My cat keeps gatecrashing other people's houses.

[MyGastIsFlabbered]

In the past 24 hours I've had 3 phone calls from people in my road saying that my cat had gone into their house. They were all fine about it & very taken with our cat but (short of shutting her in) is there any way to keep her from wandering?

She & my other cat get on fine, they have a cat flap so are never shut out & get lots of attention when they choose to be affectionate. We've only had her since last November & nothing has changed recently so I don't know why she's making out she's an abandoned waif or stray

Any tips?

None from me, I'm afraid. The Lodger used to do his daily round of the neighbourhood and chat up anybody - for anything, let alone a piece of chicken. He was a serious tart friendly cat.

Do you have her on a diet, perhaps?

My cat does this. We started off living in a flat and he sort of adopted the whole block as his own. - to the point where he would knock on my lovely elderly neighbours window to be let in! He'd have a snooze with her disabled husband and then demand to be let in to the foyer!

Luckily they all loved him.

We are in a new area now and i have advised our neighbours to get the hose out on our cat if he is causing a nuisance.

I'm pretty sure she's found a second home. She's barely about at the moment and this morning was desperate for the catflap to be unlocked so she could get out-normally she's pestering for breakfast before anything else.

She has a collar with my number on it so obviously isn't a stray.

There's nothing I can do is there, except hope she doesn't decide to leave altogether.

As she already wears a collar could you put a 'Don't Feed Me' notice on it as a start? (I think you can get them online and print them off to look official - maybe someone knows where from.)

Other than that - and trying to find out where she's going and talking to them - I don't think there's anything you can do. The particular trouble with second homes is that they feel gratified that the cat is patting their window but without the sense of responsibility that an owner would have so the cat is given lots of tasty 'human' food from the fridge. (Or even specially bought Dreamies.) It's no diet for the medium or long term but some of them will do it.