Introduction

We have kept cats for some time but sadly just before we were due to move, our final cat passed away. We had planned since then to get two more cats; specifically Siberian, an unusual breed.

The woodland playground for our cats!

When we moved into our new house, we knew it would be perfect for them with several acres of woodland directly behind us and a good fifteen houses or so before they could reach the main road. To us, this seemed ideal compared to our previous house which backed onto a dangerous main country road.

After spending a many hours researching, we found a breeder of Siberian cats. Despite being the nearest breeder to us, he was more than five hours away! The advice from the breeder was to keep them as indoor pets but not only did this seem cruel to us it was a big job trying to prevent them escaping through open windows or doors that friends leave open so we ended up letting them roam like any other.

Our two wonderful cats, Trip (right - who went missing) and Trek (left).

We came to regret this decision a year later when one of the cats (they were brothers) did not come home one evening. We were out for hours that night calling for him all round the nearby roads with no success. The following day we posted leaflets to all the houses, informed the local vets and the company that holds the database for microchips. It was over a week later that somebody contacted us to tell us our cat was in their garage. The relief was immense but the sadness over the sorry state he was in was terrible.

This guide goes into detail on the various solutions we tried, the results, and why we ended up installing a cat containment system by PetSafe as well as a comparison of the other products by Innotek and Invisible Fence.

NEXT: Cat containment options (house cat, cat run and cat fences)