Last week a gorgeous cat (no collar) appeared at our house, it’s still young looking and the type of cat that meows lots, we have three very small DC and they patted it - outside.
It then went away but kept coming back sporadically over the next few days so we thought it must have a home nearby. Slowly it started to spend more time here and four days on I found it on our couch, asleep. It was put outside and just stayed at our front door.
We have not fed the cat.
I thought I’d take it to get checked at the vets if it was still here over the next few days, (it’s an expensive breed of cat so surely they will have had it microchipped).
- But then the owners posted on a community page that they were missing their/this cat. They live approx half a mile away and across a busy road.
I said yes we have your cat/it’s around but haven’t seen it tonight.
They asked me to catch it and keep it inside if/when it shows up in the morning, so I did, at 6am and they came and collected the cat when they finally picked up their messages at 8am. They said they had been away for the weekend and that it normally just hangs around…
The issue is the cat keeps coming back here at 5:30am - now wearing a collar - and meowing outside our door. I’ve text the owners each time and we have since walked/carried the cat back to its home twice/three times each early morning - not ideal.
The owners have now told me to squirt/throw water on him to discourage him.
I don’t really want to do this, it feels mean and not something I want to do in front of my DC.
Is there anything else/any other way & how long will it take of us ignoring him, for him to get the picture? It’s a really really pitiful loud meow, it’s wearing me down/I feel bad for it so much that I almost want to just feed it so it’s quiet.
Any advice would be great.