One of our cats wants to move in with the new neighbours. How to I remind him where his real home is?

[FamiliesShareGerms]

we have two cats, both coming up to 9 years old. They get on brilliantly. The slightly younger one is a real home bod, and never ventures very far, especially when people are around the house. The other one loves to roam, and is very friendly - he will stop and be stroked by anyone.

New neighbours moved in last week. Since then the older cat has basically moved in. He sits in their garden all the time. Even when it was pouring down, he sat under their table rather than come home. He's even stayed out overnight, which is very unusual. They have said that they don't let him come in the house, and have posted him back over the fence to our garden a couple of times. But he keeps going back!!

How do I remind him that this is where he lives??

Do not feed him before letting him out. An empty stomach keeps my cat close to the house so she is in earshot when I shout 'Din Dins'.

as long as they dont let him in or feed him he will give up eventually cos cats are mercenary when he realises there no reward there for him he should start coming back to yours, if you have a litter tray indoors keep him indoors for a few days just to break the cycle of him going straight to thier garden

Thanks. Need him to come back first before I can shut him in

Well, we thought everything was OK and our old fella remembered where he lived, but then we realised that the neighbours had gone away on holiday and as soon as they were back he started disappearing again. Then last night we found out that, despite their assurances otherwise, they have not only been feeding him but have bought him a new bowl and packets of Whiskas. So they are officially trying to steal our cat

Hopefully when the boy next door is back to school he won't encourage our cat over so much, and hopefully the parents will do as asked and not feed him (our cat, not the boy!!)

Anyone else dealt with such an overt cat stealing attempt?

Oh yes indeedy. There's been a long running saga on AIBU called Catgate. Here's the second instalment.

\link{http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1358674-Catgate\Catgate}

I thought it might be them feeding him and not being honest about it.

Oh no, that thread doesn't inspire much confidence that this will be resolved easily... The worst is that they don't seem to realise what they are doing ie stealing a much loved family pet. DH told me this morning that the reason he was so fuming last time he came back from collecting our cat wasn't just the food, but the fact that they "jokingly" said to give them adoption papers to sign so they could keep him... They don't know our daughter is adopted, so suppose they don't understand how hurtful that was, but even so - our cat is part of our family, we've had him longer than our children, no way arer we giving him away!

Cat is confined to the house for at least a week...

Well to be fair, that was rather an extreme situation. Hopefully this one can be resolved. I guess you start out with a further 'going round and talking about things nicely' bit.

Good luck to you and let us know how you get on.