AIBU to find it utterly astounding that it's socially acceptable in England for pet cats to poop in other people's gardens??!

[DrawsSword]

I honestly cannot get my head round this. We've moved into a new house and the garden is full of cat shit. Not a single cat owner I know has a little tray for their cat to use. Where do cat owners think their cats poop? Do you honestly not care that it's in other peoples gardens?
My dh is from in a country where this is not socially acceptable and cat owners have litter trays and the cats bloody use them.

I like cats, I even have a rescue cat.
Our cat uses a littler tray in the garage, she doesn't cause anyone any problems.
Next door neighbour has got 7 outdoor cats. They all shit in my garden. When I came home from holiday a few months ago the stench was horrific.
They also soil the neighbour on the other sides garden, she is 90 and can't pick it up. They have decimated the wildlife in our garden including a colony of rare water shrews.
I predict a big change in the keeping of cats as pets in the future. It's hardly eco to make sand eels into cat food leaving nothing for native sea birds either.

I assume you also have an issue with bird shit and would like to shoot all the birds that have the temerity to shit in your garden? You sound odd. Cats are not meant to stay inside. They like to hunt and prowl. They should not have to be kept in because you are precious about your garden. There is no law that states animals may not enter your garden!

Foxes, birds and mice are pooping in your garden too. Cats are considered semi wild.

I think the degree people expect to be able to control the nature world is wierd.

I’ve never had to pick stinking piles of bird, mouse, hedgehog, squirrel or fox shit off my patio. I have to pick cat shit off it every single day.

Of course foxes, birds, mice and even badgers and squirrels shit in my garden. I don't mind in the slightest.
What I do mind are the 6 or 7 dollops every day from next doors 7 cats. That is surely not unreasonable?
My own cat can't go outside, they would maul her the minute she put a paw outside.

@Stompythedinosaur

Foxes, birds and mice are pooping in your garden too. Cats are considered semi wild.

I think the degree people expect to be able to control the nature world is wierd.

Oh the irony in this post

So we should keep cats indoors so that your garden stays free not of animal poo?

Even if you did want to prevent cats from crapping in your garden, as a cat owner how would you prevent it? We have a cat litter but our cat is an outdoor cat and will shit outside sometimes. You can’t train cats not to shit in other people’s gardens. On that basis you are being unreasonable. Hth

These threads always go the same way.
Posters either believe that
A. Cat owners should take equal responsibility for their pets as they would any other pets they own. This includes taking precautions to prevent their pet from becoming a nuisance or a danger to anyone else.

B. Cat owners who believe they should not take responsibility for what their pet does outside their homes. These cat owners will fight to the end for their cats rights, yet delegate the responsibility for cleaning up after their pets onto unsuspecting people in their neighbourhood. To these owners, cats have many rights and virtually no responsibilities, yet they have the expectation that strangers will happily behave responsibly towards their cats.
These are the same cat owners who expect neighbours to cat proof their gardens, at what can be considerable expense, with no guarantee of success, yet do nothing to prevent their cats escaping their own garden.

It is not just a question of cat shit though. I have had cats run out in front of my car and I have had to brake hard and swerve to avoid them. On one memorable occasion, when a cat ran straight in front of my car, leaving me no time to avoid or stop, I postponed my journey to transport a cat to the vets, where the cat, which wasnt microchipped, needed treatment urgently.
Upon locating the owner, the owner screamed that they were going to sue me and proceeded to go onto my local community page, attempting to shame me into paying for the full cost of the treatment, since they had no pet insurance nor the means to pay the bill. Apparently, I was wrong to 'take it upon myself to transport their pet to the vets' without finding the owner and checking they had the means to pay.
I contributed half towards the cost of the treatment.

Within a week of this lady getting her cat home, she resumed letting him out.

He died 8 months later after being hit by a van.

I was travelling at about 25mph but when a cat runs straight into your path, you cant always avoid it.

Why should drivers have to take responsibility when these cat owners refuse to?
Why should householders pick up someone else's pets shit?
Why should cat free people pay out for modifications to keep cats out when cat owners can contain their cats in their own gardens?

All about their rights but very little about their responsibilities!

For the people saying their cats wouldnt be happy being kept in, I have news for you.
This is not unique to your cats.
Virtually every animal that is owned by someone does not want to be contained by human beings and would much prefer to roam at their leisure if they were given the opportunity.
So this is a stupid argument for allowing cats to roam.

Yes, cats have a legal right to roam, just as I have a legal right to drive off if I hit your cat, but it doesnt make either of us a nice person to do those things does it?

I have no idea why people get a cat - usually more than one. Can cat owners educate me please? Why did you choose a cat - that you throw out to upset the neighbours as soon as you can? How, exactly, does a cat enrich your life? What does a cat, who roams, craps in the neighbours gardens and is eventually run over, bring to your life?

I really can’t understand why people choose a cat as a pet. Other than they don’t have to look after it, don’t have to pick up its shit and couldn’t care less when it dies under the wheels of a car.

I have two cat owning neighbours who have cat proofed their garden. Their cats cause no problem. The others seem to think they are justified in throwing their cats out all day and all night. They have no problem with their cat pissing off the neighbours. Why are some cat owners responsible pet owners and others aren’t?

I have two dogs so I have no problem with cats shitting in my garden. It’s a brave cat who would enter my garden. I really feel for my neighbour who cannot allow her two young children to play in the garden, due to the amount of cat shit in her garden though. Yep it’s cat shit… there is no mistaking that 🤢

@Judith0000 that is an unfortunate situation you found yourself in and of course the cat owner in question was idiotic.

But honestly what can owners do other than keep them inside? We live in a rural area. My cat has spent most of his life in the fields and woods around our home. If I locked him indoors now he would hate it. It's cruel. I accept there is a risk of him being hit by a car while outdoors but when all factors are taken into consideration, many cat owners would rather take that risk and give their pets a happy and fulfilling life. That's not to say they shouldn't take adequate precautions like microchipping them.

Cats are by nature semi wild. If a pheasant, fox or deer ran out in front of you you'd have the same situation only without the responsibility of taking it to a vet.

Can cat owners educate me please?

Well someine should .
I don't throw my cats out hey have a microchip activated cat door that had to be fitted into a new glass panel in the door .
My cats don;t go out the front and CPL checked our roads/areas before we got them.
We look after them very well, thanks for the lazy generalisation.

My neighbour has 2 dogs and they are utter pains in the arse with their yap yap yap if a gnat farts in their earshot .

We have foxshit left in the garden ( and yes I know the difference thank you )
My cats use the litter tray , I can tell by the amount I pick out

@TattySlippers Agree with every word.

If cat owners keep saying they are "semi wild" - why are they choosing to have them as pets and then don't care about where they go or what they do?!

@TattySlippers

I have no idea why people get a cat - usually more than one. Can cat owners educate me please? Why did you choose a cat - that you throw out to upset the neighbours as soon as you can? How, exactly, does a cat enrich your life? What does a cat, who roams, craps in the neighbours gardens and is eventually run over, bring to your life?

I really can’t understand why people choose a cat as a pet. Other than they don’t have to look after it, don’t have to pick up its shit and couldn’t care less when it dies under the wheels of a car.

I have two cat owning neighbours who have cat proofed their garden. Their cats cause no problem. The others seem to think they are justified in throwing their cats out all day and all night. They have no problem with their cat pissing off the neighbours. Why are some cat owners responsible pet owners and others aren’t?

I have two dogs so I have no problem with cats shitting in my garden. It’s a brave cat who would enter my garden. I really feel for my neighbour who cannot allow her two young children to play in the garden, due to the amount of cat shit in her garden though. Yep it’s cat shit… there is no mistaking that 🤢

Your post is really silly. People get cats for similar reasons that you have a dog.

Just because cats go out doesn't mean cats don't also spend a lot of time indoors with their owners too. People do look after cats, they still need feeding, grooming, playing with, interacting with, cuddles and strokes. It's less likely your neighbours are 'throwing their cats out' and more likely the cats enjoy spending quite a bit of their day outside.

@XelaM ok I'll bite...some people like a low maintenance pet. Cats are loving but don't require the same level of supervision as dogs. That's why people choose them as pets.

Where do you think all of the cats should go if people suddenly stop owning them as pets?

Moaning about it online isn't going to achieve anything

Moaning about anything online doesn’t tend to achieve anything, but it’s what sites such as MN are based on.

@XelaM ok I'll bite...some people like a low maintenance pet. Cats are loving but don't require the same level of supervision as dogs. That's why people choose them as pets.
Where do you think all of the cats should go if people suddenly stop owning them as pets?

Yes exactly. People choose a cat because they can’t be arsed to be a responsible pet owner. Ie they don’t want to look after it.

“Where would cats go if everyone suddenly stopped owning them?
“?
Umm… maybe cat owners would neuter their “pets” to make sure they didn’t breed??

My cat is high maintenance!

She has litter trays inside, and I have made a toilet area in the garden for her as well.

She is out about an hour or two a day, and I have spoken to the neighbours and told them if they she her pooing on their garden to throw a bucket of water at her!

For those cat haters - I love her very much. She was my only company through lock down - she is cute and curly and I enjoy looking after her.

My neighbours dog regularly poops in my garden. I do t complain because my cat might do the same.

We live in a world where people have pets. Dogs bark though the night and cats poo in gardens. These aren’t the worst things in life.

We live in a world where people have pets. Dogs bark though the night and cats poo in gardens. These aren’t the worst things in life

No, not the worst thing, but both are fucking annoying. And cats shitting in my garden could be dangerous to my children.

@ThePoisonousMushroom

We live in a world where people have pets. Dogs bark though the night and cats poo in gardens. These aren’t the worst things in life

No, not the worst thing, but both are fucking annoying. And cats shitting in my garden could be dangerous to my children.

Why would a cat pooping in Your garden be any more dangerous to children than someone's dog that might bite and kill my child?

How many news reports in the last decade of Cat shit issues Vs dog bites?

And even then... On a scale of 1 to certain fucking doom.. pets fall somewhere around panic buying shit roll.

Every time my neighbour's cat shits in my garden I climb over the wall and take a crap on his patio.

@HomeSliceKnowsBest

Every time my neighbour's cat shits in my garden I climb over the wall and take a crap on his patio.

I think you should leave a dead offering for them as recompense.. A nice bird corpse or a twitchy mouse.

Why would a cat pooping in Your garden be any more dangerous to children than someone's dog that might bite and kill my child?

Can you point me to where I said it was? . I was just using the 2 examples in the post I quoted… a dog barking through the night or a cat shitting in my garden.

Everyone saying ‘what about foxes…’

Ok well let’s extrapolate and say we are also animals technically, would you be happy with a human shitting in your garden? Or a dog? Or a toddler who is not toilet trained? Of course not.

But because it’s your precious cats you think we should tolerate them crapping all over our gardens.

You own them, you should have to clean up their mess, end of.

Not to mention the birds they torture and kill, how they run into the road and traumatise the people that run them over, how the little sods scratch you and dig their nasty claws in for no reason.