Happens with my two, male wanders off, but the 10 yr old female rarely
ventures out of the back garden.

Astrog

Yes, some behaviours are related to primary sexual development (rather than
secondary SD, which is initiated at puberty).
PSD includes hormonal genderisation of the brain during foetal development.

I have a about a dozen neutered/spayed cats - most of them stay on the
property - the only ones that roam off the property are/were females
(one of which never came back, and there was one male that used to
wander and never came back one time).  On the other hand, my nearest
neighbor has two females and one male, and only the neutered male
wanders off their property.  All the feral and semiferal cats I see
appear to be males, but intact ones.

On my property, the ones that go fartherest from the house are three
males.

With desexed cats, I think it has more to do with whether the cat is a
hunter, and is fo, what it prefers to hunt: Snowball (female) and
Mickey (neutered male - the neighbor's cat) prefer mice and they to go
a long way to find any (with so many cats, nearby is hunted out);
Fleagor prefers frogs, and there are thousands only a few hundred feet
away from the house; Avery and Mudpie aren't particular - if it's
small and moves, it's prey, so they are happy catching frogs, snakes,
birds, insects, etc. nearby.   Dandy seems to have a slight preference
for moles - there are more than plenty of those in the yard -
otherwise he hunts with Avery and/or Mudpie.

One way to tell is by comparing how wet the cats are when they come in
out of the rain: Avery, Mudpie, Dandy, etc. make it home before the
rain starts and are dry (untill they go back out into it in
preperation for joining me in bed), Fleagor is usually sprinkled with
water drops, and Snowball is late and soaked.

T.E.D. (tdavis@gearbox.maem.umr.edu)
SPAM filter: Messages to this address *must* contain "T.E.D."
somewhere in the body or they will be automatically rejected.

In my experience, it varies. My previous cat was neutered just before
he came of age. He never wandered more than to the neighbors to the
side and back, and across the street to climb a tree in the front yard
of the house.

I got my current boy from the animal shelter last November. He had
already been neutered by whoever had him before. (He was there for a
month and it surprised me that someone who would take the trouble and
expense to neuter a cat wouldn't come looking for him.) He is a real
wanderer. He'll go five or six houses up and down the street, although
not more than the house immediately behind and across the street. It's
so bad I have to put him inside if I want to go for a walk for fear
he'd just follow me like a dog. He has his own cat door, but at least
I can get away before he gets back outside.

He's also weird about the car (a small pickup with canopy on the
back). He loves exploring it. If I leave the door open he'll curl up
on the seat and go to sleep. Every cat I've ever had in the past has
been terrified of getting in a vehicle. I think he is just so
comfortable with his new home that nothing phases him. He's also very
friendly and outgoing, even with other cats in the neighborhood.

At the same time, the neighbors across the street have a
tortoise-shell female who wanders as much as he does. And the
neighbors next door have a black and white "tuxedo look" female who
also wanders a lot.

I think lack of fear and a desire to have friends makes a bigger
difference in the wandering factor than gender.

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