Does your cat visit any of your neighbours?

Pumpkinseeds

One of my cats came home brushed to a glossy sheen last night, its not the first time. Now he hates it when we brush him and runs off when we do. So much so that its a 2 person job to do it.

I know of one house he was visiting last year,they were feeding him sausages, they've got a mini version of him now so he doesn't go there anymore, their cat doesn't like him. Now our chap is a substantial 7 kilos so could hardly be mistaken for a stray. I've no problem with him visiting and since he's being brushed someone is clearly enjoying his company.

I just wondered if anyone else's cats visit the neighbours and if so does your cat let them do things it wouldn't tolerate at home?

ISDW

I don't think they do here, we only have one neighbour anywhere near us. When I lived in the UK though, my black cat Sparky used to go and visit an old couple two doors up from us in London, would be sat on their back step every morning when they got up. They asked me to leave him behind when we left. We moved to a town, and he did the same thing with the family across the road, would sleep on their daughter's bed during the day. Again, they begged me to leave him behind when we left. lol They were a retired couple again, he obviously felt he had to help the aged

Intensive Care Bear

One of my mates was telling me how they had a cat that started cheating on them with his new neighbours that moved in across the road. At first he didn't mind but then it started spending more and more time at the neighbours and eventually just moved in. Whenever they brought him home he would escape and run back to his new house. In the end they gave up and brought over his toys and bed and let him live with the new family. Tragic story but i couldn't stop laughing when they told me.

SillyMangoX

My old cat Frodo (rip) went missing for 10th months. When he arrived back he was fat and shiney. Id say he found a nice old farm with people who looked after the cats and he had plenty of girls to have his wicked way with! When he eventually got sick of being a male prostitute he wandered back to us as if nothing ever happened! The first thing we did when he came home was get him a lovely green collar and name tag so he went off the next day wearing it, came back without it, went off again and came back with it on! So I think he definately had 2 families

Big Nasty

Yeah, often arrives in on a freezing cold night with warm fur!

ABajaninCork

You could be writing about my old girl! When I lived in London, the cat was better known than I was! She was a regular visitor to my upstairs neighbours, being fed treats like sardines and fresh fish. FGS, she even played with their pet python!! (I have to say I was blissfully unaware of this until my neighbour casually mentioned it in passing - I nearly passed out..)

Another neighbour used to give her bacon rind and sausages every day when passing. She was a lovely elderly lady who used to enjoy passing by to chat to me and the cat and giving her her treats. Gave me nightmares as I could never get her to eat her own food!!

She was a complete tart who loved people, but hated other cats!!

angeline

My cat is a real homebird and never leaves her back garden. A cat from a few estates away often calls though and terrorises my cat. He even chases her in to the house and eats her food which is distressing to my cat. My cat is very gentle but this cat continues to call despite me chasing him away all the time. I know who owns him but what can you do.

ABajaninCork

angeline wrote: »

My cat is a real homebird and never leaves her back garden. A cat from a few estates away often calls though and terrorises my cat. He even chases her in to the house and eats her food which is distressing to my cat. My cat is very gentle but this cat continues to call despite me chasing him away all the time. I know who owns him but what can you do.

Get a Fairy Liquid bottle or a child's water gun and squirt the little git every time he's in your home! That soon does the trick...
I've had to do that when my cat had a nasty habit of climbing my legs destroying all he touched!

TICKLE_ME_ELMO

My cat barely leaves the house never mind the garden. However we have new neighbours a few houses down and they have a cat who seems to have taken up residence in our garden. Arrives every day at dinner time. Gets up on the outside of the windows and slaps the glass until our cat gets up to look at her. Think our cat might be a bit of a wimp because she'll stay in the garden with the new cat but if new cat tries to have a bit of a wrestle or run around after a leaf or something ours bricks herself and runs back into the house.

FloatingVoter

Spooks the cat has two breakfasts every morning (cheeky little bugger thinks I don't know the neighbour feeds her). Serves me right for taking in a streetcat.
It is handy when they have a spare house - means I can go away for a few days and leave her majesty with a trusted friend.

sambuka41

When my guy was outdoors he would visit a neighbour. In the flat he would be afraid of every new person that came in, so i thought I wouldn't have to worry about him going to other people until my old neighbour told me that she found him asleep on her bed. She said she didn't mind as he was so beautiful, but she already had a male cat who Jack HATED!!! I think he wanted the other cat gone so he could have two mammy's to love him. I was very upset though, cause I give him so much attention, feed him nice food, the door was always open for him to come in and he abandons me, I felt cheated on

Myself and the other cat got our own back on him though, once he was locked indoors I started feeding the other little guy, Jack would sit inside the house fuming that the other male was outside getting attention!!:p

Mo60

A couple of years ago I had a cat who, after being spayed, became extremely grumpy with my other cats. She then took to visiting one of my neighbours and eventually took up permanent residence with them. The daughter of that cat is still with us and is a lot larger than she should be, due to being fed by another neighbour who has no cats of her own.

SillyMangoX

Ya just cant win when it comes to cats and neighbours, they either want to kill them or try steal them!

CruelCoin

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

I just wondered if anyone else's cats visit the neighbours and if so does your cat let them do things it wouldn't tolerate at home?

Our cat was just a fat bastard in that he visited all the neighbours to get fed before coming home for his feed here.

He never stayed long enough to be played with/groomed etc, only for food.

username123

We've just had a new neighbour move in recently. He has a cat and she began by slinking up to us and miaowing, and then sneaking in the odd time if the door was open, now she sits on our window ledge loudly miaowing in at us til we let her in!

Once in, she loudly miaows at us for treats - which we keep to a minimum, knowing she is someone elses cat! And then she walks all over us, the furniture, kneading, purring and generally acting like she is delighted to be in our place. She has a favourite spot she goes to for a snooze and then after a while either she or we decide its time to leave and out she goes to sit on our window ledge again!!!

I dont know why her owner leaves her out so much - she goes up and miaows at her own front door too but is ignored.

We dont know cat behaviour too well so we dont understand the various kneading, walking on us, head butting - but it seems to be fun and she seems to be happy!

ABajaninCork

Cats are very good at giving the poor mouth! Where we live now, there's a lovely ginger cat. Used to keep coming into our garden and tried to get into the house, which makes me think it's been in there before.

He doesn't come now as our cat (RIP) HATED him and used to chase him out. One night, our cat was inside the kitchen (with the glass door shut) spitting, hissing and swiping at the ginger fella who was outside doing the same. The looks of stupefied surprise that the blows weren't having any effect were priceless!:D We were crying with laughter!

BubbleBuddy

Does our cat visit the neighbours.

I've recently been informed he prefers Lidl ham to to other brands by a neighbour a few doors down. Another neighbour advises he sits on their window sill every morning looking like he hasn't been fed his breakfast (even though he has).

I've watched him walk out casually of our next door neighbour's house after having a sleep (and possibly a feed) there. I even had a group of children actually tell me his name they know him so well but because he's everywhere didn't know who owned him. He's got quite a territory.

Morf

My old cat Mischa has been found upstairs next door and in the bedroom of the next house down (they weren't too pleased). Next door used to cook meat every day and the scraps would go out for the whichever cats we had at the time. Couple of times my cats would cough up butchers string that had been left on the meat.

Rosie goes missing quite a bit and always comes back with a dirty face and cobwebs in her whiskers. She was quite tame when she rocked up here so I think she had been fed/looked after somewhere else.

Bertie doesn't seem to wander too much at the moment (yet).

Chuck Stone

Oh man, this thread gave me a good laugh.

Cats and their 'owners' are so funny.

blueturnip

I'm slightly worried, we moved house recently with our two cats... I hope they aren't any of the ones mentioned earlier!!

ABajaninCork

BubbleBuddy wrote: »

Does our cat visit the neighbours.

I've recently been informed he prefers Lidl ham to to other brands by a neighbour a few doors down. Another neighbour advises he sits on their window sill every morning looking like he hasn't been fed his breakfast (even though he has).

I've watched him walk out casually of our next door neighbour's house after having a sleep (and possibly a feed) there. I even had a group of children actually tell me his name they know him so well but because he's everywhere didn't know who owned him. He's got quite a territory.

Oh, this bit made me smile. My cat found Lidl's a perfectly acceptable alternative to Denny's! He wouldn't touch Carrolls and DEFINITELY hated Tesco's ham. Used to glare at us whenever he was offered Tesco's ham, turn his nose up and stalk off. The dog on the other hand - As long as it's ham, he's in!!

meoklmrk91

My eldest cat is a bed whore, she will climb in anybodies window and sleep in their bed, the woman next door told my sister as she wasn't too happy about it, she walked in the door the cat lifted her head and looked at her and then settled back down to sleep, cheeky little witch. The other neighbour had a cat allergy, so they had to leave their window closed, new neighbours moved into the same house and we were told she kept going to the window looking to be allowed in, waking them up.

Also she is seriously fat and on a diet but I am convinced she is getting fed elsewhere. Also neighbours commented on how friendly she was, I had to ask them were they sure they were talking about my cat as she is a grumpy cow most of the time.

Pumpkinseeds

You have to love that look of 'what is this muck and why are you offering it to me?' that they do. Any time I ever try to switch to cheaper chicken or ham they just give me that look. One of them even kicks out one of his back paws as he walks away from it, as if he were burying poop.:)

amdublin

Seriously??

He "visits" loads. I think he sees the whole estate as his own.

Eats other cats food. Eats ham if they've no cat food. Sleeps on their beds. Sits on their chairs.

I've seen him sitting on upstairs window sills looking down at me the big boldie.

Comes in smelling of cigarettes and old lady perfume from a neighbour up the road.

Oh and he's obviously quite fat now from all the food he's bullying the neighbours into giving him :mad:

Shenshen

I don't know if any of ours visit neighbours houses so much. They do visit their gardens, the old lady next doors says she loves having the company when she's pottering around her vegetable beds, but she doesn't feed them.

We however do get visited by one of the neighbours cats. She's a really shy one, will not let anyone come near to touch her or anything, but gets along reasonably well with our lot. She will sneak into the kitchen though when the back door is open and nobody is around, and happily tuck into our cats' food. She isn't starving or anything, but we suspect she prefers that stuff we feed our spoiled moggies to whatever she's getting at home.
Or maybe it's just the fun of eating out now and again, who knows?

Sigma Force

I find it a bit sad that people let their cats roam with no idea where they are, do that with a dog and you are deemed an irresponsible owner. I guess a lot of neighbours are tolerant but we don't all appreciate other peoples cats in gardens/houses esp. people who have birds or small animals.

Garden proofing is the only answer, cats might be having a good time with neighbours but it only takes one angry neighbour for a cat to end up in a bad way. *sigh poor cats have a long way to go before they are properly protected in this country.

ABajaninCork

How are you going to stop a cat roaming? By law, cats are classed as wild animals...

Neither is it practical to garden proof. The only way to stop a cat from roaming is to keep them as house cats. (Usually with pedigree cats). Neutering doesn't totally stop them roaming either.

Pumpkinseeds

Sigma Force wrote: »

I find it a bit sad that people let their cats roam with no idea where they are, do that with a dog and you are deemed an irresponsible owner. I guess a lot of neighbours are tolerant but we don't all appreciate other peoples cats in gardens/houses esp. people who have birds or small animals.

Garden proofing is the only answer, cats might be having a good time with neighbours but it only takes one angry neighbour for a cat to end up in a bad way. *sigh poor cats have a long way to go before they are properly protected in this country.

I wondered how long it would be before someone derailed this thread into dog roaming versus cat roaming. My cats are extremely well cared for. If you prefer to cat proof your garden that is your choice.

Taking a sanctimonius attitude to those people who allow their cats outdoors is a little trite in my opinion. You are making a hell of a judgement on the owners of indoor/outdoor cats based on your own opinions.

The thread is not about what people think of cats being allowed to go outdoors. Implying that cats are neglected because they are allowed out is rather childish.

username123

Actually it has been something Ive wondered about.

Why do some cat owners allow their cats outside? I am not familiar with cats at all (bar our cute visitor) and I always wondered about this. I thought cats could be house cats and be perfectly happy? Is there a reason they are allowed out?

I dont think its neglectful or irresponsible btw - just wondered at the reason behind it?

sambuka41

username123 wrote: »

Actually it has been something Ive wondered about.

Why do some cat owners allow their cats outside? I am not familiar with cats at all (bar our cute visitor) and I always wondered about this. I thought cats could be house cats and be perfectly happy? Is there a reason they are allowed out?

I think if you look at the thread about "how you came to have your cat" you'll see that lots of people have cats that started out as strays, they can be harder to confine to a house (I speak from experience here!!:p), they are used to being out. But I don't really want to get into the indoor V outdoor debate, it tends to derail every cat thread on here.

Back to the neighbours and their love of my handsome little guy!!! Jack is an indoors cat(now) but I have a small area out the back that is chicken wired so he can't escape, we are in a basement flat. Yesterday I heard a slap noise and next thing I know Jack appears with a piece of raw chicken!! The neighbours from upstairs threw it out their window for him :eek: My Jack-Jack eats steamed chicken I'll have them know!!!!!

Pumpkinseeds

username123 wrote: »

Actually it has been something Ive wondered about.

Why do some cat owners allow their cats outside? I am not familiar with cats at all (bar our cute visitor) and I always wondered about this. I thought cats could be house cats and be perfectly happy? Is there a reason they are allowed out?

I dont think its neglectful or irresponsible btw - just wondered at the reason behind it?

One of our cats was malnourished, sick and abandoned when he arrived in our garden, the other was a feral kitten that showed up in the garden about a year later. We have a black stray that we've been feeding for a few months. I know that some cats are content to live indoors, mine aren't.

Its a matter of choice for everyone to decide which they want for their cats. Both of ours are neutered,vaccinated,microchipped and insured. They have a cat flap and they come and go as they please.

Of course I worry about them when they are out, being indoor cats doesn't suit my chaps. I just think people should live and let live. If my garden had been catproofed I wouln't have my former feral or the black stray thats been coming to us. I'm happy but most importantly, my cats are healthy and happy.