terrorised by a cat

[PookieDo]

Firstly I have a cat myself so i am not a cat hater. I have a small female house cat who does go in the garden on a nice day.
I moved a few months ago and the local big Tom cat took a liking to emptying my food recycling bin (which now lives in the shed)

He fights almost nightly outside my bedroom window on the front of the street with other cats waking the street up

Tom cat has taken to visiting my garden every night by jumping down heavily from the wall onto the bins (scaring the crap out of us all). I’ve now got to move the bins into the middle of the garden of an evening to stop this racket but if it’s windy and they are empty they fall over. He will still jump on them. He clearly has a dramatic flair and he’s huge

The biggest issue is It then comes up to my patio doors and sits on the outside staring at my cat for hours who loses her little mind and gets really agitated. I have curtains and try to distract her but she viciously attacked my DD tonight who got too close to her at the wrong moment

I don’t know who it belongs to but I assume this cat may not have been castrated. How do I get it to FUCK OFF out of my garden?

You can buy automatic cat deterents that spray water when they detect movement. We had one once, it was very effective, on humans as well as cats! I think it was called a scarecrow.

Yes totally dog proof. I will try that tomorrow night I think too and hope dog doesn’t wimp out!
I chased it off with a wet mop yesterday (obviously didn’t touch the cat with the mop) and it still came back!

Had better get myself down the shops for lion poo, spray bottles and some kind of window covers 😂, plasters for me and DC and cat deterrent products!

Capture the Tom, take it to the vet and get it neutered as a stray.

I think throwing some water at them , does work quite well. I 've had a few cats- and we've had bigger cats trying to fight over territory etc -and I've defended them a bit a few times, especially if a new cats come it can sometimes be a problem.

What do is just fill a mug with water , then throw it (the water, not the mug! :) ) at the cat-it works best from a bit of a distance and if it hits a path or a hard suface , I think its partly the splash noise they don't like. I v'e done it just to make cats move if they were making lots of noise.

I generally haven't really wet the cat very much-partly because I don't want angry neighbours asking why I've soaked their cat! but also I wouldn't want them to get too cold if they were outside. (also am a bad shot anyway!) I have definatley had success doing this though, they start to move when you come out after a bit! I think it would work, even on cats that don't mind rain, I think they'll sort of tolerate rain , but a good splash of water and hissing as well, if you can do it! does make them move, generally.

I'm not sure about vinagar- it is a chemical,isn't it -it's acid, so I would tend to avoid it,

Can you get a lockable bin storage thing, and net curtains/ opaque stuff on windows

I was interested to see, so I just googled white vingar and cats an the first few results said, white vingar isn't toxic to cats :)

I wish you luck with this. We get two regular cats visiting. One is a big neutered boy cat who leaves decapitated rabbits for us, and doesn’t seem to bother our Dcat at all. The other us a tiny black fluffy thing that sends Dcat into a frantic, yowly, snorty frenzy.

We’ve got a very open garden and surrounded by fields so no chance of cat-proofing.

I think their eyes and nose doesn’t like vinegar but I wasn’t sure it was harmful and it’s cheap!
I have looked at the plastic spikes but this would involve drilling the walls to fit them so they don’t fall off and also having a sign up for potential burglars so I don’t get sued?

One thing I just don’t want to do is have weird looking window coverage, the windows are huge and the focal point of the room and it could be a right eye sore and block out the only natural light

I will do spraying with water though

Capture the Tom, take it to the vet and get it neutered as a stray.

Yes yes. Cats Protection League will lend you a trap cage.

This is bullying my small dog. I think it's a British Blue too. Photo isn't great but I also had to crop the ones I took because they identify where I live/ what car I drive. My dog is a wimp and this cat beat him up a few days ago. Begs to be picked up if we see it.

Capture the Tom, take it to the vet and get it neutered as a stray.

Definitely this - some vets will do it for free as it's a stray. And if you're around London - inside the M25 - check www.cats.org.uk/c4/home.asp?url=c4 to see which vet local to you will do it for free.

Oh, and they'll check it for a chip too, as it could be a lost pet

Genuinely wondering if this is my terror of a cat

I really do not think he’s a stray I think he’s a huge (probably nice) pet who thinks he is looking out for his territory. He’s a lovely looking cat. I don’t see him in daylight hours so he’s not hanging around or hungry
Haven’t seen any neighbours yet to ask!
Plan to let the dog out later and spray with water this evening when he returns

Capture the Tom good luck with that. We had several uninvited tomcats coming in to our house due to a neughbour who "doesn't believe" in neutering. We caught them everywhere-on beds, on the sofa, in the bath and they would spray and it stank! We removed the food (we used to feed dry food and it would be out a lot, we now feed wet at specific times). We also tried water but they also hate citrus smells and are afraid of tinfoil, so maybe some string with tinfoil threaded on placed on top of the fence might help? Good luck. It's not easy getting rid of them

He was at a distance earlier and cat and dog were outside so he didn’t come too close just sat on his bum staring
Dog just laid down on the ground
Cat ran around like mad
Too far to throw any water but opening the gate scared him off and he hasn’t come back tonight - curtains open and outside light on (water ready to go 😂)

Is your cat neutered? If not could she be attracting the Tom if she is in season?

Be careful with Zylkene if your cat is not tolerant of dairy as it contains milk derivatives.

YEs she’s spayed

Get a super soaker. Those things can squirt water quite some distance. Much better than pound shop water guns. A drenching from one of those should stop him coming back.