to abduct the neighbourhood tom and get him "done"?

[trellism]

We have a perfectly affable ginger tom who likes to prowl around our garden and who has made friends with our two spayed cats.

However, he has decided that our front doorstep is one of his waypoints and piddles on it regularly, meaning the smell of tomcat wee percolates round the house. For a while we were unfairly accusing our cats, but I've caught the bugger in the act a couple of times now.

Would it be so terribly wrong to gain his trust and then whip him off to the Blue Cross to get him neutered? I know it might not help much with the piddling, but I also worry that he will get run over as he is constantly wandering the street looking for skirt.

I think he has an owner somewhere around as he looks well fed, but I doubt he's chipped - surely if you care enough to get a cat chipped, you'd also get him done?

[ClaireDeLoon]

purpleflower from 6 months but if he's a decent size and he's bothering other cast (e.g. if you got brother and sister kittens and he's sniffing around her in a naughty way) the vet will likely do it at say 5 months.

[ClaireDeLoon]

cast cats

[IotasCat]

My neutered tom is fiercely territorial and sprays everywhere. If a strange car parks in our street he sprays it

he was done when he was a kitten

[purpleflower]

Thank you, the same as a girl cat then. I might be getting a boy kitten very soon

My next door neighbour told me she had her male cat done at 8 weeks

[Longtalljosie]

They hit puberty at just past 6 months, so it's common to do it at 6.

But there is a movement for earlier neutering. My vet said six months though, so that's what we did.

Ask your vet what their policy is. If they say 5 months, I'd go with it. But eight weeks seems a little extreme.

[Stayingsunnygirl]

Could you put something on your doorstep to deter him, trellism? Cats dislike the smell of citrus, or my mum swears by dettol - she says she used it when housetraining our cats, and it put them off using the same spot again.

Or you could lurk in wait with the hose - a soaking or two, and he'd find somewhere else for his antisocial urinary proclivities.

[Liskey]

Spraying water at the ginger cat from across the road worked for us when he kept coming to serenade our female (done) cat at 4am. After a couple of times of shooting at him with a water gun he stopped and now if he starts we just have to open the window and he runs - water gun no longer required.

[melmog]

If there's a zoo or safari park anywhere near you, see if you can get some tiger or lion poo and spread it around a bit.

Failing that, squirting with water does work but you have to be there all the time.