AIBU - my neighbour's flower bed is my dog's toilet

[SevenWaystoLeave]

I routinely let my dog wander unsupervised around the neighbourhood and he's taken to going into my neighbour's garden, digging up their flower bed and taking a massive stinking dump there. It's his favourite spot to go. This has become a daily occurrence, but I can't stop him, he's an animal and needs his freedom, and I'm not going to clean up after him either because they can't technically prove it's my dog, and not someone else's free-roaming unsupervised dog.

...Yes this would be really fucking unreasonable wouldn't it and people would be quite rightly calling the authories on me and I'd get fined and a control order slapped on my dog. So why why why the ever living fuck is it considered okay and normal when cat owners do this?!? It's absolutely disgusting and I am so so sick of cleaning cat shit out my garden on a daily basis. AIBU?

@Pissyduck

OP, people keep making perfectly valid points which you keep ignoring and posting increasingly unhinged diatribes.

I would love to live in a world with no dogs, I dislike them in the same way you dislike cats, but I understand that some people like them so reign in my intolerance, and this is even after I literally had to MOVE HOUSE to get away from a neighbours horrible noisy dogs. I have to see dogs on a daily basis, dodge around off lead dogs constantly on the street I live as its a popular dog walking route, step in their shit. Dogs are absolutely foul, but I don't go on mental rants at dog owners as an entire group because Im not a twat.

What perfectly valid points are people making? All I'm seeing is people saying they can't possibly control their pets and I have to put up with it, which is not valid at all, and would be considered obvious bullshit if we were talking about any other kind of animal.

I understand and sympathise if you've been subjected to irresponsible dog owners however the difference is no one reasonable would disagree that they are irresponsible - and there are legal avenues open to you to deal with a problem dog. I'm not saying the system always works perfectly but there is a system. Problem cats, we just have to put up with and their owners refuse to even see it as a problem.

@SevenWaystoLeave

Your dog is bad for the environment, so unless your dog is shitting in your house and fed a vegan diet, you are very hypocritical. Also I hope you realise that your shit contaminates other species around you, so stop making out your shit shines!

My point is, where do you expect all the cats to go lol? They exist on planet earth as a species. If people ceased to own them as pets what would happen to them? You don't need to like them but don't expect them to disappear

What? I've never said I want cats to cease existing or for people to stop owning them as pets. I just think the people who do own them should look after them properly.

FTR I don't even dislike cats, it's the entitled owners I have a problem with.

I don’t get people thinking the OP is posting wrongly here. Even if you don’t care what your cat does surely you can understand people don’t like finding cat shit and ruined plants/ veg in their gardens that they try hard to keep nice or that their children play in / they garden in.

As I said I was gardening when pregnant when I unearthed a load of cat shit in my flower bed. This caused me a great deal of stress. I also then had to throw out all my veg as I couldn’t risk it when the neighbours cat had shit in it all.

The op herself was immunocompromised and couldn’t feel safe in her own privately owned garden.

Yet cat owners here are just sneering and laughing - it says alot about you posters that you can’t even emphasise with something like that.

[quote Lady089]@SevenWaystoLeave

Your dog is bad for the environment, so unless your dog is shitting in your house and fed a vegan diet, you are very hypocritical. Also I hope you realise that your shit contaminates other species around you, so stop making out your shit shines![/quote]
I have no doubt my shit doesn't shine, luckily I don't deposit it in my neighbour's garden, nor do I allow my dog to.

To be fair, the OP is posting in such a batshit way, mocking and laughing is the absolutely only sensible response.

In seriousness, pp have suggested things, explained how they contain their cats etc, but the OP has poo-pooed every idea.

@NobleYeats1

I don’t get people thinking the OP is posting wrongly here. Even if you don’t care what your cat does surely you can understand people don’t like finding cat shit and ruined plants/ veg in their gardens that they try hard to keep nice or that their children play in / they garden in.

As I said I was gardening when pregnant when I unearthed a load of cat shit in my flower bed. This caused me a great deal of stress. I also then had to throw out all my veg as I couldn’t risk it when the neighbours cat had shit in it all.

The op herself was immunocompromised and couldn’t feel safe in her own privately owned garden.

Yet cat owners here are just sneering and laughing - it says alot about you posters that you can’t even emphasise with something like that.

Thank you.

My previous cat who passed away last year liked to go outside. Despite the fact we had two large litter boxes that were always emptied quickly and it was good quality litter, she always went outside. We had a big garden and she ruined a bunch of new turf we had laid down. When she got to 16 we fenced in the back garden to keep her off the road.

If someone came to us and said she was using their garden, I'd apologise and tell them it wasn't for lack of in house facilities, but offer to buy deterrents for them, like the cat eye things, the rocks, spray, etc. Won't cost much, but hopefully resolve it.

@7eleven

To be fair, the OP is posting in such a batshit way, mocking and laughing is the absolutely only sensible response.

In seriousness, pp have suggested things, explained how they contain their cats etc, but the OP has poo-pooed every idea.

I haven't poo-pood any ideas, except the suggestion I spend several hundred pounds on new fencing. As I've said repeatedly I do most of the suggestions on this thread already. I haven't poo-pood them, but fact is none of them work 100% and the problem still exists. The people who do contain their cats, I have no problem with, I've been saying all along this is what people should be doing, so they're doing it right as far as I'm concerned.

I honestly feel like I'm in bizarro world where "people should not let their pets shit in other people's gardens" is somehow considered a batshit or irrational opinion, so implausible that I must be trolling.

Look, sorry of course no one wants to be cleaning cat shit out of a flower bed but this is absolutely never going to change. You need to find a way to deal with it or let it go or it won’t be cat shit that kills you, it will be stress. People are never going to keep cats indoors or in a fenced in cage. Cats have been on the earth longer than us and have their place in society, the same as we do. It’s not about a contest between cats and dogs, just a balance living with neighbours and their pets. If this is the worst they do I think you need to live with it.

@Underfrighter

I dont get some of the arguments cat owners use.

'Wild animals shit in your garden'. Well they do, but not as much as cats do, and they are not being actively encouraged to do so by people. If I had a neighbour who fed a wild fox daily and it went to the toilet in my garden daily I'd be pretty pissed off.

'Cats are free to roam, they are wild animals'. Yes they are but don't then get the hump when other people feed your cat or 'steal' it by letting it in their house when it wants to get in, or they treat it like a wild animal and leave it at the side of the road when it gets knocked over by a car.

Lots of people want them to be treated as pets when it suits them but wild / free when it suits them, and I don't think they should have it both ways

I completely agree with this. Wild animals when it suits.

If they're wild animals, owning them as pets is cruel. They're not native and introducing them into the "wild" is to the detriment of the truly wild eco-system.

We had neighbourhood cats who would frequently shit on our lawn at our old house. I've seen it with my own eyes, so those claiming that all cats bury their poo are potentially cat owners who are enjoying the benefit of their own cats shitting all over their poor neighbours' gardens instead of their own.

Dog owners who bag the poo and leave the bags on the street are also dicks. This isn't a dogs vs. cats thing. This is just a taking responsibility for the pets you've chosen to own thing.

Wear a cat mask and poop on your neighbours flower bed. Maintain eye contact while you do it.

Possible solutions: motion-activated sprinklers, something that moves to give the cat as big a scare as possible, prickly plants such as holly bushes or just something with a lot of thorns around the boundary if they are jumping in over a fence.

Only solution that worked for us back when we had this problem (a while ago now): A very big dog that loathed cats and spent most of their time roaming in the (very secure, high-fenced) garden.

@Ohmnomnom

Wear a cat mask and poop on your neighbours flower bed. Maintain eye contact while you do it.

This is not the point. I have taken steps to cat-proof my garden. I have spent money and made effort to do so. This thread is not about what I can do to control other people's pets, it's about how fucking unreasonable it is that this has to be be my job and my money, because some dickhead people won't take any responsibility for their own pets which they choose to own then choose to let free-roam and cause an enormous fucking nuisance. I do not own a cat, therefore I should not have to be cleaning up cat shit, and I most certainly should not have to be spending money on equipment for a pet I don't own. With no other type of animal would this ever be considered reasonable.

Utter twaddle!!!

You don't want the cats to shit in your flowerbed. So make them shit somewhere else. Put down the deterrent and be done with it. The owners have no reason under law to pick up their cat's shit (unlike the laws that are there for dog owners) so until the law makes it illegal for them to leave it behind, they will let their beloved pet out to shit where it wants to.

Petition your local MP to bring in a law whereby cat owners who leave their pet's shit behind can be charged equally to a dog owner.

You CAN do something about it. You just decide not to.

I do own a (fairly) big dog. I don't actually want him to hurt a cat though, so if anything this adds to the worry as I feel I can't let him out without checking the garden first and keeping him supervised when he is out. He is a lurcher so is very fast and would chase and could catch a cat. Again, this is what grates on me - I make all this effort to keep cats out of my garden so they are not making a mess and are not at risk, but the actual owners of the cat, who you'd think ought to care about it more than I do, don't seem to care at all. Anyone who thinks IAMBU I have to ask - how on earth is it reasonable to make your pet your neighbour's problem?

My neighbour's cat not only shits in my flower beds, but kills birds and leaves the corpses for me to find. The little fucker killed a beautiful goldfinch the other day, I was really upset.

@LookItsMeAgain

This is not the point. I have taken steps to cat-proof my garden. I have spent money and made effort to do so. This thread is not about what I can do to control other people's pets, it's about how fucking unreasonable it is that this has to be be my job and my money, because some dickhead people won't take any responsibility for their own pets which they choose to own then choose to let free-roam and cause an enormous fucking nuisance. I do not own a cat, therefore I should not have to be cleaning up cat shit, and I most certainly should not have to be spending money on equipment for a pet I don't own. With no other type of animal would this ever be considered reasonable.

Utter twaddle!!!

You don't want the cats to shit in your flowerbed. So make them shit somewhere else. Put down the deterrent and be done with it. The owners have no reason under law to pick up their cat's shit (unlike the laws that are there for dog owners) so until the law makes it illegal for them to leave it behind, they will let their beloved pet out to shit where it wants to.

Petition your local MP to bring in a law whereby cat owners who leave their pet's shit behind can be charged equally to a dog owner.

You CAN do something about it. You just decide not to.

Or else, you know, people could just take some responsibility for the pets they choose to own.

@Ohmnomnom

Wear a cat mask and poop on your neighbours flower bed. Maintain eye contact while you do it.

Finally, a solution

I am a dog owner. You cant compare dogs to cats. YABU

I don’t think anybody would deny that finding any kind of poo in your garden is gross. My husband adores our cats, but still grumbles about it.

Undoubtedly, your OP and subsequent posts have not gone in your favour, due to their aggressive, ‘I’m not listening’ style. Let’s hope somebody has suggested something you haven’t tried yet. Repeatedly shouting that people should ‘control their cats’ isn’t going to help.

OP I’ve got 2 cats and I get your frustration. Our 2 are not house cats but they self restrict themselves / they don’t go out much and never leave our garden. They only ever use their litter tray. However - NDN has 5 cats which he basically just lets them get on with it. Sadly I know what my cats’ poo looks like so I know I have other cats, possibly NDNs, shitting on my grass and burning it. I just do a “poo patrol” every morning and scoop and bin as there is literally no point in complaining.

Anyway, that’s my last word on the subject. I don’t think you’re open to reason.

My cat looks like it needs the loo, so I just need to go and let it out…

@SevenWaystoLeave

I do own a (fairly) big dog. I don't actually want him to hurt a cat though, so if anything this adds to the worry as I feel I can't let him out without checking the garden first and keeping him supervised when he is out. He is a lurcher so is very fast and would chase and could catch a cat. Again, this is what grates on me - I make all this effort to keep cats out of my garden so they are not making a mess and are not at risk, but the actual owners of the cat, who you'd think ought to care about it more than I do, don't seem to care at all. Anyone who thinks IAMBU I have to ask - how on earth is it reasonable to make your pet your neighbour's problem?

I get that. I'll start by saying we never did and never would set our dog on a cat. We checked the garden before letting her out, if there was a cat present we'd point it out to her at the door with a very short lead so she'd bark and it would see her trying to get to it and run away, hoping it would remember the big dog and not come back! She was a pit bull type (not a banned breed) so would very possibly have caught a cat, but we figured we couldn't keep her indoors all the time just in case. She adored people but hated other animals, so we always had her on a lead and often muzzle when out, but we couldn't do that all the time in the garden. She didn't ever harm a cat so I think her scent may have put them off!