Next door's unneutered tom bothering my little girl

[ButterPopcorn]

I have a 2 year old female tortoiseshell, she's very small but healthy and is spayed. As seems to be tortie nature she is quite skittish and a bit of a 'wimp'- eg if she's sitting on your knee and you cough quietly she will get startled and run off.

Next door have got a tom cat who isn't that old- they got him as a kitten about a year ago, but he has grown up to be bigger than my little tortie. He is not neutered, but goes out and about and he has already impregnated a female cat from a few doors down (argh, so irresponsible letting unneutered/unspayed cats out!!). Now he's turned his attention to my cat.

He's always chasing after her, trying to get on top of her. She's not interested at all and is always screeching at him, running away, hissing etc and just basically looks terrified a lot of the time. She is now really reluctant to go outside at all, and sits next to the window looking out and when she sees him, runs under the beds or wherever.

This morning she was sitting by an open upstairs window just looking out, when all of a sudden I heard a huge screech and she came darting through- he'd come and jumped through the window to try to get to her! She wouldn't come out from under the bed for ages and her eyes were big and wide and she was shaking

We usually keep her in the conservatory at night/when we're not home and have her food, litter tray, bed etc in there, but the Tom has started stalking around the conservatory windows and looking in which has made her really nervous in there and caused her to start weeing on the floor in there.

The neighbours know he is bothering her as they jokingly said to me "don't be shy about pushing him off her ha ha!" I was like "don't worry, I won't!!" and they've also said they intend to get him neutered, but haven't yet. DP doesn't really want to say anything else to them as he thinks it isn't worth the bad feeling between neighbours.

So- any advice about how to deter the tom? How to make my girl feel safer? Whether to/how to broach it with the neighbours? Any thoughts much appreciated!

[TheSilverPussycat]

Water pistol?

[sunflowerseeds]

We had a neighbour whose spayed female cat was killed by a tomcat. Tell your neighbours that their cat is an antisocial nuisance. Shame them by asking if they can't afford to have him neutered. He's terrifying your little cat and is a stinking danger.

[Grumpla]

My sister had this problem and put a note through her neighbours door along the lines of "spay your cat or I will do it myself".

They spayed their cat. Mind you my sister can be quietly terrifying when she wants to be

[simpson]

I am in the same situation although the Tom only got at my cat once.

But she was screeching loudly (lucky I was still up as it was gone midnight).

I went out and threw my pint of water at the Tom which still did not deter him (he is feral) and has impregnated loads of unswayed females in our road so had to pick up a garden spade and wave it at him and bang floor near him loudly ( did not touch him, although he is vile) and he wandered off.

My cat shot in the house hysterical and was in such a state she was almost head banging the walls, charging about mewing/shaking etc.

She pooed in the house the next day which is not like her.

Luckily I have only seen the Tom cat once since and chased him away, next door currently have 3 unspayed 5 month old kittens who a outside all the time, so suspect he will be in the area a lot soon.

[simpson]

Sorry for typos blooming iPad!!!

[TheSilverPussycat]

My suggestion looks pretty feeble now. Poor DCat was being terrorised slightly by next door's neutered tom, didn't fully realise till they moved, and she took much less time to go out. (I think she sort of held her own against him, but twas a pain for all - and he would pretend to humans that he was friendly and then if you stroked him, would sink teeth in! He loved his female human, though)

[ButterPopcorn]

Thank you for your replies, how sad to hear of a female cat being killed by an aggressive unneutered male. I am going to take as sort of 'passive aggressive' approach for now, as we are going away for a week in a few days so my cat is going to stay with my friend nearby. I know it'll be a bit unsettling for her but it's better than her staying here while we're not here. Then when I speak to the neighbours about going away (asking them to keep an eye on the house etc) I will say my girl is staying with a friend and it will give her a break from their boy and give them a rather pointed look...

[totallypearshaped]

Take their cat to be neutered.

[tb]

We moved house with a spayed female, and there was an entire tom in one of the houses behind us. He attacked her several times, and we think it was being attacked by him that caused her to develop feline aids when she was 8 - either through a bite or the stress.

Hope the same thing doesn't happen to your cat.