Dog owner here Need cat related advice.

[moosemama]

I am fond of cats, although haven’t had one myself since I was a child (dh is allergic) and don’t know an awful lot about keeping them, so would appreciate advice from experienced cat people.

I have had dogs for 30+ years, the latest of which have been sighthounds, so it’s rare to see a cat in our back garden, they usually have more sense.

Our newest neighbours have a cat. A beautiful, friendly, sweet natured Garfield proportioned cat, which until a few weeks ago had never been in our back garden. They’ve lived here for a couple of years now, with no issues at all. He usually hangs around in the front gardens and for some reason seems determined to try and get in our front door at every opportunity! He’s even tried climbing in our front windows while our dogs were in the room - twice! We’re all very fond of him and he is a lovely cat.

We lost our youngest Lurcher a few weeks ago and since then I have noticed next door’s cat in the top of our garden a few times. We have a very long garden and he’s always right at the top fence, well away from the house.

This summer our neighbour the other side has had a family of Woodpigeons nesting in the ivy climbing up their house. They were a noisy bunch, waking us up at dawn every day, but it was lovely seeing the parents and two babies together and watching them grow up and we were grew very fond of them.

One by one they have all (parents and babies) ended up dead at the end of our garden, exactly where we’ve seen the cat. Each one had bite marks to the back of the neck and was then left. (This really freaks my dog out, as he’s terrified of dead things, even shop bought raw meat, as we found out when we tried and failed, to start raw feeding him.)

We also had a family of Magpies, that chose our garden to raise their babies in, I presume because it was cat free. They were hilarious, again REALLY noisy, but had us in stitches with their antics, the babies chasing each other with things like stolen pegs and plant labels, chucking seedling pots around etc. They were also a pain in the backside, hiding bits of bread and other food people had left out for them in our lawn, which led to our dogs becoming obsessed with snuffling for mouldy bread treats every time they went out there! At around the same time as the pigeons started being killed, the Magpie family suddenly stopped visiting and there is now only one parent left, whereas historically the parents have gone on to have a second brood and hung around together after the babies have left. I can’t help thinking they might have met a similar demise in someone else’s garden.

Cat owners garden is all slabs and astro-turf, no plants, nowhere for the cat to poo, etc and nowhere for wildlife. Ours is the same size, but with a sort of wildflower section at the end and a long lawn, plus a couple of small fruit trees, so attracts birds - and a hedgehog.

I understand that it’s nature and there’s probably not a lot we can do about it, but I was wondering if anyone has any ideas about how we can discourage the cat from coming in our garden. Our remaining Lurcher is old and arthritic, so no threat to the cat, as there’s no way he’d catch it, but our garden has always been a haven for birds and is now completely bird free and we will be getting another dog at some point. I did use coffee grounds to discourage him from toileting in our front garden border when he first moved in and that seemed to work, so I put some across the back fence at the top of the back garden as well, but as he’s not toileting there it hasn’t helped.

We haven’t said anything to the neighbours, as there’s not much they can do about it either.

I suspect you are going to tell me there’s nothing we can do, but thought I’d ask anyway, in case there is something I haven’t thought of.

TIA

You can catproof the garden. It can be diy or professionally done.

www.petforums.co.uk/threads/cheap-diy-ways-to-cat-proof-garden.502581/

I’ve heard that lion poo can be purchased and does the trick. No idea if this is true. But based on the “it’s a bigger predator in the area so avoid it” theory, I can’t see why it wouldn’t work.

Thanks for replying.

I did look into cat proofing and had even worked out a way to do it but I’m not sure it’s a good idea.. I know other sighthound people who have said it’s a bad idea, because if a cat does manage to get in, they can’t get out again quickly if they need to.

I might buy some of the lion poo and give it a try. Can’t do any harm - as long as the dog doesn’t eat it or something!

Please don’t hold me accountable if it turns out to be the best smell ever for dogs to roll in. The memories of travelling with fox poo covered dogs is still all to fresh!

Ha! No, I won’t blame you if he ends up covered in the stuff. It’s unlikely, I hope, as he’s never alone in the garden.

Urgh! Fox poo. I never knew there was such an obscure use for tomato ketchup - till we got a ‘roller’. [green]

Doh!

Ask the owners to put a collar and bell on the cat to alert wildlife; get a super soaker spray gun and spray water over the cat when you see it; perhaps try one of those ultra sonic deterrent things? Although I don't know what affect that will have on the dog and other wildlife, nor if they even work...

Not keen on using a super soaker. He is a lovely cat and I don’t want to frighten him, just deter him if possible. I did wonder if the old fashioned idea of a rattle can to shake if we see him in the garden might work. Unfortunately, he’s killing the birds either early morning or late at night when we aren’t out there and he’s clever enough to know when we’re not around, so I don’t think that would work.

I’ve read up about the ultra sonic deterrents. From the reviews I’ve seen they don’t appear to work.

Dh is going to mention it to the neighbour when he next bumps into him on the drive, not complain, just mention it. The cat doesn’t wear a collar, so I doubt he will think a bell is an option. I know some people don’t like using collars on cats, as they can cause injuries if they get snagged on twigs etc.

Ideally it would be good if he could cat proof his side of the fence between our houses, as I think that would probably be enough to stop him coming in, but he’s very house/garden proud, so I doubt he would do it. Conversely, I wouldn’t want to put angle topped fencing on our side and end up with the cat stuck in our garden unable to jump out.

I can never get a collar to stay on my cats either, so it is tricky.
A water spray wont hurt him, you could even hide out the way so he doesn't know it's you?!
Or could you approach the problem from the other end - putting in wire mesh & chicken wire across the ivy, and bird boxes in less accessible places, to keep the birds safe?
Won't help with the bigger birds, but our little garden species will be safer.

If he’s able to take out magpies I’d leave well alone, a cat like that has serious capabilities.

Ihaventgottimeforthis Unfortunately, the nests are in our other neighbour’s garden, not mine, so we can’t do anything about them. I do know she is planning to have her garden cleared sometime soon though, so maybe we won’t have any baby birds next year anyway.

Fluffycloudland77 That’s the odd thing. At first we didn’t think it could be him, because he is such a great big pudding of a cat, I can’t imagine him being stealthy enough to sneak up and outwit a magpie - perhaps a fat woodpigeon, but not a magpie.

We do have a local feral cat, but he hasn’t been around our house since pudding cat moved in and appears to have moved across the road. I haven’t seen him on our side of the road at all since pudding cat arrived and they had a couple of territory spats on our driveway. Feral cat is very old (he was here when we moved in 17 years ago) skinny, arthritic and I suspect has a touch of dementia (if cats even get that) as he seems to have forgotten he used to hate people and now actively seeks out attention and fuss, but I still see him with mice/voles etc fairly regularly. (He is also fed by and has a couple of outdoor cat houses at one or two people’s houses on the street.) Pudding cat on the other hand has been seen in the exact spot we keep finding the bird bodies a several times over the last few weeks, the first time being the day before the first bird ended up dead.

Anyway, thank you all for your thoughts. I didn’t think it was likely we could do much. It was so much easier when feral cat was going for the baby birds in the hedge outside my front room window a few years ago. All I had to do was open the window or shout ‘Oi!’ and he’d leg it. Unfortunately this situation seems to be out of our control.

You could try citrus peel and citrus smelling plants. Or cds hung just off the ground at cat vision height. I still favour lion poo from London zoo etc 🤗

We are going to have to speak to the neighbour and ask him to keep his cat in at dusk and dawn.

This morning we have an adult female blackbird with a really nasty wound. I am just about to take it to the vets.

I use orange peel. I say it as a cat owner who has other cats use my veg plot as a toilet. A couple of weeks of relentless orange peel on the soil encourages fat tabby cat to move on.

I know it’s him, I’ve seen him slinking down our drive in the dead of night.

Thank you. I will buy some oranges and give it a go. We need to do something at this point. Just need to check if orange peel is safe if a dog snaffles some first. I wonder if citrus essential oils around the boundary would work? Might have a google and see.

Mrs Blackbird had a nasty head injury, but was still conscious and alert when I got her to our vets. Hoping she will be ok.

How unfortunate that the cat's owners do not seem to have considered the cat's needs in their own garden (not just talking about poos here, who the hell astro turfs their garden when they have a cat (hate the stuff anyway!!).

There has been a bit of a development in the case of the mysterious bird killer. Ds2 and I have just come back from walking the dog in the park behind our house where, not far from our back garden, we saw a Sparrowhawk attacking a pigeon. It was on it’s back attacking it’s head and neck. So now I’m wondering if that might be the culprit and I have been needlessly slandering the local cats!

Another development is that dh left a camping chair out overnight and in the morning it was absolutely full of white cat fur. Pudding cat is black and the feral cat is ginger. We’ve not seen any white or mostly white cats about during the day, so it seems we have another nocturnal feline visitor to the garden that we weren’t aware of.

Anyway, we haven’t had any more injured or dead birds since Mrs Blackbird, who apparently, after treatment, was collected from the vets by a a wildlife sanctuary, so I’m hopeful will have recovered and been released by now.

Oooo it’s like midsomer murders🤣

Seriously though I wonder if someone would lend you a motion sensor or wildlife camera?? Intrigued to know who your white visitor is! The sparrow hawk is a brilliant find (not for the birds 😱)

I second trying to get a camera. How cool if there was a sparrowhawk loitering in your garden.

Our garden is cat proofed. Do it, OP, for the sake of the birds.

I have to admit, ds and I were very excited. It’s a bit odd that they’re in and around the park (which is essentially a big open field) and our garden when we we have open fields at both ends of our road though. This one was right in front of us, wrestling a fat woodpigeon in the middle of the day with quite a few people about. I had to google to find out what type of bird of prey it was.

I might get ds2 looking at some camera’s. He’s the digital/tech savvy one in our house.

@LastGoldenDaysOfSummer - how have you cat proofed to keep them out, without risking them getting trapped in your garden if they do manage to bypass the fortifications? I have heard too many stories from other sighthound owners of cats being trapped when they’ve let their dogs out to risk it without being sure.