So if you bring that other cat in the house, you've either recruited an ally and shown Ella and Bubba who's boss in the process, or it will eventually become 3 vs 1. Hmmmm.....
I just thought I'd point out that if you want to have a more satisfied cat, do what I do. My cat loves to lick me, so when I couldn't like him back I use my "cat licking device" called the Licky Brush. You can look it up online. Here is a picture of one (this is not me) using the device, and look how happy the cat looks!
At least Bubba takes an active interest in his walks, despite the fact that he'd rather do the walking.
I don't understand why your cats don't do whatever it takes to get away when you carry them outside like that.
They do. Bubba made a grand escape once. He's better at it than Ella. I can feel Ella tense up before she's going to make an escape attempt. Bubba can seem perfectly calm when, all of a sudden, he brings all of his muscles into play, as he tries to make a leap for it. The one time he was successful, he was immediately scared because he made his attempt right after I had stepped out of the door and he wasn't familiar with the front of the house. He ran around our neighbor's yard and hid under his car until I was able to coax him out.
When I was a kid, we always had cats, and I once taught one of my favorite cats to walk on a harness and leash. It took a while to teach her. First, I just put the harness on her and let her get used to having the harness on, and then I attached the leash and let her drag that around. Once she was used to the whole idea, then I held the leash and basically followed her around; so she got used to her being on one end and me being on the other end. Then I gently encouraged her to stop when I stopped, and then to turn when I turned. At first, we were in an area where if she ran away, I could catch her again; but she seemed to like the idea, and she usually followed me around all over anyway, so this was not such a huge change for her. My grandmother in San Diego passed away, and we made the trip in the car from northern Idaho to San Diego. I don’t know how I ever talked my mom and dad into it, but they let me take Susie Q along. She did great the whole trip and was fine when i took her out for walks to do her chores. It might be a compromise for your cats, so they could actually walk around, and still be safe from running off, @Ken Anderson ?
When we were living in Fayetteville, we couldn't let the cats out because we were in an apartment. At that time, we had Bird, Obadiah, Cutie, and Lydia. I tried harnesses on all of them but the only one who would tolerate it was Obadiah. She wanted to go out so badly that she was willing to do so with a harness. Twice, when she wanted me to walk her and I was busy with something else, she brought the harness to me. Of course, I couldn't resist that. Lydia escaped once, panicked, and wanted to go back in but all of the apartments looked alike so she was scratching at the wrong door.
Shortly after we got Bubba, more than a year ago, I bought a tunnel for him to play in, which included a cat bed in the center. He has played in that tunnel ever since, and sometimes uses the bed. As far as I know, Ella has walked through that tunnel once, and has otherwise had nothing to do with it. That tunnel is getting kind of ratty and the bed pad no longer attaches to the sides. Besides, it took up a lot of space in my office, so I bought Bubba a new, shorter tunnel. I set his old one in the entryway to my office while I set up the new one, and had planned on taking it to the transfer site tomorrow morning. Well, so far Bubba has walked through his new tunnel once and has spent the past half hour playing in his old one. So now I am trying to think of another place to put his old tunnel instead of throwing it away.
It's fabric so it wouldn't last long but if I decide to trash it, I might put it out there at the start of a string of dry days.
Whenever I used to get the Sunday paper, I would have the same battle. Such passive-aggressive little buggers...