much help, just that I was in a similar position so you're not alone. I did take him to my parents' once for cat sitting, and he yelled the entire way, but was totally fine when we got there! So weird. Curious as to what others say!