Cats killed neighbours budgie!

[ethal80]

My nextdoor neighbour has a budgie whom he thinks the world of, he's a very tame bird and well trained.
Neighbour also has a dog flap installed...
I got a text early this morning asking if my cats were in. (I don't have a cat flap) I said that they'd been in all night, (which I thought they had) just been fed and let them out at 7am.
He told me his birdcage was open and budgie was gone...no windows open or no way of escape.
I helped search for the budgie...no luck. Later on today, I asked my son to brush our longhaired cat...he discovered blue feathers in his fur!! Unbeknown to me, my son had let him out and back in again at 4am this morning! He's killed the bird hasn't he? He's been known to go in the house as he gets along with the neighbours dog so isn't frightened.
Neighbour has been out thus morning, installed a motion camera, gone out and low and behold....my cat has again entered the property! He's sent me the footage of my cat at the cage today along with threatening messages to me and him saying that he's going to kill my f**King cats!
He's a big drinker and is out at the pub now with his brother and I just know that when they return, they're going to kick off. I'm so scared and feel sick at the thought of him harming my cats. I really think he's capable of it too as he hates cats anyway. I've got them both indoors now and filled the litter tray. Will try and keep them indoors until he's calmed down.
Sorry for the long post and thanks for reading if you've got this far but I just don't know what to do??

I've seen plenty of collar injuries, which is why none of cats wear collars and all stay on my property so I can keep them safe.

no such thing as a feral cat in the U.K., just poorly cared for pets

There are feral cats in the UK. What do you think that the descendants of abandoned pet cats are? There are cats living rough, living in colonies without human carers. These are ferals.

There are collars which break should the cat get caught. And it’s much more tormenting for an animal to be played with, mauled and killed.

Not an excuse.

They were pets at one point. They have been abandoned and badly cared for. The point still stands. They are not wild animals, they are abandoned by humans. They are also not that common in the U.K.. that’s a totally moot point.

I have yet to see a dog climb a fence by using its claws to grip the timber. I've seen cats do that.

The kitten of an abandoned cat is feral. The kitten of an abandoned cat has never been a pet.

And guessing you don’t care about the poster whose cat brought baby guinea pig heads to her house? Or the millions of animals that die every year because the cats are just playing?

Again, you’re choosing your cats right to roam and kill over every other animal that it might hurt or kill, and every other pet owner whose animal is at risk from that cat.

This isn’t about cats doing wrong, it’s what they do, it’s about owners not taking responsibility for their pets and not giving a shit about anything or anyone else except their right to have a free roaming cat.

Fair enough.

If that’s the best argument you can throw at me then fine, I relent. You have a few feral cats in the U.K. the chances of those cats climbing in through someone’s cat flap is tiny. It’ll be pets who do that because they’re raised to do it and have the confidence to do it. It doesn’t negate everything else in my post. Again, it’s an entirely moot point.

You're right that they don't climb in the way cats do, but they can still take a running jump and haul themselves over. I've seen it happen.

Which is what I did. The garden is cat proofed but I did it so my cat was safe, not out of any love for the local wildlife or the neighbours. Anything coming in was fair game, not that he was bothered, hunting was effort!

I have a cat proofed garden so I'm not choosing my cat's right to roam anywhere, I did it to protect him from arsehole cat haters 🙄

Sounds like my oldest - too lazy to hunt, he just sits under the sun loungers and hopes things will come to him

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia I've seen a determined greyhound jump a 6 foot fence, he bounced really high on his hind legs, front legs hooked over the fence then used his back legs to scramble up and over. How he never broke a limb I'll never know but his nickname was Houdini.

That sounds about right! We had him 15 years and I'm sure the very few things he did catch landed in his mouth when he was yawning! He did go through a stage of 'hunting' earthworms once though!

Sorry for the snippy comment about collars 💐

Fair enough, I take back what I said and apologise. It’s just frustrating that the majority of people don’t even take basic steps to care for other creatures and integrate their cats properly.

And if you’re suggesting I’m a cat hater, I’m not. But I am just so tired of cat owners not caring about the mess their cat makes. There’s so much cat shit in my garden I have to check it every time I go into it with my toddler to keep him safe. I have seen loads of dead and injured animals because of cats and to hear others on this thread blame a man whose lost his beloved pet over an owner -not the cat, the owner - behaving as though it’s nothing to do with them is really frustrating.

Dogs can easily use their dew claws for climbing! I’ve seen videos of them going up trees, definitely not my lazy girl though!

No need to apologise ❤

The yawning thing sounds about right though - I've even held mine up to flies in the past and he'll kind of swat a paw at them and then lean in for a cuddle instead, haha.

I feel your pain. We've got netting on the fences which means he could catch anything that landed or crawled in (he didn't) but I never did anything to encourage wildlife. Apart from bees, I try to be bee friendly.

No, I wasn't suggesting you were a cat hater and apologies that it came across that. The cat proofing was to stop arseholes getting him with a catapult as there was a spate of that here. He'd also lost most of his teeth so we also wanted to keep him safe from other cats. We kept it up when we died as it means the neighbours cats don't come in our garden!

@feelingalittlehorse but it's not fitted to ensure the safety of his other pet as it's a big standard 2-way flap which obviously is going to be used by any passing cat. It's not fit for it's intended purpose.
Also it is redundant to him cos his dog doesn't use it. It's being used by other people's pets.

Bog* standard!

Why should the man secure his bird in a cage in his own home? Hasn't it as much right to fly freely as the cat has to roam. This is not the neighbours fault. Why. Should the cat''s 'right to roam be more important than anyone else's rights?

@Notmetoo unfortunately the bird couldn't, because his owner the neighbour didn't offer it the freedom to roam safely by having a cat flap that any Tom dick and Harry in the neighbourhood could, and did, use. Which he knew.

But the OP also knew her cat uses other people’s catflaps. So she could and should have kept her cat on her own property to prevent it happening. Why should the OP’s decision to have a cat negatively impact her neighbour and his pets?

@BassoContinuo let's say the OP did somehow find a way to contain her own cat. How is she responsible for all the other cats in the neighbourhood? Who might have killed the bird (we don't know which cat, if any, killed the bird)

And if we take the view that OP was negligent in looking after her own pet, why does that mean it's ok for the neighbour to be negligent with his pets? Which he was. If I had a pet bird and a functioning cat flap, I would be completely STUPID not to upgrade the flap or seal it up. What would I think would happen?

I had the same problem in my old house, my two whippets caught one of the neighbour's cats and it had to be put to sleep, they were horrible to me afterwards but still didn't put up cat fencing... I'm a big animal lover so I cat proofed my own garden despite having no cats at the time and they were still awful to me, would always dramatically call their cats in while curtain twitching and waiting for me to let the dogs out in the garden despite the cat proof fencing I'd installed, one of their others was poisoned I presume (I saw it panting and foaming at the mouth and knocked on their door because they hadn't noticed) and they blamed my dogs for the second one to the whole neighbourhood, there wasn't a mark on that cat. Cat owners always find a way to blame someone else when something goes wrong.