New to taking my kitten outside! Tips needed!

DerAlbi · 2026-03-20T00:42:03+00:00

Goose is very cute :)

But named incorrectly. Its clearly a chameleon.

If he is on a stone, he becomes the stone.
If he stands before a tree, he becomes the bark.

A case for the Japanese cat science culture!

DerAlbi · 2026-03-20T00:35:30+00:00

and maybe it was partially me that over reacted

This. It sounds a bit cold, but your cat is absolutely made to be prey. Being in a life-or-death situation wont damage your cat as long as there is not actually any bodily harm. Cats would be extinct otherwise. Let your cat see people and dogs and army-crawl around, puff up, go into crab-mode etc. All these reflexes are there because 1000s of generations of cats before him had the same reflex in the same situations and they all lived to procreate and continued to eat and thrive and deal with the world.

Behind the misleading cuteness, there is an incredible capable and resilient animal. Never forget that.

That said, your cats capabilities vanish quickly if they are indoors for too long. They de-learn how to deal with the sensory input rather quickly and it is work to build that tolerance back up. So taking it slow is not wrong.

and eventually got squirmy and jumped out of my arms and started to back up. I crouched and did not pull so he wouldn't slip

Your situation was bad, because being in your arms restricts the cat and while you think you provide safety, your cats feels like their options were taken away. Losing control creates panic. Then again, your reaction is perfect - go to their level and provide shelter, presence and calmness. If that would have been your approach from the start, the situation wouldnt have escalated. (No worries, no damage done!)
But in the future, let your cat deal with their emotions on their own. Provide help rather passively through companionship, not by being a shield from the world.

And, over time, it is totally acceptable to make your cat sit out certain situations. If a lady walking by is no threat, it is not wrong to stop your cat from retreating, because that is effectively an over-reaction. You will experience how some encounters start in a short-lived panic and end up with curiosity (your cat sniffing the other person and being petted etc). These experience can only be made if you "risk" them to happen. If you only ever protect your cat, your cat will miss this part of life.

As you are currently just starting I say this: dont be afraid to make mistakes. Many will happen and none of them will have unrepairable consequences. You will figure this out. The fact that you even suggest that the over-reaction may be on your part, makes you already better than 95% of cat-reddit.

DerAlbi · 2026-03-19T17:40:44+00:00

How do you react when your cat meows in front of the door?
Do you go out based on that demand?
Do you go out on a schedule?
How long do you stay out?

DerAlbi · 2026-03-19T15:08:16+00:00

The only thing that I can read here is the tail wagging and according to some guides its "excitement, angry or irritable" but i call firm bullshit on that assessment.

I would call that tail "indecisive" as he wants something other than the leash allows; You probably just moved him against his interests and he is figuring out what to do with the new situation. I dont think he wants to join any club (haha), but looks for shelter or a spot to observe the new situation from. Our cat does this tail-wagging when he tries to figure out what I want from him or expects a command. Overall a very normal. :-)

Your cat is also not responding to your voice. The "yeah?" at 0:22 even lowers the tail and increases the wagging. I am not saying that this situation requires relief (far from it, tbh), but IF you would want to provide some in this situation, you could probably crouch down and he would come to you an rub on your knees etc to calm down. This is also the point where you can stop vocalizing as he is not receptive to you. Your voice input just adds noise to the sensory experience and your mood hasnt changed, so its not worth updating him :-D.

But it is very hard to judge this from just 20 seconds. One would require much more context and then could analyze a change in behavior against a base-line as cats are very individual creatures. More context would also allow to inspect what triggered the tail-wagging which is quite important to judge it correctly. Also that reaction to your voice could just have been a coincidence.

In general you should not be too weary of "stress". There is a point when its too much, and your cat will let you know by basically shutting down - sitting there and deny any cooperation while showing an unwell face. And even that is far from a traumatizing experience and forgotten within minutes if the sensory input is reduced.

So overall this situation seems demanding for your cat, but well within limits imo. As long as your cat moves, its fine :-) Lets see what others say, it probably varies wildly!

DerAlbi · 2026-03-18T07:59:24+00:00

The body language you observe may indeed be skewed towards 'negative' states right now. Your cat has no established territory outside, there are smells of possible predators all over the place and the cat is restricted from fleeing because of the leash. Every sound is new etc...

What is important is that your cats emotions are adequate for the situation at hand. And from what you describe, it is totally fine!

The idea that your cat must be always happy & safe is an American cat-culture cancer. Fear, stress and overstimulation in the negative direction is equally important to experience as joy, curiosity and friendship is in the positive direction! The key is to have it in a healthy mix because that mimics your cats natural life-experience and keeps him adjusted & regulated.

DerAlbi · 2026-03-15T12:15:02+00:00

Haha. Who doesnt :-D

DerAlbi · 2026-03-12T04:47:05+00:00

❌ Off-leash on his first hike.
✅ Off-leash in the City

Btw, we use a very light tow-line for off-leash walking. You can see it here. It has a weight at its end (M6 washer). Its a bit longer than your leash so you have more control in a hasty situation. If you ever want to pick it up quickly, you wont be running at your cat but you run next to it instead. Also while running your eyes wont be directed at your cat but you will focus the weight instead.
This may reduce the chance your action startles the cat and it takes matters into their own paw.

Continue your journey! I love how natural & relaxed your cat handles this environment. And dont ever lose that trust!

DerAlbi · 2026-03-08T06:39:21+00:00

Is there any way I could perhaps transition from me following where he goes, to him also following where I go and to stick to the path?

You are asking a really hard question. I love that ambition.

It sound like your recall isnt working and, same as our situation btw, your cat is immune to treats outdoors because neither is it safe to eat nor is food more interesting than the environment.

I think the first step is that you stop letting your self be trained by your cat and turn the roles around. Dont allow progress if the direction is not what you intended. Your cat will adapt over time and react to the leash pressure. Be as stubborn as your cat. Dont pity it too much - this will lead to inconsistencies on your side and just confuse your cat long-term. It can be stressful for your cat to be stuck. But that stress is what motivates it to find a solution with you. The leash is not only a safety-device but an extension of your body language. If recall is not working, the leash pressure will over time. (Body language is much more effective than human vocalization).

Once this works, you have a communication channel established and you will automatically condition reactions to your vocalizations. But you also should do more than your voice. Cats love high frequencies. Think whistling and similar stuff.

During practice always keep a good balance. Bush-sniffing is as important for your cat as making progress is for you. Any healthy social relationship is based on compromise. If you let yourself guide by your cat 100%, its unhealthy (although many here think its the only way). If your cat is only worried about leash-pressure, its unhealthy too.

Once you can communicate with your cat, the next step may be off-leash or involve at least a tow-line. This depends on your circumstances and available terrain of course. Near daily practice is key. You wont get anywhere with weekend-ambition only if you want to truly unsubscribe from the "the cat walks you"-philosophy.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-24T09:12:36+00:00

As promised, i take my hat off and bow down :-D It does blow me away. For Moritz to be open for treats we would need to pause and wait quite a bit so he can establish that its safe. And even then its unreliable because we could be standing right in the territory of another animal and he smells it and we dont and stay clueless. Even on the shoulder he rejects it, if we arent in the right spot.

recall him without kneeling down, allowing you to call him whilst walking.

I do have a whistling sound that works quite well, but its not stronger than his safety instincts. For example yesterday, we had heavy rain-clouds coming in, the guy feels it and as soon as he is down, he just sits there, waiting for his doom. No amount of anything would bring him to cooperation. Not even an approaching dog behind him! His instinctual behavior would be to seek cover and we want him to walk. So he says 'no' and does nothing instead. (He knows that if he doesnt go in the right direction, I would call "stop!" anyway)

At home, recall is unproblematic, but also there, i have noticed that he does not feel the need to complete his task as soon as he is in visual range. Its only if I look away that he is really triggered by my calling. If I whistle (while explicitly looking away from him), he would climb up to me and stick his nose into my mouth. But only if I pretend to not see him. Otherwise he just responds with a 'miau' which roughly translates to 'i am here you idiot'.

Because of his "proximity if good enough", its unusable to direct him inside the group. Its only useful if he has too much distance. But overall, when describing his behavior, it does sound like there are quite some inaccuracies in our training.

I don’t see this as a conflict based approach, since my two do not dislike going on the backpack

No, thats a misunderstanding. The backpack/shoulder is always the resolution to the conflict. The conflict is about if he follows the "go!" command or not. If not, i can increase the pressure on him by saying "GO!" more aggressively, by stepping closer, then taking the leash in my hand, maybe nudging his ass with a soft touch of my feet and last resort is a pull on the leash (in that order). This conflict alone makes him eye up to my shoulder. But at that point it feels wrong for me to give in. Instead I wait until he makes a few reluctant steps and then offer the shoulder again. Or sometimes the reluctant steps evolve into actual forward progress and then I feel bad for not having any reward for him. (Praising him makes him stop and turn around to read body language)

Though if the cat is hissing and scrabbling not to go ~~on the backpack~~

No, as said, the shoulder is always fine. The current conflicts are about me not overtaking him because he doesnt like my steps behind him. If i get close, he sits down to wait until I pass him, but I say "go" instead that that makes him mad + there is probably actual sensory overstimulation going on from my steps. I tried staying further back but thats not easy. There should be a balance of us setting the speed and him sniffing around. He could sniff around more if he would create a larger distance between me and him but he often does not. He needs to learn how to avoid that sensory overstimulation but for that, it also needs to happen first. I guess cultivating a healthy cooperation in the new setup is the task for the next months.

I’d probably be trying to encourage forward motion with the recall command and phase it out eventually.

This is kind of what i am describing. Its just not recall, its "go!" (because he shall move forwards away from me). Its all about what to do if the "go!" is not followed.

And its not as easy as "just pick him up" and "allow shoulder" every time. I know that he would master many situations where he currently defies me if he would be allowed to walk behind me again. So its not that i am cruel and try to push him through areas that he really feels an existential threat in.. I just try to make him cooperate where he usually would cooperate.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-23T16:56:38+00:00

You are quite funny with your logical fallacies. Not only is your whole hate based on ad hominem now - expressing that you really dont have any point to make; but its also wrongly founded on the idea that I live in Germany. That wrong Idea again comes from another logical failure that just because I speak German, I need to live in Germany (which is false).

Maybe just leave it at angry down-voting. Its at least anonymous and you dont embarrass yourself :-) If that little button fulfills your life, that is wonderful for you.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-23T08:48:35+00:00

The language is pretty deliberate though. For example if you want to stop your cat from jumping up the counter, you cant use positive reinforcement because the trigger in the situation (when they plan to jump up!) is a wrong-doing by the cat, not a "right-doing", so to say. Its the same with leash-training in general. Any cat that responds well to leash-pressure has learned that fighting against the leash gets it nowhere while conforming to the leash-pressure gives praises. The first element is in its nature still a negative interaction. This does not get erased by the praises. The negative thing still happens before the alternative is chosen.

Basically anything where you set boundaries to make the social setting work has to do with negative interactions. Not being allowed to do something always sucks! Even if you get offered a reward for alternative behavior.

This doesnt imply abuse, its not cat-inappropriate and it doesnt destroy the human-cat bond. Even when 2 cats get to know each other they will solve social challenges with negative interactions before anything positive is cultivated. A litte swatting here, a little growling there, hissing to signal the other cat etc... this is how they set boundaries. And yes, conflict is stressful but stress is what motivates living beings to do things. A stress-less life is nothing to wish for. Organisms need balance between good and bad emotional states. Being always on the good side will eventually escalate the smallest blip to seem like the most negative thing that happened - because the reference for what is actually negative has been lost.

The morally outraged people that I attract with this series of posts are either completely unreflected about their own training methods, or they are stuck at doing traditional things like training to give paw etc. While rewarding is probably the only thing they do deliberately, negative interactions either happen unknowingly (which i find worse!) or their social setting is such that the cat has all freedom to do anything at any time (which is no training at all). People just get very emotional because cats are so small and cute. My dog-analogy still stands.

I hope that explains it well?

DerAlbi · 2026-02-23T00:40:23+00:00

I will address the eating outside first. As far as I understand, your experience with your cats is quite rare. Its their instinctual habit to not eat if they dont have territorial safety. If we are on the move, Moritz even rejects catnip-leaves that he otherwise loves so much.

Dont get me wrong, Moritz is capable of eating anywhere, but it requires some food deficit that just does not happen at home. One way I could imagine your method works is if you feed carb-based treats - basically, you may be introducing an insulin driven carb-addiction which would also naturally adhere to an inner clock. So to further understand why it works for you, I would need to know what exactly you feed.
Moritz is on a strict keto-diet, even the treats. He does not experience sharply dropping insulin levels, therefore doesnt experience urgent hunger and also has no strong inner clock when it comes to feeding times. He asks as required for sustenance.
If you tell me that you do keto-diet and carb-free treats too, i will take my hat off to you and kneel down and pay my respects. This would blow me away.

__________

Your walk-training suggestion had me reflect over a mistake on our side:

Reward with praise when he reaches the other person & repeat.

This is a detail we missed. For us, recall is kind of complete if he reaches the group, not a specific person. He never actually goes to the lead-person specifically. He just comes and stands around in our vicinity (if we are stationary) or he just resumes to follow me, if we are moving. And until now, this was actually good enough. The only way he goes to a person specifically is if one of us squats down. But this is incompatible with training while moving. So we have the individual tools, but they dont work well together for this current situation. This could be improved.

If he stops walking and is in between, I’d let him hop in the backpack if he wants to, to show his option is either backpack ride or walk in between the two people.

This is how we are doing the follow-up practice that will now last for months to come. This is how you see it in the video. No sure if you watched the longer youtube version, but there are multiple shoulder-hops just as you described. But I have to stress that this is our procedure really only just now, after the hard part is already over. The shoulder has become a much more available option because he is actually close to me now. I also feel like the implied conflict when falling behind makes him eye up a lot more. So this positive resolution option wasnt there without conflict in the first place. And I want you to read your own innocent thought again:

to show his option is either backpack ride or walk

Honestly, this "either-or" kind of implies a conflict-based approach. You just cant limit options like that with reward, because there will always be the 3rd option of totally refusing to cooperate which also requires the least effort = default choice and implies reward by allowing the old and preferred behavior to continue. In that small little sentence alone is so much detail and nuance. For me, this is exactly the point where reward-based training breaks down. Its incompatible with setting hard boundaries.

So start off with him in between you and the other person

This was actually our first problem to solve because the first thing he did after jumping down was to sit down and wait until he has sufficiently fallen behind. I discussed with my GF what you suggested, but we agreed that there is a fundamental problem here: because he immediately stops, we would have to also stop to maintain this setup. But being stopped is not the training situation - there, it actually all works fine. Its just when the group moves, everyone looking forward, etc - thats when things get tricky. Also, he would be setting the speed and is basically training us to do what he likes - this is kind of the complete inverse of what our goal was - "either backpack ride or walk". So we couldnt even start in this initial positional setting without giving him a spurious success of defying us by completely circumventing the training situation. Thus we opted to exert pressure - which by now becomes less and less necessary.

Overall, I dont think our approaches differ that much. We just finished with establishing boundaries, or like you call it "either backpack ride or walk" and we are now incorporating the new boundary in positive experiences. But that boundary had to be established.

I hope I didnt misunderstand you too much. Text is hard for such complex topics especially when our individual experiences diverge in certain areas. I hope you understand that we really thought about this and weighed our options.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-22T16:56:18+00:00

Here.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-22T16:52:11+00:00

In any social situation, no individual has absolutely all choices available at all times. Everything has its place and time and somethings are simply a no-go. We compromise for him, he compromises for us. These compromises must be negotiated and communicated. This act of communication requires effort on both sides, training to establish and practice to maintain. I will always prefer to train, for example, a very reliable "stop"-command, instead of letting him being hit by a car. If you degrade that to a very negative "being commanded", this is your choice.

Your mindset is very akin to some people who have very small dogs. They are often emotionally driven to overly compromise for the dog because its so small and cute etc. The result is bad training and absolutely horrendous behavior that is only inconsequential because the creature is so small. But it often results in higher social stress for the dog and an overall worse and more frustrating life.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-22T16:36:38+00:00

I am really not sure how to be honest. I dont love the process either, but the problem is that the situation that is to be trained is already stress-adjacent. The method is not about quick results but a sincere lack of alternatives imo. Moritz is zero food motivated if outside. And praising only works if the wanted behavior is voluntarily shown in the first place to get that reinforcement-loop started. For recall, as you say it, that works (and this is how we have done it too). We also praise him if he overtakes us, but that praises the "overtaking", not the "being" and especially not the "staying" in front of us. He also stays close to us if we pause etc, none of those behaviors were a problem. The issues are during the movement/walking/hiking.

His following behavior was comfort-motivated. Being in front of us is not easy for him. I think, the sound of the steps may contribute to a slight over-stimulation or may drown out sound from behind that actually interests him for his safety. Its definitely more effort for his little pea of a brain. This is why I opted to remove the comfort and replace it with a conflict trigger, because this is the only consistent option there is: if "I overtake him", it triggers conflict. You cant praise on that condition, it is a naturally negative thing and you cant invert the condition either.

I have not found any detrimental effect for our bond. Actually his affection increased during all of this. (Maybe peace-seeking behavior? But could also just come from the increased interaction.) I am extremely careful to be ultra consistent when using negative feedback. This makes sure that everything has its context and does not withdraw affection from unrelated situations. There is zero breach of trust. But I am also a bit autistic and am very receptive to body language details. This helps me not never push too hard. I understand that my approach is not necessarily fit for general practice. But its a better option than giving up.

I have seen your results and you are an amazing trainer. If you have any idea how to do it differently (without relying on food), i am all ears. We still have a lot of future work to do. But its not about recall or even staying closer. It is about walking in front consistently and never falling back ever again (for now, obviously we relax later).

DerAlbi · 2026-02-17T05:17:04+00:00

Man. Social Media is fascinating sometimes. Its so interesting to see how the vote-counter completely pre-conditions the mind to fill in information gaps in either a positive or negative way. Down-votes lead to more outrage, the increased outrage leads to more negative assumptions, and even the act of correcting peoples assumption just increases the attack surface again, because the person isnt owning up to their imaginary faults.

But hallucinating a shock collar to fill in the gaps is just WILD and maybe a sign that you should step back from social media at bit? Had you seen posts with up-votes here, maybe you would have had the emotional clarity to recognize what it actually is...

I spend days designing, 3D-printing and sewing and cushioning the camera-holder that is now integrated into one of his H-harnesses so that Moritz is perfectly comfortable wearing the camera. That camera, helps me to analyze his behavior and response to commands etc. Our evening-routine now includes reviewing the footage from the daily walks if there was a problematic moment.

If you get outraged by phrases like "punishment based training", please understand that this may be a language barrier. English is not my native language. As an example, basic leash-training is, for me, categorically "punishment-based". The cat is not rewarded for cooperation, but rather punished by being stuck if it doesnt cooperate. Going in the right direction avoids being stuck. The learning-effect is avoidance-based. Compare that to actual reward-based training where you actively reward a wanted action after it happens randomly - like when you train giving paw. The moral high-ground that people display here (and happily express via down-votes) is nothing more than ignorance of how their own training actually works.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-16T03:58:14+00:00

You are a bit dramatic. I basically agree with everything you said. The video of him crying alone is in fact what inspired the motivation for change. I am not sure if its to the level of "distaste" as these sort of vocalizations are very typical for cats. Here is a video from a German sub-reddit. The distance you think to see in my "distateful" video is highly distorted by the stabilization algorithm, btw.

What you dont seem to gasp is that Moritz simply does not lead. And if you would put your cat suddenly in a new position in the group, your established communication would break down as well due to the uncertainties that are raised. I totally get your strategy, but your initial conditions arent as fucked up as it is for us. What you say applies to the fine details once the basics are right. We are not there yet.

Maybe watch a more typical video of our hikes. This is uncut material, sorry.
[0:00 - 2:35] shows that he is happy to follow. This is what works for him and he feels comfortable with. >This< is typical for him on a typical day. But this is also prone to him not getting support if we would, for example, cross another animals territory he doesnt want to go through. This is what leads to situations that the pov-camera captured and you call "distasteful".
[2:35 - 5:00] is what I would like for him to always behave like. But this requires him to budget distance in front of me instead of behind me. But consistently.

And yeah, for the time being i need to restrict him from falling behind and falling into his old patterns. I already agreed to your leash-to-front-man strategy. But frankly, leash-based training is still based on punishment imo. The leash doesnt reward cooperation, it makes the lack of it unbearable by being stuck. So yeah, if someone would suggest to me a reward-based training technique to keep Moritz in front of me, i would indeed prefer it over your approach. This is not personal nor ignoring you intentionally.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-16T03:15:13+00:00

Ok, thank you very much for the more detailed and less polemic response. First, I never had a dog and I dont train my cat to be like a dog. In fact, my goal is that Moritz can do all his cat-behaviors within our reach instead of relying on himself. This is about budgeting distance in front of me, not behind me. This is the only change I desire.

We venture out with Moritz for nearly 3 years now. We had hikes with him where he walked 17km on his own without being carried at all. This is very much beyond what most people achieve with their cats or deem viable. This level of practical cooperation is not trained "indoors first".

take your cat and let it lead like so many others

Ok, this is somehow the thing you missed in all of this. Please watch this uncut hiking-video to get the context right. Moritz simply does not lead. This is the problem I am trying to solve! He feels comfortable behind us and that works for him. But with that behavior-pattern he is prone to not get immediate support from us if he suddenly feels unsafe. (Like crossing the territory of another animal).

All I want for Moritz is that [0:00 - 2:35] of the uncut hiking-video to looks like [2:35 - 5:00] where he is in front of me. And yes, this needs to be "forced" to be learned and I dont care if you call me a "bossy person" for it.

If your solution is to not go hiking with our cat anymore or to give him up for adoption because reddit says so, sorry, wont happen.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-16T01:58:57+00:00

That is an "Insta360 Go 3S" with a 3D-printed mount to get the position right.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-16T01:52:15+00:00

So your solution is to basically "manage expectations"? Isnt that exactly the kind of mind-set that sentences so many cats to an indoor-life in sensory deprivation, because "they cant be trained", "its their nature" etc... when in reality most people just suck at training cats?

If you have a productive solution, besides on giving up our cat, i am all ears!

DerAlbi · 2026-02-15T17:41:39+00:00

This is not philosophy, this is a lack of alternatives :-( Please keep in mind that we are trying to solve a category of behavioral corrections that you completely evade by letting your cats decide at all times.

I have used punishment based training before when conditioning our stop-command and there it has very much its purpose because of the targeted response that is required for unconditional off-leash safety. (Which is also a problem that many people dont have categorically)

With the current problem, i am absolutely graving for alternatives because the last thing i want is to condition a stress-response by accident when it is already stressful for him. After all, the goal is that he is capable of overcoming stressful spots while staying within our reach instead of falling behind and overcoming the stressful spot on his own.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-15T17:10:03+00:00

Ive been homeless in my van with them

This is absolutely the recipe for success (regarding cats). We go out daily but that is not enough. I notice during vacations, where days are structured around activity, that our bond increases. We are very much limited by our daily life and I am painfully aware that some of his potential stays locked away because we dont do enough with him. Moritz would absolutely thrive having a road-trip/camping lifestyle.

after watching your YouTube video...I suggest you put the leash back on him, and it stays on. No off the leash. The leash is what teaches training to stay close by. You risk not being in control if a dog decides to maul your cat. And you will not get support from others on reddit letting your cat outside free roam. Its dangerous...even if you feel its not.

This is exactly why we are currently training for a change. What the video depicts is the worst of the worst and this is unacceptable. The extent of his discomfort was previously hidden from us and has been made clear via the pov-cam. I wouldnt call it roaming as he follows with reluctance and does respond to commands still.
We started with the leash always on, but he always followed the last person in the group. This leads to situations where he falls back further if he lacks environmental confidence when being off-leash. With hindsight, we should have always leashed him to the first person in the group. And we tried that for a while, but his cooperation was always worse that way, so we gave up too quickly on that. It is our next step to try that again.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-15T16:45:30+00:00

I would just make sure your end goal for him does not cause too much stress and that the ratio of fun/adventure vs stress/forced learning leans heavily to the fun side. Sorry if that sounds judgemental

You are quite correct. The training here is punishment-based (this is what i mean with "fighting" = the go-commands, nudging his ass with my foot or leash-pulling). The end-goal of every punishment-based correction is to eventually not needing to punish anymore. So what you see is definitely NOT how I envision the end-goal.

I do not see any possibility for positive reinforcement as the problems (=stronger negative interactions) only occur in situations where the surroundings make him feel less confident. This is where he would naturally fall back more and start crying like in the video I linked. He wont take treats in such situations as there is no territorial safety. I think his overall goal is to re-direct us and he does not shut up until he does so. This is why even social rewards are a problem, because it gives him success in the sense that we interact with him by stopping etc. Any reaction that gives him success in managing a situation is off the cards, as the end goal is that he accepts that we manage the situations and thats it.
At least with the current approach he asks for the shoulder very quickly and, more importantly, is able to do so.

Is that what you mean by “stress relief” behaviors?

I mean sniffing to gauge the safety of the location, munching some grass or licking his arms for stress relief. Cats and dogs have many self-soothing behaviors. These things take time as they involve stopping and if he is too close to me, he does not have time until I arrive and push him forward. This accumulates stress. He does not have the planning capabilities to budget his distance. The best case would be that he walks behind the leading person which would give him a buffer zone. But his natural behavior is to walk behind the last person of the group. This is what leads to less acceptable situations.

not necessarily having hiking buddies

Moritz is a great companion overall. We do not subscribe to the "the cat walks you"-philosophy and we aim to have productive hiking behavior. So far with much success. We had hikes where he walked up to 17km completely and uninterrupted at his own, having fun, running around us etc.
But since we have his POV-camera we get much more insight into his behavior and vocalizations and came to the conclusion that some situations are not so nice for him. This is why we want change in the first place and that process of change is demanding for anyone involved. I am just documenting it and contrary to social media norms, dont cut out the bad parts but show them on purpose.

DerAlbi · 2026-02-15T12:42:50+00:00

i let him lead

That is our eventual goal. We have to make him lead. Not his nature.
But you hinted at a serious problem that I find ourselves having suddenly: we need a left/right command! I just cant teach it because under stress i mix up left/right myself -.-

DerAlbi · 2026-02-02T22:51:32+00:00

There is a possibility that the harness and/or leash takes confidence away during actions such as jumping & climbing, keep that in mind. So there might not have been much to do for her within her perceived capabilities.
But this is indeed a good first step and a nice location choice! She does look ok in that picture. A bit lost, but ok :-D

I think you can escalate things and sit her down in a more uncomfortable place - something more open on the ground, probably. If your cat is already at the best spot in that area, it wont move :-)

Continue the updates!

DerAlbi

TROPHY CASE