Adventure Cats Are On The Rise: Join The Movement

Written by: Sarah Olewski Klassen
Instagram: @thegibsonchronicles
Website: www.thegibsonchronicles.com

Adventure Cats are on the Rise

Have you ever come across photos of adventure cats outside on harnesses and wondered, “HOW in the world is that even possible?!” Well I’m here to write to you and tell you it is!

There is a movement of cat explorers on the rise. When Gibson, my feline sidekick, and I are out beyond the house heads will often turn, photos get snapped, questions and comments start, and you know what?

I welcome it all! Part of what we do is about educating others in what cats are actually capable of.

I want to hear less people saying, “you’re such a crazy cat lady” just because I give my cat love, attention and enrichments and more people saying “you and your cat have such a tight bond!”

The relationship between guardians and their feline companions is really such a beautiful thing and we’re here to help represent that. If you’re reading this, consider joining this movement!

For those of you who are super introverted and want to take your cat outside, though, just prepare yourself for lots of attention and please welcome it by raising awareness of what our adventure cats can do (extroverts, it’s your time to live the dream that was made for you and your kitty)!

Social Media Awareness

Another way we raise awareness about the rise of cat explorers is through social media. Once, we had a well-known company reach out to us and ask for our photo to be featured on their Instagram account.

I happily said, “of course!” because it was a photo of Gibson performing one of his favourite tricks. I felt that getting featured on a popular fashion account would help to show a whole other community what cats are able to do!

Annoyingly, this company ended up using the photo as a poll for which pet was better: cats or dogs. I was infuriated because I really do feel that since dogs are often the pet that is seen, people will commonly answer that dogs are their favourite even if they’ve never even had or interacted with a cat.

Even though I am a guardian of an adventure cat I love ALL animals and didn’t feel that this poll was necessary, inclusive, nor did it reflect what our Instagram account/blog is about.

Our Instagram is a positive-only storybook of all the things Gibson and I do together which was made to build community and raise awareness of the life of a cat who go beyond the house.

Enrich Your Cats Life

Cats also need lots of enrichment! Food puzzles, toys, cat shelves, cat exploring, etc. are all great ideas in enriching your cat’s life. You can I also aim to change mindsets in proving that cats are capable of being clicker trained as well.

The community at Cat School was one of the businesses to help pioneer that movement of training your cat (including us)! Cats have behaviours that reflect their need for this enrichment, such as knocking down items from shelves, biting, etc. and we need to listen to them when they’re expressing the need for more.

For us, exploring beyond the house and clicker training has become a huge part of our life and it has surely helped others to see that adventure cats are capable of much more and has strengthened the bond that we have greatly.

We aren’t here to say that cat exploring is the answer or that it will be possible for every cat.

What we’d like for people to realize is that we can enlarge a cat’s environment by showing them the world and/or doing more with them, whether that be inside and/or outside the house!