Anyone know why my cat is doing this?

[FlopsyDoodle]

For about a week now my cat has been meeting his cat friend in my back garden when it gets dark. They stand about 4 foot apart, facing each other and start caterwauling. The only other time I’ve heard my cat do this was when he fell off the roof and hurt his paw but he’s definitely not hurt. Him and his mate are both neutered males, they don’t seem to be being aggressive towards each other - no tail swishing, hissing or fluffed up backs/ tails. They just stand opposite each other and scream until I go and carry him in, still screaming. Then, once he’s inside, he stops and just goes about his normal business.

I’m more concerned about the noise as we live in a built up area with lots of families with young kids and the cats are just ridiculously loud. I’ve tried keeping him in but then his cat friend kept bashing the cat flap and screaming through that instead.

Because he can.
Because he wants to.
Just because

Perhaps he's making an effort to defend his territory, knowing you will turn up and rescue him if he's loud enough. Could you get a motion activated sprinkler to deter his friend and break the cycle?

Oh dear. Because cats are weird. HTH

I don't think this is a friend. It's territorial, don't remove you cat, scare the 'friend' off your cat's territory instead, either hiss at him or spray him with water.

When you remove your cat, the other one has won access and is probably trying for further rights when scratching the cat flap. (They mark with the scent on the paws too). If your cat gets to feel insecure about his territory, worst case he may start marking indoors (speaking from experience).

Be glad they are socially distancing!!

Agree with giant
They aren’t friends and your cat is probably quite anxious about the imposter in his territory.

Thanks, I hadn’t considered they might not be friends. The other cat is a lot bigger than mine but they always wander off together when mine goes out and I quite often catch them sleeping next to each other in the garden. Maybe they’ve had a falling out over something.

I’ll chase the other off tonight and see what happens. I thought they might be forming a choir or something.

Obviously don’t click the link on the post above mine. I’ve reported it as spam.

Thanks, I hadn’t considered they might not be friends. The other cat is a lot bigger than mine but they always wander off together when mine goes out and I quite often catch them sleeping next to each other in the garden. Maybe they’ve had a falling out over something

You’re attributing human friendship qualities to cats.

Cats are very territorial. Even if they appear to be what we’d call “friends” (usually it’s a mutual benefit thing like warmth, or defence, rather than the human definition of enjoying each others company), they still need their own territory.

So the cats may tolerate each other for whatever reason, then it’s piss off back to your own place now, this territory is mine.

Cats are odd beasts. Ours (neutered male) will start fights with a lot of cats-males neutered or not. However, there is one particular cat (unneutered) with the loudest meow ever he doesn't fight.They kind of get on/tolerate each other then occasionally if ours has had enough gives him a gentle slap and off he goes. Weird.