Cat spikes around garden

I think we need a change in the law. Cat owners should take responsibility for their pets mess. Especially in build up suburban areas. Their right to roam needs to be removed, no more dead cats on the roadside or neighbours feeding/ stealing cats either! Win - Win.

Their owners can blame themselves.

You’re blaming an innocent animal for the behaviour of humans. You’re not fit to have a dog. Clearly not an animal lover.

Just a thought OP, do they only poo in your flower beds? If so, what about putting gravel as a mulch between your plants? Definitely not pea gravel, that’s like a giant litter tray, I mean the stuff that’s about 3/4 inch big.
I have a cat who poos in my soil borders but she never poos on the gravel ones. I think it’s heavy to dig and it has sharp corners so she doesn’t even really like walking on it.

You’re disgusting.

People brought cats in their abundance to the UK, people breed them, allow them to roam and breed, buy them, adopt them etc

Cats are innocent, if you’d poison one, you’re a disgusting animal abuser and should be in prison.

Absolutely.
And if I was somebody who ever let my dog off the lead and he regularly fouled other people’s gardens, I would blame myself if anything happened to him. Hence my dog is never off his lead.

@scalt No poster is frothing about cat owners like you. Who contain their cats.

This is another topic which always gets MN frothing - like dogs in cafes, shoes in houses, children walking on walls (spikes needed to deter them?), the sun daring to shine in summer, and children being given scratch cards as presents, leading them to a gambling addiction.

Where I live, lots of people have cats, which roam. Yes, shit happens, but the local Facebook group seems more angry about potholes. I have cat secure fencing to keep my cat in: not spikes, but horizontal poles which rotate freely, and are impossible for a cat to climb over. However, this was expensive, as the garden is big, and we needed new fencing as well. It also prevents him from doing his business in other people’s gardens. Incidentally, my garden is still full of birds - his presence does not deter them.

Are you throwing the shit back over their fence? That’s what I’d do, and add in some large dog turds for flavour. I feel like owning 4 cats is like having 4 kids, you can’t possibly be taking proper care of them.

Apart from not owning a cat in the first place!

Also I would be very tempted to throw it back over their fence. I would not be offended if someone did that with my cats poo. Least then they would associate their smell with the garden. Might work or at least make your neighbour do something

My cat sits on the cat spikes (me neighbour put them in to stop squirrels not my cat was done before him) I hope mine doesn’t poo in others gardens he uses his litter tray inside. I do hope they work for you as it’s not nice

i do two things that seem to minimise

1. have these brown plastic strips with spikes that you can’t see once on the ground between plants (are these cat spikes?)
2. keep lengths of rose stems I prune from a particularly thorny plant between plants

They don’t seem to go on my lawn unless grass is really long

A really effective way to make a cat scarper fast out of the garden is to hiss really loudly! Sounds crazy but works every time.

"Sssssssssssssssssssssss!!!" Like a very loud snake 😂

It's a way of mimicking the sound of danger to a cat. They understand this completely.
Always do this and there will start to associate your garden being not quite such an oasis as they first thought.

Water pistols also help but it is hard to get them out quick enough.

Good luck. Finding cat shit when you are gardening is revolting.

So you would poison cats??? Sicko.

Twice a week is not enough for four cats worth of poo!
Our cat thankfully poops in our garden once a day and if we don’t pick it up that day it gets flies and stinks in the summer.

They could make their garden more appealing to poop in, like outdoor litter trays.

We had a problem with cats using our tiny front bit of grass, and a couple of years ago it started to get out of hand, I think all the local cats were picking on us. DH bought some ultrasonic sonic animal scarers from Amazon. They are solar powered, but need charging from the mains occasionally. Especially in winter. They look a bit daft cos they glow red when an animal is detected. You have to tweak the settings to get the right intensity, but after a few weeks they stopped using our grass. Just a warning, we had a new neighbour move in with 2 labradors that live in her back garden most of the time. Their presence stopped cats coming over from her side. We then spotted a rat in the garden and now have to put poison boxes down on the routes the rats use. The joys of living in a village.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultrasonic-Repellent-Variable-Frequency-Waterproof/dp/B0GX1K389M/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?crid=1K15W0AXDY62Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.TLhydouTQlhxGYy5W3NNz_n4DzMjuDY14bDez9GLY5z7HF2fpqFxRGQjjWiPOU9QCoIX3cIV10kWaXYYolprzDmfIETlKiXKZDWvJUkiuMcFlvvP-V7-9Yitbztrc9QQKHc-tkhSrJaJzuKwCSu-Hdv5HeAnlFWwIfEaluz5oo-1sEbXZB93aMgjEIeFQySROc1BwaKg5i457JSKzmepCA.0FkwmSaTK3N_S1TiqpM-3KqKrDybZSmTe73eiVDX2kQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=ultrasonic+cat+repellent+for+garden&qid=1780638741&sprefix=ultrasonic+cat%2Caps%2C132&sr=8-1-spons&aref=wQbFd58QWT&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9zZWFyY2hfYXRm&psc=1

Well thanks for giving me the credit for the idea of the domestication of cats. It has taken thousands of years for people to listen to me and it was pretty tough but yes I, single handedly created that idea.

My family are farmers and the farm cats are big spoiled lumps. I have horses and the stable cats are equally spoiled, fed, vet trips etc. same as the farm felines.

But again, revel in my attention my fast dragon who flies 😁

Some cats roam into a garden that has a dog with a high prey drive. Cat gets injured/killed.
Is it up to the dog owner to deter cats? Or cat owner to stop their cat roaming into gardens with dogs that will attack them?

People have cats, and some people have outside cats, that's okay and really pretty normal in the UK. If this is bothering you (and I can see why it would) it is your problem to solve, not the owners. That's the legal position so no point getting cross about it tbh.

All that said, something we found to be very successful was motion-activated sprinklers. The little buggers don't getting wet, so they stopped visiting us completely after a while. Something like this <amazon link>. You can just switch them off when you are out there yourself. I hope it helps.

This would be even better than spikes.

https://oscillot.uk/

OP, do you know of anyone with a dog you could have to stay for a few days? Or have you tried that?