To ask why cats roaming is acceptable?

[PengAly]

Just want to hear opinions on this. Firstly i should be honest, i am a dog person, 100% love dogs and i really dont understand how people like cats (seems like they are a tad selfish of a pet) but i am an animal lover so obviously wish no harm to any cat and will play with one given the opportunity. This is JUST my opinion. But back to my original question...

Why does it seem universally accepted that cats can roam on other peoples properties and poop in the garden- even digging up flowers?! Now Im certain mainy people would get up in arms if a dog on a lead stepped one paw on their front garden or god forbid came within 3 feet of them or their child(I've seen many dog hating threads on MN) yet cat owners get a free pass for their cats doing as they please?

Im honestly not trying to start an argument i just dont understand it

@PengAly

I do kind of agree OP. And I have cats, and love them obvs. It can be a pain when cats roam all over the place. As many people have said, there's not much you can do about it.

Mine however, spend much time in the house, often use the litter, and only poop in our garden - as far as I know. No-one has complained about them yet anyway. I honestly don't think mine cause any bother tbh. As I said - as far as I know.

YANBU to be miffed though, as some cats are a PITA. Mine are gentle and sweet girls who are very timid, and a big bloody ginger tom used to bully them and force them indoors, and come through the catflap, so we had to shut it at night.

We never found out who owned him, but when we started closing the catflap at night, he moved down the road a few doors and started picking on other cats! Then someone in my road came to my house and asked if I had a ginger tom, as one was bullying her cat and coming into the house.

STILL don't know who he belonged to, but we haven't seen him in 6 months!

I do like dogs a lot too. Nice, friendly (usually) faithful creatures. But I wouldn't have one, coz they're too much like hard work, and I'm a lazy git. Cats sleep a lot and are quite self sufficient, so are great for lazy people.

I do get pissed off with people who let their dogs off the lead though, and let them run around, and jump up you, and make you afraid to walk in the fields/woods, because the dogs are often loose!

Probably find that as annoying as you find cats OP.

I love my cats immensely, and they are very loving and soft..... and many cats are adorable, and no bother. Also, I can count on the fingers of one hand, the amount of birds they have brought in in the last 5 years. They just don't bother. But yeah some cats are a PITA. (Like most dogs are amazing, but some are a PITA.) I do agree with some that cats cannot be tamed. Impossible. They never do fuckall that you ask them!

It's a myth that cats are totally independent and don't need you. Yeah they sleep a lot - 14-15 hours a day - but they still need love and cuddles and a fuss. I know some people who are out from 7.30am to 6.30pm, and leave the cat on their own all day with a bowl of dry food. It's not long before the cat goes and adopts another family who show them more love and affection and gives them more time.

Also agree that cats are less harmful than dogs. (And I see more dog poo around than cat poo.) Then again, dogs rarely attack or maim, so I'm not gonna slate them. As I said, I am fond of dogs too. I just wouldn't have the patience for one. (Or the time...)

If you ever had a cat OP, you would never go back. They are adorable, sweet, loving, manipulative, controlling little bastards who will steal your chair, your bed, and your heart.

My cat who died would rather have killed herself jumping out of a top floor window than be kept indoors - some cats just can’t be kept in. I have another cat who never goes out. I did try to keep the other cat in and she was so unhappy. I wouldn’t want to have an animal who was that happy being ‘caged’ indoors because she might poo somewhere

I am just imagining cat owners following their pet around the local neighbourhood preventing any rogue poo incidents.

I do. M follows me around , so I walk around my garden, then up and down some communal grounds , she climbs trees runs around, chases squirrels, does a poo , I fling leaves in the air for her to chase. These plops are collected.
One of my neighbours takes his cats 200m down the road (they follow) and he runs laps of the local park each morning. He too collects the plops.

Unlike dogs you dont need to take them out on rainy sleety days, litter trays folks.

I recommend going and having fun with your cats. You really don't know what you are missing.

Cat doesn’t want to go out. I’ve tried

I completely agree OP, I spent months picking cat shit off my garden every day (no, they don't all bury their shit) and spent a lot of money on useless deterrents (why should I be paying to keep someone else's pet off my garden??). I now have a dog and voila, no more cat shit! Granted there's now dog shit there instead but I don't mind picking up after my own pet because it was my choice to get him. They will more than likely bugger off when you get your dog.

There are lots of cat and dog dislikers on MN (I adore both), but my pet hate is horses.

If one gets worked up over dog shit (yes, I pick up after Ddog, YES even if no one can see) why not horse shit? There are many moped riders and bikers here, and they can easily wipe out on the stuff. Bags are made to catch the shit from mounted police’s horses, so why shouldn’t everyone do it with the awful things?

Awwww, I LOVE horses!

And their poo is mostly hay!

Thank you for all the helpful comments. It nice to see there are people who do agree with me! I'll remember to never post an opinion about cats again on Mumsnet after this!

Well at least that's this week's cat poo thread done and dusted.

I guess Horses are different because they are a method of transport? I think more people would complain about riders holding up traffic while they pick the horses shit up, wouldn't be surprised if impatient twats would be honking the horn and spooking the horn to hurry the rider up and many roadsides don't have anywhere suitable to tether a horse while they pick its shit up.

I've never thought about horse shit before but would have thought a cyclist or moped driver would see a large pile of shit and go around it? I've never seen a horse shit take up the entire road and would have thought a two wheeled vehicle could navigate around it.

My gran used to send us outside with a bucket and shovel to scoop horse shit up which she'd then chuck on her garden 🤢

YANBU im fed up of cats shitting in my garden where my 2 dds play, even had a cheeky little shit walk through my back door one day and start scratching at my sofa. Im neither cat or dog lover im not a pet person to be honest but if someones dog was to come and do its business in my garden the owner can get a fine yet cats have the freedom to do and go anywhere they please

I've never known a cat cause damage in a garden

Really? Our next door neighbour has 4 cats. They have ruined our fence by using it as a scratch post, they have repeatedly dug up flowers and bulbs in the front garden, have scratched our conservatory roof by jumping on it from the fence and then sliding down and since our dog died in the summer have been pooing in the back garden and have ripped the bbq cover. One cat also runs in if you leave the front door open for 1 second and also climbed in through an open bedroom window in the summer.

On the point of not harming humans their poo can be very harmful to humans, particularly to pregnant women and their unborn babies.

I agree OP.

Not all cats bury either, I lived at my last house for 6 years for the first 3 years I had no problem with cats as I think there was only 1 in our cul de sac, then a few new people moved in and suddenly there was a dozen cats

I seen one out the front doing it’s business in he grass definitely did not bury it and it was horrible watery poo, and kept finding them round the back as well. Definitely cat poo as you can’t mistake the smell 🤢

We have since moved to middle of no where and haven’t seen a cat since, the landlord and the farms round about us stipulated no cats as their poo can make sheep lose their lambs

I don’t have pets as I haven no time for them and also I don’t want the responsibility of picking up poo so do grudge picking up other people’s pets to be honest

Only bug bear here is next door, he is 80 odd year old, deaf and has a dog which he obviously doesn’t hear barking all hours of the night and early morning and the smelly wood burner thing where the smoke blows into my house and garden especially at the height of summer when I’m trying to dry my washing

Cats have a legal right to roam.

I like cats. I don't mind them roaming. One of our neighbours has a cat that likes to sleep on our rockery. It has done this for a couple of years and we have no issue with it.

Next door neighbours however (moved in this summer) have a cat that shits in our garden. Any humane ideas of preventing this without fitting gates / higher fences would be much appreciated.

Cats do harm babies actually. See link below (not saying dogs don’t but just think someone should point this out)
www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.thesun.co.uk/news/7232699/pet-cat-suffocates-baby-death-sleeping-pram/amp/

What do you expect cat owners to do, jump fences following their cat just incase they shit in your flower beds?

I have a Bengal who we tried to keep indoors, even got a harness so he could go for walks. Would he have it? Would he fuck. Once he had a taste of the great outdoors he was the biggest asshole ever, until we decided we couldn't deal with the constant pouncing, biting and scratching and just let him out. Now we have a happy cat, and a lovely clean garden because he scares the other cats off

KatieHaslam22 that article proves nothing, it says the cat is 'thought to be responsible' not that it did kill the child. The article is from September and there is no follow-up article confirming that the child was killed by the cat. It could just as easily have been killed by someone else who blamed the cat.

UptownFlunk
As I said in my post yesterday my husband was nearly killed as a baby in a pram by his mother’s cat. He was saved by the little girl next door. So this does happen.
There was also a lady who has posted who said that she caught toxoplasmosis from picking up cat crap in her garden. She didn’t own a cat. The baby she was carrying stopped growing at 22 weeks because of the toxoplasmosis she caught. I think she probably feels that a cat killed her baby. So cats do cause injury and death.

But, as the OP has stated many many times this thread was never meant to be a cats v dogs thread. It was supposed to be a sensible discussion about why cat owners think it’s acceptable that their animals are allowed to roam about doing as they please when no other animal which is owned by a person in the UK is allowed to wander round doing damage, killing wildlife - some of which is protected- , scratching and biting people as they choose yet the ‘owners’ bears no responsibility about this. It’s wrong. No other animal is allowed to do this.

I hope that a change is coming. I think after years of being a responsible dog owner and a former house cat owner ( can’t have cats again due to DH having awful allergies. He probably became allergic to cats when Bilbo was sat on fis face and chest smothering him!) its time that cat owners were forced to bear responsibility for their pets.
So to that effect I’m going to contact my uncle ( highly esteemed writer and expert on British Birds) and see if he wants to join me in contacting our MPs and seeing if they think it’s time for a review on cats ‘ rights’ and owners ‘responsibility ‘. The utter ignorance of some cat owners on here ( saying that people shouldn’t have gardens if they don’t want cats to shit in them!) has made me realise that it’s time for action!
However, it has been great reading people’s opinions and thoughts on this. I’m impressed by the number of owners who bear responsibility for their pets and who keep them in the home -some with superb outside runs too!

Whatever the law says there will always be irresponsible owners of every type of pet. People who don’t pick up after their dogs ( this drives me as mad as the next person. It’s disgusting and shameful especially when there are poor bags provided in so many places now) or who train their dogs to be vicious. People who don’t look after their pets as they should - horses and donkeys with hooves in horrific , painful states, animals which are ill and not taken to the vet ......there’s so many things to list.
But I do think it’s really really awful for cat owners to let their animals roam ........and often the cat ends up dead at the side of the road. It’s just so irresponsible . You put your pets life in danger every day just because ‘ it likes going outside’.

PengAly I think you have been very patient on this thread as you have had to keep repeating the same thing over and over again whilst being called some rotten names. I totally get what you are trying so hard to get across!

So still no story proving a cat killed a child by sitting on it then?

We have 4 cats and yes they do roam. But we have litter trays and they do their business in our garden, as we have plenty of garden they can use, with good soil. There's been no suggestion that they poo in neighbours' gardens (obviously I can't know this for certain).

I think that is an important part of an owner's responsibility, if they do allow their cats to roam, to make sure the cats have plenty of soiled areas they can use to do their business. (If you pave over your garden, where do you expect them to go? Cats need to dig.)

But I do think it’s really really awful for cat owners to let their animals roam ........and often the cat ends up dead at the side of the road. It’s just so irresponsible . You put your pets life in danger every day just because ‘ it likes going outside’

It’s far better for a cat to live a full, stimulating life and have a small risk of premature death than to spend its life confined inside as a bored house cat.

What’s the point of a long, boring life?

My cat loves being outside and it would be cruel to prevent her from going out.

@FenellasRedVelvetDress

Cats have the legal right to roam. Look at the Animal Act of 1971.

A cat’s right to roam freely supersedes your right not to have a little bit of poo in your garden every now and then. You’re being utterly ridiculous and rather pathetic.

My cat shits in my garden because it used to be her neighbours garden. When I moved in she realised life was so much better in mine than her original home so she set free her original slave and adopted me. She still shits in my garden so no complaints from neighbours. She does though pop into other peoples houses through open windows for a fuss and a treat

Yabu as it would be cruel to keep a naturally territorial animal inside four walls. I know, some people do, but I don't agree with it. It's healthy and natural for ctas to roam.
Dogs just love being g with people and rely on their owners to walk them a good distance to get their exercise, cats are independent and do that themselves.

You have birds poop all over your car your windows your washing the dirty little shita flying around free, cage them all the bastards! And as for the foxes shitting all over the place for dogs to roll in, shoot the lot the filthy little fuckers!

Rabbits, oh my god, don't get me started the bloody fields are full of their shit! It's like they do it just to entice dogs to eat it, and then there's the bloody cow ceap desecrating the countryside... Let's put a stop to it all, this bloody nature its all out of control.

Happy Christmas all the animals of the world. (Including dogs of course )