walk the cat

A cat harness:
Easily obtained from any good pet shop. You may well find it convenient to lift the cat by the harness: some harnesses (such as the Trixie range) have the D ring forward of the body loop and these tend to place pressure on the cat's windpipe when you lift them. The more expensive Lupine range is better in this respect.
A long lead:
Extendable leads for dogs are readily available in 8 metre length. Even this is really too short for most cats, certainly to start with, but it is better than nothing! Cats want to work outwards, under cover, from a safe base! If under cover, they can be quite adventurous. I have used a 20metre length of cord, but it can be quite unmanageable at times as it gets snagged on bushes and branches. Anyway - a cat will play with a moving piece of cord, which rather gets in the way of any training session.
We find the 'Flexi' leads (by Trixie) to be excellent. They have a low tension which is quite constant over the lead's whole extension, so they are very good even for young kittens.

A pet carrier.
You need to get your cat used to this as a refuge and a place to relax, not as a place of confinement! Most cats get quite panic stricken and wild if they feel trapped, but if it's their choice, they like confined spaces.
We bought a stripey pet carrier - well recommended and excellent value!

The car
Clearly, if you want to get your cat to walk, first you will need to get it used to the car. Yes, some cats find cars simply too frightening, but lots do not. In my experience, I can only recall one cat who finds the car distressing, but we have always introduced the cats to the car at a young age.
Your kitten is likely to have had a car journey when you got it. Was it distressed, curious, excited? Excitement and distress are so related that they can be difficult to tell apart. A vocal cat will make the same noise for both! Probably you had your new kitten in a carrier - maybe it did not like being confined. So park the car, leave the doors open, let the cat explore inside the car. If the cat is happy, shut the doors, start the engine. If you are in the car, and the cat is reassured by your presence, the engine noise should be no problem. Next, let the cat have some freedom to walk around the car when it is going. Once the cat's used to the car, take it to a wood for a picnic. You will have to get it used to the harness and lead first of course. Let the cat explore on the lead at full length if it wants to. Most cats find new country places very interesting, so very rewarding!

Be aware also that a cat’s eye are evolved for seeing motion. If a cat is not used to it, seeing the world rush by outside the car at 70 mph can be quite frightening. However if you take the cat somewhere nice, doing short trips initially, it will soon get to enjoy car rides. Most cats I have known have liked to take some time on the parcel shelf, looking out of the window! Long journeys with the family can be a distinct pleasure to a cat: rarely do they get captive laps so easy to sit on!

Walking the cat
Once the cat is used to the car, the harness, and investigating new places with you, now comes the harrowing bit (harrowing for you, not the cat!). For the easiest way to train a cat to walk on a lead it to first get it to follow you, off the lead!

If you take your cat to a new place, and let it explore - it will wander off and gradually explore the new place, but staying near enough to you for its own comfort. You may not know where moggie is, but as long as you don't move, the cat will knowing where you are, and won't go too far away. So take the cat out enough and you will get to know the sort of places that interest it, and the sort of places that scare it silly, and the sort of places where it is not sure whether to be interested, or scared! Remember that a field walk, with a well defined path, may look open to you, but from a cat's perspective, it will be quite well covered.

To get you cat to walk with you, you need a place where it is not distressed, but not inclined to dive too far into the bushes to explore either. Somewhere where there are well defined paths and no people or dogs (depending on how you and your cat react to them!) or other distractions to scare the cat.

So your cat is on the lead, not following you, but investigating. Now take it off the lead, and walk away from it, calling it to follow. At some distance from you, the cat will realise that you are gone, and will start shouting for you. Probably this distance will be shorter than it was when the lead was present - the lead you have taken off made the car feel 'connected' to you. Off the lead, it will probably be less secure.

Once the cat is at its 'distress distance' - it will almost certainly follow you. However be aware that cats have long distance eye sight that is not as good as a human's - at its distress distance, it probably won't recognise you and you need to reassure it and call it with voice! You may find a rattle or dog training clicker or some mechanical device more effective: I have just trained a cat who, although she clearly responded to my voice, did not seem to realise from which direction it came, and who tended therefore to back-track over ground she knew, to where she last saw me. So you need a place sufficiently open, but not too open for the cat, and with well defined paths, where you can se her unless you choose to deliberately hide.

So training a cat to walk is not too difficult, depending on the cat, but you need to understand your cat! What places do they like too much, so won't follow you? What places scare them into hiding? What placed excite them just enough, with just enough fear factor so they follow you. Think like your cat!
Bengals do seem to be able to anticipate walks better than most other cats, but their enjoyment of a walk is no more than other cats!