Finally lost it with neighbours

[FinnalyCracked]

There’s four houses on the close - and none for miles (converted country barns - hence the being so close together and yet nothing for miles).

Neighbour A has three cats and all are outdoor cats. Me and Neighbour B have dogs. Neighbour C is irrelevant to this pet debacle.

Neighbours A’s cats, since they moved in, have constantly shit in everyone’s garden. Don’t come at me and tell me it’s not them as the closest village is six miles and no one else has sodding cats!! They sit on the garage and hiss at anyone who goes by and are, quite frankly, obnoxious.

I’ve bitten my tongue but neighbour Cs and B have not. Neighbour B has taken much delight in having their dogs chase the cats off. Neighbour C has invested in barbed wire and other such things to keep the cats out

Yesterday, neighbour A knocked on my door and asked me to call my dogs in as they were ‘destroying her enjoyment of her garden.’ I was very polite - but very firm - and told her to fuck off (not quite that frank, but you get the idea). I’d just finished work, so the dogs had been inside with me so they’d been out about five minutes when she appeared. She launched into a a bit of a diatribe about how B and I have been ruining her summers for years now with our dogs barking and running around.

I snapped. Said her cats constantly shit in my garden and I had to pick it up as I had small children and that her fucking hot tub was obnoxiously loud, so was their music and their shitheaps of cars (her partner always has a rotation of them that he tinkers with) all over the driveway lowered the tone and created exhaust fumes, and that if I ever saw her cats in my garden again I’d be taking a leaf out of neighbour Bs book and setting my dogs on them. Then I told her not to come onto my property again and slammed the door in her face.

It’s a first world problem, I know. But I am just so fucking sick of biting my tongue and being a good neighbour )including taking her fucking parcels) and she has the bloody gall to tell me my dogs can’t be in the garden, as their playing ‘ruins her enjoyment.’

WHAT ABOUT MY FUCKING ENJOYMENT, DEBBIE?!?!

That’s it. That’s all I wanted (just a place to rant)

It sounds like you're all as bad as each other. It's probably a good thing there is nobody else around for miles. Your pets cause noise for their neighbours, their pets shit in your garden. Six of one and half a dozen of the other. A third sets their dogs on cats. The fourth one who put up a load of barbed wire round their property sounds like the rational one out of the group.

Don't complain about other someone else's pets until you've sorted your own ones out.

Genuinely, how did they catch them? Every time I've seen a dog go after a cat it's been no contest and the cat is away instantly. Were the cats unaware or not expecting the dog to go for them becuase they knew it?

In addition most dogs don't need setting on cats, they just go after them if they see them.

I'm not arguing that it's right to set dogs on cats by the way.

No, I don't want to hurt anything.

And it is the point I was making, in reply to the post I replied to. A point about the relative agility of dogs and cats.

I don't know how or why you read anything into my post suggesting I am in favour of hurting things.

Sadly, Neighbour B tried and was told that 'cats have a right to roam' - as so many people on this thread have said! Hence why B now sets her dogs on them.

I'm a dog person not a cat person, but are you and B aware of the fact that it is illegal to "set dogs" on cats or other animals? Dogs do not distinguish between encouragement to kill the "nasty neighbours cats", and "please feel free to attack anything else that happens to be around". They should never be trained or encouraged to become aggressive or over-excited in a potentially dangerous way. It might be the cat today - and if the neighbour films what B is doing, they will likely end up being prosecuted (being on your own land is not a defence) - but it could be a toddler tomorrow.

In addition most dogs don't need setting on cats, they just go after them if they see them.

They don't if they are trained not to. Nobody should be ignoring a prey drive - the dog doesn't know it's a cat, it only recognises prey. That could equally be your baby.

So now a cat sitting on it's own fence is 'winding the dogs up'. What, by simply existing? What ignorant rubbish.

Yes but if you wanted to, you could make it work. It would be more effort though.

You can get a fence that stops them getting out of the garden actually. Someone I know had a specialist company do it. They fit rollers to the top of the fence. Cat stays in the garden.

Oh come on. There are definitely cats that do it for kicks.

We had a neighbour's cat who used to call around to get my dogs out to play. He yowled at the door until they were let out, let them chase him half way down the garden and then sat, licking his paws, which they tried to get him to run away by going at him from different directions. They never went within 2-3m of him as they know any self-respecting cat is well able to deal with a dog.

I’m a dog owner but I’m with the cat owning neighbour !

Ah, after years of biting my tongue, I told a neighbour some home truths when she came to my front door shouting at me, because she had let her dogs chase my cat. ( she had opened her front gate to chase my cat on our garden )
I had seen but would say nothing, as she was a nasty piece of work, and I wasn’t going to antagonise her, until then, as I was minding my own business.

Her husband then threatened me, as did she, he threatened to hit my husband, and they poisoned our cats ( dead) , and she, when he was away working, parked her car on the end of my drive, with her engine running, leaving it to go back to her house, to prevent me leaving to take the kids to school on time. Quite regularly.

Her husband wouldn’t have cared, as he was as horrible as her.

Training your dog not to chase cats that enter your own garden? Why should I do this? If a cat comes in my garden, my dog will chase it. I don’t need to ‘set’ it on the cat. I haven’t got time or inclination to stop my dog chasing cats that are in MY bloody garden! Train your cat not to come in!

Well since I have been clear that I don't have a bloody cat then perhaps if you read what I said, you might have understood what I was saying-
(a) the OP said that the other neighbour IS setting her dogs on the cats, and that is illegal anyway
(b) as I pointed out, encouraging a prey drive anywhere any time is encouraging trouble when the dogs use that prey drive to attack and kill something else, and
(c) training dogs not to chase is rather easy in most cases.

My dog does not chase cats, cars or anything else, and he's trained to behave appropriately. That means that I know he will not chase a cat or a child or anything else. It's bloody amazing how many times there are threads about dogs causing nuisance or misbehaving and absolutely nobody on the site owns a dog that misbehaves, and yet now it's apparently ok provided you think it's ok, because its only attacking a cat.

I think most people who are saying 'set my dog on them' are probably just meaning not actively stopping their dogs from chasing after a cat or not calling it back - as opposed to instructing it to actually attack the cat.

my dog doesn’t chase anything else. Including children. Maybe the odd pigeon. And is only ever off lead in the garden anyway.

In 5 years it’s never caught a cat but will chase it out of the garden. It’s not barking incessantly or being a nuisance generally.

next door’s cat is being a nuisance though. With its shit and digging in my flowerbeds. And fighting with other cats in the early hours.

but we all have to tolerate it as the have ‘the right to roam’ 🙄

If a cat got into our garden then our dog would chase it - just as a cat would chase a mouse or a bird.

I would be picking up her cats shit (wearing gloves of course) and dumping it in her fucking hot tub. Cheeky cow!
I HATE CATS!!!

I'm a cat person and have cats but my garden is enclosed where they get access. My front garden has visitors and while i find it annoying I too have to clean shit out the litter tray. My old ndn had a horrible dog and they'd let it stand on a table to look over the fence at my cats in their own garden. Allowing it to basically terrify them (also a hot tub which was sponsored by porn hub and blue wkd) so I'm kinda on the fence here. Please do not set your dogs on her cats, that's really cruel as for the barb wire. ... not sure if that is legal?

Typically, an officer would act on barking that lasts for over half on hour on five days out of seven; incidents of barking that total one hour out of 24; and barking that happens between 11pm and 7am because this is seen as a nuisance

Whereas cats yowling outside at all hours is acceptable.

My neighbour has several shitting cats and 3 barky dogs. A caravan, a motorhome, shit fences and messy plants.

Fucking nightmare but of it all the barking dogs are the worst thing so YABU

Barking dogs cause so much upset. It’s a sound that we are hardwired to be afraid of. Nothing much we can do about that except steel ourselves to it. I have barky neighbours, lovely dogs but it’s so disruptive and that’s at an animal brain level.

5 minutes! Fgs..,twice a day…yep..I’d be bloody annoyed at that. Shut them up. Train them
cant criticise someone else if you don’t recognise you’re also creating a nuisance.

I am a dog lover , and the shit would absolutely make me lose mine !!!!!
It isnt fair on your kids either ! - health issue etc
That said, dogs I have owned have never been barkers - this irritates me as well (a dog groomer lives a few doors down and during business hours hers can be at it for ages)

Can you get one of the devices that humanely deter cats?

https://www.thesprucepets.com/best-cat-repellents-4153850

The hot tub / car business I think you will have to live with !
A word of warning - disputes between neighbours can escalate and should you want to move really could cause difficulties !

Good luck !

If you're referring to my post about my brother's resident demon, said cat's claws got stuck in my daughter's jumper and scared the living shit out of her. It didn't hiss at her.

Edited to add: His reaction was much the same as some of the cat obsessed people on this thread - "Aww but poor wee [Demon Cat] is a rescue, he probably got traumatised by kids in his previous home". No apology, just poor wee cat!