Unwanted feline visitors

FranknFurter

KTRIC wrote:

You don't need to preach to me about the dangers of letting a cat roam. I lost one of my cats recently. She was only one and a half years old and she was hit by a car when she was out playing with her brother.

Im not preaching, but Im not going to pretend that it doesnt sound silly to have somthing like that happen and *still* let your other cat roam.

KTRIC wrote:

I still let her brother out but he stays close to the house and he doesn't like to be kept locked up all day.

House-cats are perfectly fine once they have enough toys and maybe another cat for company, they adjust quickly and live longer, and are generally healthier (less trips to vet).

Very unlikely he doesnt leave your garden all day, very unlikely he doesnt come in contact with other cats.

I suggest you bring him to the vet and get his blood tested. All outdoor cats should have this done regularly.

My aunts tiny placid dog would love to roam about the neighbours gardens all day every day, as a responsible pet owner, should she let him?

KTRIC wrote:

Every day I worry about him being outside when I am in work. I even have a small kennel outside for him with a cat flap on it just encase he wants to sleep during the day.

If you worry every day, then you must acknowledge it is dangerous for him?
Then why would you expose him to that danger?
Small kennel, ok, so if it rains he has another shelter, but other than that its irrelevant to his roaming.

B

Jumpy

My ball of fluff is a house cat.
He was orginally a kitten stray so he didnt like being kept in at the start but they eventually get used to it.

Dudess

Re cat pooh: all of my cats (and I'm talkin' LOTS) have instinctively buried their faeces from when they were tiny kittens. They look for soil/clay/earth, dig a hole, do their business and then cover over the hole. As well as being extremely clean and neat, it's SO cute!

As for the indoor versus outdoor argument, well, what we do in my parents' house is give them a bit of both worlds. They can come in whenever they want, so they never stray far or for long. I understand those who believe that cats should be kept exclusively indoors, but I just wouldn't be able to do it. I'd feel cruel never letting my cat outside.

Sleipnir

KTRIC wrote:

Cats are free roaming animals, end of the story.

Maybe I should "roam free" and take a **** in your garden every night.
Or would that bother you? Someone ****ting in your garden?

iguana

KTRIC wrote:

And how would you suggest we do that ?, put it on a lead ? give it a good talking to and tell it not to go into the Jones's garden ?

Whoa! If I let my two dogs sh1t where they like I will get a huge fine. I think nearly everyone here will agree that dog owners need to clean up their dogs poo, or else teach it to only poo in one spot. How are cats different? Cat owners should be penalised every bit as much as dog owners for being irresponsible about their pets defecating in public, or even worse, on somebody elses property.

It would also be unacceptable for me to send my dogs into someone elses garden to play and exercise. If people can't work out how to keep cats as while still respecting their neighbours then they should not own them.

To the OP have you tried Silent Roar I haven't needed to use it myself, but I've heard it works very well.

Garth

This is interesting. My wife and I will be building a "safe enclosure" this spring for our cats. We're hoping to create a garden area that we can share with our cats without them being at risk.

I wouldn't dream of letting our cats out to wander in our estate. They're quite happy and healthy indoors too, but they do get a lot of attention and they do have a big placid dog to pick on too. :-) I would like them to get some fresh air though.

I find it interesting someone said they lost a cat to a road accident still feels their other cat deserves the very same fate. Very sad.

furtzy

iguana wrote:

Whoa! If I let my two dogs sh1t where they like I will get a huge fine. I think nearly everyone here will agree that dog owners need to clean up their dogs poo, or else teach it to only poo in one spot. How are cats different? Cat owners should be penalised every bit as much as dog owners for being irresponsible about their pets defecating in public, or even worse, on somebody elses property.

It would also be unacceptable for me to send my dogs into someone elses garden to play and exercise. If people can't work out how to keep cats as while still respecting their neighbours then they should not own them.

To the OP have you tried Silent Roar I haven't needed to use it myself, but I've heard it works very well.

Good to see I've started a debate on this one. The attitudes of some of the cat owners here has been appalling. The comparison with dog ownership and their responsibilities is spot on. Why should it be different for cats?

The onus is on the cat owner not on everyone else.

I've put down some "Get off" pet repellent so I'll see how that works. Otherwise all options are on the table

stovelid

I hope that is not true mate.

If it is, that's just sad, abusing a small animal like that and boasting about it on a public forum.

I'd be livid if somebody did that to my cats.

If you chase them or even give them a little soaking, they'll get the message eventually.

furtzy wrote:

So one wouldn't be a problem? Just caught the culprit tonight and gave him a nose full of pepper....maybe he'll learn now

furtzy

stovelid wrote:

I hope that is not true mate.

If it is, that's just sad, abusing a small animal like that and boasting about it on a public forum.

I'd be livid if somebody did that to my cats.

If you chase them or even give them a little soaking, they'll get the message eventually.

What abusing. All I did was put some pepper on him and I'm not boasting.

Fed up chasing them as they just come straight back again

Dudess

The people who are comparing dogs crapping with cats crapping don't seem to realise that they are not comparing like with like. As I said, my cats always buried their poop instinctively from when they were kittens. They actually look for a suitable place in which to bury it. It's quite amazing since they don't need training for this.

iguana

Years ago people used to just let their dogs roam around estates crapping at will too. And it stopped because it wasn't on. It wasn't safe for the dogs or fair to the other people and animals living around. If cat owners can't take responsibility for their cats crap then they have no right owning a cat in the same way that I have no right owning a dog if I refuse to take responsibility for it's crap.

Duddess - You say that your cat's bury their poo but I don't remember if you said whether you let them roam or not? I for one would appreciate my lawn/veg/flowerbeds being dug up by cats burying their crap to just the same extent as I would appreciate the crap itself. But y'know my dogs never crap on pavement so next time we're in the park and they go on the grass can I just leave it there? Because sh!t on the grass is ever so slightly better than sh!t on the pavement right? Right?.........................

It isn't always easy cleaning up after my dogs either. If we are in the park after dark and I see them stop for a poo I have to give them space to finish doing it or they get self consciouss and won't finish. Then I have to throw a stick far enough for them to be distracted but not too far that they lose interest. And then I have to head in the directon of the crap and crouch down and literally sniff it out because it is dark and it's hard to see where it is. (I need to buy a flashlight:( ) But that's what I do because other people use the park and it wouldn't be fair to just leave it there. Just because it isn't always easy to be responsible for your pet doesn't make it ok to not be. And if you can't be fully responsible then you need to not have one. Plenty of people of people have cats which aren't allowed roam the streets crapping willy-nilly, there is no excuse.

Dudess

iguana wrote:

Duddess - You say that your cat's bury their poo but I don't remember if you said whether you let them roam or not? I for one would appreciate my lawn/veg/flowerbeds being dug up by cats burying their crap to just the same extent as I would appreciate the crap itself. But y'know my dogs never crap on pavement so next time we're in the park and they go on the grass can I just leave it there? Because sh!t on the grass is ever so slightly better than sh!t on the pavement right? Right?

My cats are both indoor and outdoor so they do roam, but not for long each time - probably because they know they'll be allowed in whenever they want. When cats bury their faeces, they dig a tiny hole which you wouldn't even be aware of unless you saw them actually doing it. They don't have the strength to do damage - I mean you won't have piles of earth all over the place caused by their digging. And they push whatever earth they've dug up back on top of the hole.
I don't get your point about sh*t being left on the grass considering I've been harping on non-stop about the fact that cats bury their sh*t. That to me is not the same as crapping on the grass and moving on. The difference between cats and dogs in this regard is that cats instinctively bury and clean up, dogs don't - they have to be toilet-trained.

iguana

Dudess wrote:

They don't have the strength to do damage -

You're obviously not a keen gardener then. Both my mother and my grandmother have had problems with cats destroying their seedlings or uprooting/over-turning shallow buried bulbs by digging in their borders.

Dudess wrote:

I don't get your point about sh*t being left on the grass considering I've been harping on non-stop about the fact that cats bury their sh*t. That to me is not the same as crapping on the grass and moving on.

The point is that what one person may see as being the lesser of two evils can in fact be every bit as bad to someone else.

My dogs don't sh!t on the path, they do it on the grass, so I could argue that that is okay as people are more likely to walk on the path, yet kids are more likely to roll in the grass so it is just as bad if not worse.

Your cats bury their sh!t, which you are arguing is ok as they don't leave it lying out on the ground. Yet that can be just as bad as their digging could uproot a young plant which is important to somebody.

I'm lucky not to have a cat problem as it would be a pretty daring cat that would jump into the garden of two young dogs and stop for a crap. But I would be more than a little annoyed if a neighbours cat was using my garden as a litterbox. Especially if the neighbours attitude was, there's nothing I can do about it, that's what cats do.

Mr. Presentable

Dudess wrote:

I don't get your point about sh*t being left on the grass considering I've been harping on non-stop about the fact that cats bury their sh*t.

I'm sorry, Dudess, but your experience of your cats is not mine. I can go into my back garden any day and find from 2-8 new deposits on my lawn. This makes it very difficult for us to allow our small child to have friends in the garden on the spur of the moment.

Previous posters are correct insofar as cat owners, like owners of any animal, have to take responsibility for their pets. Remarks like "cats are free roaming" and the like are irrelevant - dogs are "free roaming" if let, and I've seen horses "free roaming" across West Dublin.

I do not advocate cruelty to animals - in spite of what has by some been taken from my earlier tongue-in-cheek remark - but I strongly empathise with the OP. Sadly, because cat-owners take no responsibility for the pets, there's feck all he can do that will be "acceptable".

stovelid

Look on the bright side nipplenuts; you're getting phased, spread out manure deposits in your garden. Your lawn will look great

nipplenuts wrote:

I can go into my back garden any day and find from 2-8 new deposits on my lawn.

Dudess

That's not a nice experience, nipplenuts - must be a nightmare when you've a small child and there's all the danger attached to animal faeces. Sorry to hear that. In my experience (having cats since the early eighties) and that of others I know, cats don't seem to require toilet-training. But these are well-looked after, supervised cats, with boundaries in place for them. When it comes to feral, unsupervised cats, I suppose it's an entirely different story. It does seem to me that they do bury their waste instinctively from a very young age but maybe when the wild ones leave their mother and grow up, such an instinct "leaves" them or something since their main concern is simply day-to-day survival? I don't know. Most probably talking out of my arse. But I most certainly do not advocate cats being allowed to get to that point. That's why I'm constantly on a "neuter neuter neuter" rant.

Mr. Presentable

stovelid wrote:

Look on the bright side nipplenuts; you're getting phased, spread out manure deposits in your garden. Your lawn will look great

Well, the dandelions are certainly thriving!