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?

@ShirleyBadass

My neighbour frequently lets me know when my cat poos in her garden. However, having spent the last 5 years picking her cat poo out of mine, I don't feel she can really complain as we're quite even!

Just wish I could repay the favour to the dog walker who has taken to letting their dog poo on my front lawn every few days....

How can you tell which is which?

Our dog identifies as a cat and gets away with it.

@SevenWaystoLeave in theory but in practice so many dog owners can be massive nuisance and there's nothing people on the receiving end can do except just accept it and have a bit of tolérance.

Our old NDN had three noisy dogs. I have ptsd and find sudden loud noises hard to cope with. The neighbour had no interesting in quietening them down so there was naff all we could do about it. We ended up moving in the end, and I know other people who have had similar experiences of literally having to move house to get away from awful dogs.

If you can present me with anyone whoae ever moved to get away from the psychological trauma of cat turds then maybe I'd be able to see where your coming from

These threads always remind me of how entitled humans are, state how inconvenient cats are for shitting, whilst forgetting how much they inconvenience millions of animals on a daily basis by polluting waters and the habitats of wildlife with their shit and causing the decimation of the planet.
Seriously, wake up and stop painting yourselves as humans that do no wrong because we are far worse on a much larger scale. If only humans focused on the real issues, we wouldn’t be where we were now, so much outrage over something so small. Oh and if animals could talk I’m sure they’d let us know what a huge inconvenience we are to them.

Let’s reverse the ‘wild animals shit in your garden’ comment. Should this enable dogs to shit on the pavement and their owner not have to clean it up? If not why not? Wild animals shit on the pavement.

@yellowsuninthesky

as dog owners we're required by law to control them

yes, that's because dogs can kill people. You don't tend to hear stories about cats jumping up and killing a toddler or attacking them in the park.

Cat shit contains a parasite which can cause life-changing injuries and can be fatal. But yeah let's just leave that lying around the neighbourhood and in other people's gardens for their toddlers to encounter.

When I was having chemotherapy, gardening was one of the things that kept me sane, but I had to seriously consider whether I could risk continuing to do it because of the risk of encountering other people's pet's dangerous shit in my garden while immunocompromised. Cat owners, this is the kind of problem you inflict on your neighbours if you're letting your cats free-roam. Why the fuck should other people be having to deal with these problems because of you.

My neighbour has a dog who hates cats. The neighbourhood cats sit in the tree in the dog’s garden. I swear I’ve seen a middle feline finger raised, whilst the poor dog goes beserk because it can’t get them. It’s quite funny to watch.

But they get penalities for it - fines, control orders, in serious cases they can even get prosecuted and their dog taken away . Local councils employ a dog warden whose entire job it is to deal with free-roaming dogs and nuisance dog behaviour. I'm not saying irresponsible dog owners don't exist and aren't a problem, but they are at least recognised to be a problem by the law and the community in general, and there are things that can be done if a dog is causing a problem. Cats can cause all the nuisance in the world, but nope, you just have to put up with it, and YABU if you even complain.

Most dog owners get away with letting their dogs foul the streets.

@SevenWaystoLeave

What a ridiculous thing to say! Cats are hunters, that's what they do, they have a high prey drive. You can make any alterations you like to a garden but a cat will always find a way out. If the cat is an outdoor one, It's impossible to control where they poo.

This is such a ridiculous argument. Cats aren't unique in liking to wander and having a prey drive, so do dogs. But as dog owners we're required by law to control them, and if we don't, we face penalities and would quite rightly be recognised as anti-social and irresponsible. Dogs can escape gardens too, but as a dog owner it's my responsibility to make the fences escape-proof, no one would expect my neighbour to have to pay to modify their own fences to keep my dog out. But there's people on this thread suggesting I spend £500 for a cat-proof fence to control my neighbours' pet, and apparently I'm the unreasonable one!

And no, it isn't "impossible" to control where they poo, you just won't take responsibility for it by actually controlling and supervising them.

Not all dogs have prey drive and my dog goes off lead every day. We also don't have a gate or wall on my front and he goes out there and doesn't wander off.

I can't cat proof this garden and even if I could, I wouldn't as it wouldn't be fair on my cats who now have multiple homes they visit and places they roam to. It would do their nut in. Fair enough some can cope. But mine wouldn't. Maybe 1 of them, but that's only because he's old and he likes weeing and pooing under the bush in our front garden.

The whole fucking country is everyone's dog's toilet. You can't go for a walk without piles of festering dog crap.

YANBU

[quote IsraelAndRoo]@yellowsuninthesky yep - dogs aren't allowed to roam and must be under the owner's control. That means secure gardens when they are outside.[/quote]
Not at all. They need to be under control. Doesn't mean they need a secure garden or be on a lead all the time.

@TheLightSideOfTheMoon

Cats bury their poo.

Dogs just leave it on the pavement for you to step in…

That’s the difference.

The cats who come into my garden don't

Get a grip. The motion sensor is about £12 we have one and its a quick, easy fix.

Keeping cats indoors and walking on leads is not fair on the cats who do like to go outdoors. If you want to ban cats then I can get on board with that so long as dogs are banned too. Irresponsible dog owners are far worse.

@Organictangerine

Let’s reverse the ‘wild animals shit in your garden’ comment. Should this enable dogs to shit on the pavement and their owner not have to clean it up? If not why not? Wild animals shit on the pavement.

Do they though? Never seen wild animal shit on pavements. They tend to shit as cats do somewhere a bit secluded or protected so they aren't vunreable. Dogs don't have that problem.

Go to your local garden centre and get some deterrent:
www.diy.com/departments/defenders-pest-powder-500g/5036200126306_BQ.prd
www.therange.co.uk/garden/pest-control-and-weed-killer/animal-repellent/cat-and-dog-repellent-crystal-gel-450g/#8371408

Other brands are available.

Stop saying that you can't do anything about it. You can but you choose not to.

@SevenWaystoLeave

Toxoplasmosis is transferred to humans by Ingestion, so accidently transferring from hands to face/mouth. It isn't airborne. Gloves, not touching face and washing hands would protect you from catching it.

If cats are such superior animals, you'd think their owners would want to look after them a little better. Quite aside from the nuisance, a significant number of free-roaming cats end their lives under the wheels of a car.

Cat's don't have owners, don't be silly. They have servants

@7eleven

My neighbour has a dog who hates cats. The neighbourhood cats sit in the tree in the dog’s garden. I swear I’ve seen a middle feline finger raised, whilst the poor dog goes beserk because it can’t get them. It’s quite funny to watch.

Again, this is an example of how other people's cats negatively impact how someone can use their own garden - this poor dog is getting stressed out, its owners have to be mindful of its stress levels and the noise that it makes (and of course it's the dogs owners who'd be held responsible if the noise became a neighbourhood nuisance, not the cat's), so they can't just let their dog out to enjoy their own garden.

Meanwhile the cat is in danger because if the dog ever did get hold of it after being wound up so much it could get seriously hurt or killed. And of course the cat owner would say that's the dog owner's fault because god forbid they take any responsibility whatsoever for the safety of their own pet.

Truly hilarious.

I'm the exact opposite of OP. If I find cat poo in my garden, I view it as their contribution towards keeping the rats down, and I'm happy for it. It takes very little effort to dispose of the poo, and I actively plant catnip to encourage visitors.

Feel free to point any annoying felines in my direction. I have Dreamiest.

The dog is so fat, it ain’t gonna catch any cat. It’s getting exactly what it deserves for being a stupid, barky rat on a lead. So uncool.

@LookItsMeAgain

Go to your local garden centre and get some deterrent: www.diy.com/departments/defenders-pest-powder-500g/5036200126306_BQ.prd www.therange.co.uk/garden/pest-control-and-weed-killer/animal-repellent/cat-and-dog-repellent-crystal-gel-450g/#8371408

Other brands are available.

Stop saying that you can't do anything about it. You can but you choose not to.

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.

What do you suggest op? Should all cats be kept indoors just to protect your flower beds?

The entitlement of some people is crazy. There are many many things in life that annoy and inconvenience me but it's part of living in society. If you really hate cats and their owners so much why don't you move to the middle of nowhere where you can't be bothered by them? Then you'd get foxes shitting in your garden instead

OP seriously get a grip.

@MajorCarolDanvers

Cats are not the same as dogs - as an animal person how can you not know something as simple as this.

sigh youd think so wouldnt you , but i personally find people are a bit thick , its just common sense to buy some bark chip , put that down and buy a cat repellent alarm , but i guess its easier to start a moaning thread on mumsnet