What to do now

[mightyminty]

Have inadvertently acquired a cat that doesn’t belong to me but spends most of his waking hours In my garden or in my house.

The main draw is my boy cat, they play together all the time I inside and out in the garden.

I do not encourage this stranger’s cat in any way.., although he will snaffle any food left out and available.

I love animals, so struggle to discourage contact, even though I know he had another family.

He belongs to someone else but hangs out with my boy all day as I WFH.

How do I discourage him to go home ... he doesn’t belong to me but has made himself quite at home! Help!

Do you know where he lives and could you let them know?
I'm no help, my house is overrun with Not My Cats that my cat brings home

@QueenPaw my first thought was of you, when I read the thread. Can't imagine why!

@QueenPaw blimey can’t imagine having more than one Not my cat. Maybe I should just stop stressing about it

I only have one 'not my cat' but he makes himself quite at home

Caught on camera last week

You could ask @grumpyoldmanwithcats for his advice on dealing with a visiting cat!

Ooops. Got the name wrong. It's @grumpyoldpersonwithcats.

@mightyminty I have around 7 my cat likes to bring black and white cats home
Although this is the original NMC and his best mate

And just had a motion detected signal and though but Col is asleep in front of me downstairs

Doesn't sound like he's causing you any actual trouble. As long as you don't feed him you can't be accused of poaching him. Let him hang out at yours.

@Oldraver @QueenPaw brilliant!!

Me "paw paws you need to go home!"
Paws 😴😴😴😴😴😴

Thanks all have stopped stressing now. He’s still a frequent visitor but we seem to be just on his rounds and he’ll stop with for a snooze or a play but he always goes home at night.

Worrying now if I ever have to reinstate my cat sitter for weekends away and have to earn her about my plus 1

• warn not earn

I’ve got the opposite problem! My cat seems to have at least 3 homes... we are hardly seeing her wish whoever has her would send her back to us!

How is your Not My Cat getting in? Can you put him outside, or is there a non chipped flap he can come through?

Pretty sure my cat is being let in by various neighbours as they don’t have cats themselves

I always wondered about the old style cat flaps

Surely you could get home and there'd be a whole bunch of cats there that were Not Your Cat?

One of my cats has many homes. Other cats tend not to visit us as we have a dog (he'd never harm a cat) but a big black and white one has been in a couple of times, seen the dog and scarpered.

My cat has tried to herd yet another black and white cat inside today. I swear he's playing Pokémon and has to "catch them ALL mama"

@minipie yes it’s an old style non chipped cat flap. I used to have 2 cats until last summer and never had this before, plus my resident cat usually chases off (v aggressively!) any strange cats in the garden so I don’t know how this NMC has managed to win him over 😆