We started letting Tilly out after about 6 weeks of staying indoors after we adopted her; at first it was only for 5 minutes or so in the back garden whilst we stood and patrolled the fences. Eventually, we decided to let her out on her own and she took us by suprise by being able to climb the pretty tall fence and head over to nextdoors garden... an hour later she wasn't responding to our calls and we got really worried she'd lost her way back or got hurt - we had to go hunting up and down the street in the dark to find her and when we did she was crouched in a corner hiding. Since then, she doesn't seem to want to go outside much, occassionally she will make a dash for it when the door gets opened or meows at it but lately she's been coming straight back inside after afew minutes which is a great relief to me! She has plenty of toys and things to explore in the house so she seems happy enough but i'll still let her out anytime she indicates she'd like to - i want her to get used to the area incase one day she gets out and can't find her way home.