CATS

[ShadySadie]

Cats like a dry area to dig in and then bury their toilet, that's why they like freshly weeded flower beds.

Moonlit Ramboing with a hose or water soaker is unlikely to help as the smart mog will be gone before you have the window or door half open.

Garden centres offer a wide variety of water sprinklers and water misting devices. A wet area of garden will be avoided by pussy and a sprinkler on the boundary could scare off a noisy uncared for cat that doesn't have a cat flap.

 

[ShadySadie]

Well this is an interesting topic, views seem to vary a lot too, we all have an opinion and so we should have. Look at it from the other persons view tho' I'll give mine . I live out in the countryside a few houses but not an urban area, no then next door to me they have an adult cat that they don't care about, and a young kitten that they do and seem to look after well, but the adult, I've never seen such a mangey looink animal in all my life no looked after at all. This cat is just one of 3 that they used to have a big old tom cat that they had for a good many years and another Persian? i think that was allways kept inside but escaped and was never seen again, but all of that is a different story.

If I wash the cars and then the caravan, is it aceptable that the cat goes on them and leaves muddy paw prints over them? I say not, why should I accept it?

If when I have planted my garden with the bedding plants that I have either grown or bought and along comes the cat and digs them up by using my garden as a toilet is that also acceptable?

The same goes for the vegetables that I grow, and what about when the cat comes in to my house, do I have to keep the door shut to stop it getting in and going upstairs as it has done on occasion?

And what about the fish in my pond, some of them have cost me a lot of money and the cat has at times tried to take them? do I just sit back and let it happen or do I take action to protect my property? and if I do take action what do I take?

The ultra sonic devices cost money so why should I have to pay for one or more to deter the cats and not the owners? A farmer by law has to keep his animals in not me keep them out.

I don't like the idea of shooting, trapping or any other method of control so where does that leave me?

Now look at the other side, little kitty comes in to my house through the cat flap and eats and drinks, then goes outside to empty itself on someone else's garden so I don't have to clean up after it. It digs up someone else's plants so I don't have to spend time and money to put it right. It goes into someone else's home who does like cats or maybe has an allergy to them and leaves fur and dust from its skin and I won't have to go round to their home to clean up after it.

And after all of that if I go away on holiday for a few days I just have to put the cat out and it will turn feral for a day or 2 and will look after itself for the duration. Don't believe me about that last statement? kick your cat out and see, we have a few feral cats round here where I live, some escape'se and some just dumped.

Or do I do what a country born guy MAY feel like doing, I have shotguns and gun dogs, let the dogs chase the cats off? or do the more sinister thing?

Makes one wonder does it not?

Philip if you think an owner can control a cat in the way that a dog is controlled you are either deluded or out of touch with reality of feline ways.

At best you can dissuade a cat. Water and wetness is a big dissuader for cats, in our old house when we had a dog she would see of any cat straying in to our gardens and curl up in her bed with two of our cats. Likewise our cats would not go to a the neigbours as they had two dogs.

My family has always had cats and they keep away others. Two of my present cats will not turn from dogs and will rip an attacking dogs nose and face. When my daughter was a baby my husbands cat walked with me when I took the dog and my daughter in her pram to a local park and woodland.

Nothing we ever did would stop the cat joining us and a variety of dog walkers warned me that their dogs could attack the cat.

Over a couple of years the cat must have been 40+ to nil winner, dogs came his way and he saw them all off including a brace of hunting dogs. The owner came and complained that his dogs had been ruined. I'd warned him that I understood that the cat could be attacked by his dogs when he warned me that his dogs coukd kill the cat. I'd warned him that the cat would have to take its own chances and that his dogs may come off worse.

The dogs were used for Hare coursing until they attacked our cat and after that they wouldn't chase anything.

We're fortunate that we have no near neighbours, but we have to suffer dogs barking at all hours of the day and night when the wind is in the wrong direction. Dog walkers using the lane past our driveway seem to think that dogs dumping in our driveway is OK and that they can chase the wild ducks from our ponds. We get dogs entering the rear gardens when they have shoots and work going on at the country estate behind us. A couple of dogs have run at my cats, but they soon turn about when they don't turn away and run.

My cats have a caged garden run for times like now when I'm away. They have a fresh water supply at all times and timed feeders. I've never known anyone who just leaves a cat to fend for itself when they have a break.

Having had cats and dogs and having lived next to both as a keen gardener and aninal lover give me cats any time. I've never come across a quiet dog or a quiet dog owner.

I've seen a few cats on caravan sites and a couple were walking a Siamese on site only last week. I've never been disturbed by one of those cats. Dogs problems on sites is a story a mile long, but I wouldn't ban dogs from any site. Dogs are part of a family and live and let live even if I do fly through the air when some nasty Jack Russel goes at me like a wild dervish.

 

[Phillipcharnwoodforest]

Quote "Philip if you think an owner can control a cat in the way that a dog is controlled you are either deluded or out of touch with reality of feline ways."

Where in my post did I say that you can control a cat? You are reading something into it that isn't even there I mearly stated facts. Why should any one have to keep out animals of other people.

 

[ShadySadie]

May be I misunderstood the gist of your post Philip. I'm reading that it suggests that owners should control where their cat goes.

If you saying that cats should not be able to be let out or make there own way around then that's a shame.

A cat from next door may wander in to another home. A dog next door can disturb the immediate neighbours and others for half a mile around and set others off barking at all hours of the day.

Dogs our known to jump fence and dig out of gardens and trouble people and other animals and wild life. Dogs near my home have chased sheep and pregnant cows and local swans have been scared from their usual nesting area due to dogs after an old pathway was restored.

Some people are disturebed by cats and others dogs, live and let live.

We have a reasonably nice flower garden and flower beds around the house. My cats don't dig up plants and nor have any cats I've had during my life time. Also my cats don't have neighbours homes close enough to vist. At least cats bury what they deposit to degrade unlike dogs that just dump where they like.

 

[602]

Hi,

When I was young, cats had the reputation of being "clean". They would bury their mess in the flowerbeds.

Nowadays, cats will go indoors to answer a call of nature, cos thats where their litter tray is.

Or, in my case, they leave their mess unburied on a flowerbed close to my front door. You can't mistake the unforgetable smell of cat poo.

My mother's Siamese could jump a garden fence, carrying a turkey carcass. So I guess he was doing somebody a favour.

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