One of my cats, Topaz, will follow me when I am outside in the yard. He will mostly come when I call him. I know he would like to go out of the yard with me, but he is blind in one eye and can not hear very well. I think it would not be safe to take him out of the yard. Too bad. Now he does not go out of the yard and I would not want him to think he should. I'm glad that you get to walk your cats.

I take my boy Casey for walks on a leash. I worry too much about safety to ever let them outside without being on their harnesses. Casey is the only one interested in walking. He's pretty good and it's funny to get the stares for passers-by. We only had one scary moment where a neighbor came too close, despite my repeated polite requests, and he panicked and got free of the harness and hid under a car near busy traffic. I finally had to get fairly nasty to ask her to step away so I could get him out of there safely.

In the past, I did let them out freely, until my older boy was hit by a car. That was fifteen years ago. He's still with me and doing fine, even with a little limp. But I'm very protective now and they seem just fine with the current arrangements.

when i first got my cat, there was the whole "you need to keep him indoors for three weeks or he';ll run away" admonition.

well, he was an innie outie cat, and it was a 1 bdrm apt, so i compromised.

i went out with him on his first walks, and that pretty much helped define his territory.

except for the one time i was going to walk into downtown to the bookstore and he decided to follow me...through about 3 cats' territories, with potential fighting, so i walked him back to the house, and drove (all of 2 minutes!) to teh bookstore.

anyway, he learned to wait on the corner of that street after that for me if i walked further.

when i moved into my new place, i did the same thing, walked with him the next morning to explore the neighborhood.

i pretty much know his entire territory (about 3-4 houses up the street, 3 houses around the corner, and that's it).

the flip side: in the warmer weather, he gets ME to come out for a walk at night to rustle him up to come inside!

he definitely likes both walking with me and hanging out with me outside. it's pretty funny. and pretty cool.

In this one place I lived, I had some neighbors whose cats would come along when they took their dogs out for their nightly constitutional. It was _soooooo_ cool seeing the parents, kids, dogs, and cats all tripping around the 'hood together.