What to do about local aggressive cat.

[Peonperfect]

My new neighbours have a cat. It hasn’t come into my garden yet thank goodness but it does a target me and my toddler every evening when we leave the house. I don’t seem to see it during the day but in the evening it sits on our front steps and displays quite aggressive body language and arches its back. If you try and shoo it away it comes at you. It has swiped at my toddler a few times and we’re now quite scared of leaving the house as we leave it always walks towards us and follows us away. It is entire and has gone after a few local dogs.

If it were a dog I could report it. Anyone got any ideas?

I don't think we are being dismissive @Shudacudawuda

@WiddlinDiddlin There's a difference between cats and dogs of the same size. Cats' jaws are not constructed the same, and their bite is nowhere near as powerful. A dog that size would be capable of causing considerably more immediate physical harm. My relative (aged about 10 at the time) had the tip of their finger bitten off by a small dog.

Ok, a dog half the size of a cat... the results on here would be the same.

A large tom cat is easily capable of doing serious injury with a very high risk of infection, to an adult, let alone a child.

At 15, I had my hand absolutely savaged by a tomcat at the vets I was working in - whilst their jaws are smaller, their teeth are also much sharper and like a dogs, designed for crunching through flesh and bone. I had to have several surgeries to remove crud and stitch back together some ligaments (sorted by the vet and their insurance) and two rounds of antibiotics for the infections.

Unlike a dog, each limb ends in multiple extremely sharp claws which are also capable of removing flesh and delivering infection.

Wasn't doing anything horrid to the cat either - I'd opened his cage to change the water dish, he exploded out of it and clamped to my hand with his full (considerable!) weight hanging off my flesh.

Having dealt with both dangerous dogs and cats, I would pick the dog any time even multiple times bigger than the cat. A cat that really wants to do damage IS dangerous.