to think it is totally reasonable for cat owners not to pick up poo

[PMDD]

I mean how can they?

I have 2 cats and now 1 puppy. I watch my puppy when she is out and know where she is, I can see if she is pooing. If she disappears under a bush I check (with my sense of smell) and pick up if necessary. I carry poo bags everywhere.

However, my cats come and go as they please. When they were kittens I had a litter tray that they used, but as they started to go outside with a cat flap, they stopped using the litter tray.

My (ex) neighbour asked me to come and pick up after my cats, but as there are lots and lots of cats in the area, there was no knowing that it was my cats.

I am not a bad pet owner. But I think it is unreasonable to expect cat owners to have the same poo pick up responsibility as dog owners.

The lions might take care of the teenage hooligans who hang around outside shops. Maybe even cut down on obesity as people would have to run more!

Brilliant idea.

agree I am getting one. and if course a poop scoop.

no wait it can't roam! it will be a house lion.

Acutally I think i may back out of OperationLion. If small kitty cats wake me up with their screeching, imagine how much worse it would be if lions were roaring in my garden.

Perhaps we could have cheetahs? They don't roar.

Here you go thebody-looks good to me.

I went to a meeting in Newquay once. Halfway through the meeting I heard a lion roaring. I jumped out of my skin, by no one else batted an eyelid and then it kept happening.

Turns out the zoo's lion enclosure was just through the wall

Noooo! Look at it's dirty lion bum on that nice white chair! Next it will be sat on the worktops.

Did anyone see the programme the other day in which people had unusual relationships with wild animals? A woman was laying down with and was pretty much part of a pride of lions. They were licking her! And someone else had an American bison in their house. I definitely didn't dream it.

Anyway, this proves the cat haterz could keep lions to keep the cats out of their gardens and it would all definitely be fine.

Don't look Canidae.

We live on a farm. Our neighbours used let their dogs roam free and they would come and crap in our garden. It annoyed the hell out of me, and I have been known to try to shoot the buggers with a water pistol (I was never fast enough).

But I would still not want my neighbours to come over to clear up the crap - it's my garden and I don't want others wandering around in it. I just flicked the poo over the hedge into their bit.

We then got our own dogs and made sure our garden is properly fenced with chicken wire.

But the point I'm making is: would you honestly want your neighbours climbing over your fence having a nose around, even if it is to pick up cat poo? And how would that work in the first place, if the fence is high (as it was when we lived in a terrace in London for example).

I have 2 cats, but understand non cat owners being pissed off with cat shit.
I would encourage you to get a water pistol or hose on these invaders, that might work...it wouldn't bother me if you did it to mine. Won't hurt them but teaches them in a cruelty-free way that your garden is not a shit hole.

Vegancow's message says everything that needs to be said really - without the hundreds of hand wringing, cat demonising posts preceding it. But AIBU doesn't really thrive on that I guess...

Ah, but for vegancow's way to work, I'd have to sit in the window, clutching a hosepipe like a nutcase! Oh, wait....

We're planning on getting a dog after Christmas. By its type it has hunting traits. We have researched a long, long time to find a pet that will suit our needs.

I will keep my pet secure and it will only have access to my garden. I am not, however, responsible for other people's pets who choose to come into my garden. How can I possibly be?! I will do everything I can to ensure that incidents don't occur, but of course there's always the risk.

I have to ask Fleta were the "hunting traits" what made it YOUR ideal pet ?

LOL Justforlaughs. No actually, it was the ability to rescue an animal of which there are a lot in rescue centres.

This thread has actually really upset me now.

As I've said, I have three cats. I've had cats all my life. Other animals too. I miss having dogs around, but I wouldn't contemplate one now because of all the walking I'd have to do with it. The cleaning up the shit honestly wouldn't bother me because I'd be a conscientious owner. I hate having to dodge the shit on the way to school every morning (and there seems to be fresh piles in the same place each day).

I have never in my entire life have anyone complain to me about cat shit in their garden - never. I have never come across anyone saying they would happily hurt/kill a cat either - I would be very fucking angry with anyone who did say that, whether I had cats or not.

If I thought for a second (or was told) that my cats were being a nuisance to any of my neighbours I would be round like a shot to clean up after them. I wouldn't think twice about it. Thankfully, I seem to have had lovely neighbours who love my cats almost as much as me. People who have asked me if 'that gorgeous grey one' is mine. Asked their names, said how fussy the cats are, etc.

Until reading this thread, I seriously had no idea that there were so many adults out there who felt the way that some people do on here. I thought cat-killing was something you read about occasionally in the papers when some twat of a teenage boy got an airgun and decided that local cats made the best targets!

The people talking about 'planning' to remove cats/get big dogs/put poison down - are you actually reading back what you've written? Are you also planning to go out and kill any threatening dogs you might come across? Or is your vitriol reserved just for something a lot smaller than you, that's unlikely to harm you?

As for all this talk of cat shit blinding children - I've grown up with cats in my family (6 at one point) and cats in surrounding families. I have three siblings and three dc children of my own. I don't know of one single person who has been blinded by cat shit. If someone could provide statistics that prove this happens on as regular a basis as children being killed by their own fucking pet dog I'd be delighted, but I don't think you will.

I'm a responsible owner. I love my cats. They are a huge part of my family. I was devastated when my beloved little Phoebe had to be put to sleep two years ago. She was 13 and became very ill - kidney problems. The vet decided that she would have no quality of life even on drugs. I had her from 9 weeks old. She was the first pet that belonged to me rather than my family. Two years on, I still miss her terribly.

To think that some people would have been wishing death on her, or any of my three now, leaves me cold and very upset.

Heart.

I don't know what to say really except that this is one area of mn where posters seem to find it acceptable, nay commendable to sound like total fucking psychos :(

People who can write stuff like that about animals have serious issues. Thankfully, as you realise in your post, this is not the issue some people are claiming it is, and most people are not nutters when it comes to animals. A shame some are, though

Most familiar garden birds of Britain are songbirds (passerines). They are small to medium in size and have a song or varied call. Examples are blue tits, chaffinches, warblers, wrens, wagtails, larks, goldcrests, dunnocks and starlings.

The non-passerines include things like seagulls, ostriches, geese, owls, parrots, snipes, curlews, pigeons and woodpeckers.

It's not surprising that cats tend to catch songbirds rather than the normally larger non-passerines, as theyre' smaller and more likely to be in the average residential garden.

I seriously don't understand it Hester (and thanks for the flowers - this thread has just made me think of my 'Pheebs' even more).

Whenever there are threads about dogs killing children or people not cleaning up after their dogs it doesn't get like this. People don't start talking about how they'd kill a dog if they could, or how they think it's amusing to hurt dogs. That never happens. Even when a child has actually been killed.

No one on here has been hurt or killed by a cat, so why the utter hatred? I don't get it. It's quite worrying - I wonder if any of these 'adults' actually do go around hurting cats and laughing as they do it? And would they do the same to a dog they saw shitting in the street? I doubt that very much.

It's as if it's perfectly ok to hate cats (although I find that people who hate cats have a) never had one as a pet and b) have never bothered to get to know one) but if anyone says they hate dogs, there must be something wrong with them!

The dog threads get worse than this, Heartbroken. You get people proud to admit that they carry "big fuck off sticks" on their walks, specifically for whacking dogs with if the dog so much as glances in their direction, some people are disturbed.

Happily they are not the norm. I've never met anyone in rl who actively despises cats and dogs and wishes them physical harm. Most people either like them or are indifferent to them.

Just for laughs yes I remember being told that on another thread. I'm going to give it so much love the next time I visit

Don't be upset Heart. I'm fairly confident most of the more insane posts on here are purely for the reaction.

I have never come across anyone like this in real life, like you and Hester say.

Sorry about your Phoebe .

I have house cats and automatically thought of litter trays overflowing, now that would be unreasonable!

Ok, it wasn't just one person. There are more than that who have said that they would harm/remove a cat, wouldn't care if their dog killed one, etc.

The property rights of the non cat owners who are not psychos are not going to go away just because you will not control your own pets and seem to believe that your rights trump ours!

If you'd read my posts again, you'd see that I'm about as far removed from this as you can get. I honestly had no idea (until reading this thread) that people were this bothered about it. I've never had any complaints about my cats. And, I repeat, if my neighbours want me to go round and clean up their gardens, I would happily do this.

How does that equate to my rights trumping yours? If you were my neighbour and you told me my cats were being a nuisance, I wouldn't turn into some abusive idiot who told you where to go. I'd be apologetic and sort the issue out.

The only people on here who have mentioned 'abusive' or 'non-caring' cat owners have been the ones who have also advocated harming or killing a cat. (Apart from the OP, who appears to have done a stellar job of starting a bunfight, then disappearing )