Neighbour stealing my cat and I think I need a tracker

[Theobaldsmum]

I live in a quiet suburban street in North London where all the houses have big gardens and my cats have always roamed freely with no collars. I am worried about the risk to my cats with a collar, but now it seems I need one or some sort of tracker as my cat is often gone for long periods of time and a few nights he has been gone all night. He is housewarm when he comes back in the morning which means he must be in someone’s house😡I am so annoyed I now have to put a collar on him and also potentially spend money on a tracker. Has anyone else had this issue? How did you handle it? I mean neighbours keeping your cat all night. I don’t know who they are by the way or I would have knocked.

I suggest you read the book Six Dinner Sid

I believe he is locked inside and cannot get out, as he always comes back same time in the morning and he is always very hungry and dying to use the litter tray.
I definitely do not live in a noisy house. No young children and I work from home.

I agree!

My cat has a few homes. I'd prefer she just had me but I respect her autonomy.

So you are ok with people taking your cat in? I would never do that. I sometimes have cats coming into my house through an open window and I put them outside again as they are not my cat.

I'm ok with it really. She comes back regularly, stays a few days, heads off again. They don't lock her in.

Why don’t you train your cat to come in before it gets dark? Our two knew that when I called, ( and even if I forgot) dusk was time to come in and have dinner and a cuddle in the knee.

I suppose if that’s her pattern you get used to it. I get worried as my boys routine is usually like clockwork. He always has his breakfast at 5 am in the morning so when he gets home at 8 am, I know this is when he was let out of a house somewhere and he is ravenous and desperate for the litter tray.

I had this issue with some neighbours with a previous cat, but then I knew who they were. He used to go and visit and they kept him in until midnight when they would put him outside. I had to sit up and wait for him as we don’t have a cat flap. I spoke to them soooo many times as he was also on medication and them keeping him in their house, meant he missed his meds. But apparently he was just so cute. He was, but he wasn’t theirs.

Must add these neighbours have since moved, so I know it’s not them.

It's not really about being okay with it, more that if you choose to let your cat out, you need to accept the lack of control that comes with that.

I know my cats all go elsewhere - they hunt over the road, go and visit the neighbours, sleep on their sofas or get played with by their children. Yes, it can be worrying when they don't come home, but that's a risk I take when I choose to let them out to wander.

The alternative would be to shut them indoors but one of them gets very stressed when he's trapped inside so it's not an option for us.

Is your cat recall trained? Maybe work on that and start bringing him in earlier with the promise of a treat or some tuna?

I do accept the risks with letting him out, but thought as I posted in litter tray I would get more responses which agreed with me about people not letting other peoples cat into their houses (I know they can sneak in ofc), I am referring to deliberately keeping other peoples cats in your house.

He has good recall usually and like I said he is like clockwork coming back for his meals.

As it is the Litter Tray you have had other cat owners and cat lovers point out that it is more likely your cat is being a typical cat (self centred bastard!) then being held hostage.

I don't see anyone saying they think it's okay for people to deliberately keep your cat in their house - what people are saying is that, realistically, you can't stop it happening unless you keep your cat contained on your own property. That doesn't mean it isn't shit and upsetting, though.

You just have to weigh up the pros and cons of him wandering, really. I know you say cat-proofing would be expensive but maybe it would be a worthwhile investment if this is your forever home and you're planning to get other cats in the future. It would stop the worry, at least.

Yep. And even if the cat is being held hostage, that's one of the risks of letting them off your property. That doesn't mean it's not horrible when they don't come home, of course, but the only way to guarantee it doesn't happen is keeping them contained somehow.

Your replies are getting more and more hyperbolic. If he was being ‘held hostage’ and starved denied being able to go to the toilet night after night after night, you’d think he’d might actually come home instead of going over there every single day and ‘allowing’ himself to be captured and abused. You have a free roaming animal, this is one of the consequential risks

I didn't realise you had a TC#2 !
Nature abhors a vacuum and all that 😄

I read that as Veg Diet Only, my cats would definitely leave home.

Veg? We're not bloody rabbits 🙀

I will pre fix by saying I do not live in North London so I am not talking about the OPs cat.

My neighbour's cat comes and sleeps with me in my bed every night. I only know when I wake up and there is a warm furry lump on or next to me. He comes in through my bedroom window or through the cat flap. Sometimes I wake up to see my cat at the bottom of the bed glaring at me and the interloper snuggled up next to me.

As a PP said cats chose their owners. I have done nothing to encourage the interloper. In fact the first time he slept in my bed I nearly had a panic attack because I thought he was a rat. 😂

@TrinityClover that reminds me of that post on Twitter years ago where someone's neighbour was selling their house, so they had a nosy on RightMove and their cat was asleep on the neighbours bed

Perhaps your cat doesn’t like the fact that you have other cats so it sometimes prefers to be somewhere else.
Unfortunately, while human children grow up and can eventually leave their families if they chose to do so, cats are seen as possessions and are forced to live with the humans who chose them, whether they want to or not.

As I have posted before, a friend's cat disappeared for several months. After a while she had to break it to her DD that the much loved cat was gone forever. They planted a lavender bush in the garden as a memorial.

5 months later DCat turned up, sleek and healthy, and lived very happily with then for another decade 😂

I think you have to (somehow!) find out which meighbour, either by knocking on doors, posting on FB groups etc or just wandering around in the small hours when it's quieter and calling him hoping you'll hear him replying.... Then, every time he's missing, you go round there and ask for him. Loudly and angrily. Say he's missing his meds and if he gets seriously ill then they'll get the bill, hope they're properly insured....

Olden days, even the postman knew who's cat was being fed by which neighbour, everyone was prepared to grass someone up over stealing someone's cat! Really. Personal experience.

I understand this. I’ve had cats for 25 years. Having said that we inadvertently stole our current cat. Was a tiny little cat with spindly back legs, no collar, a gunky eye and covered in fleas. Looked dirty and sad and like it was living rough. And was eating bread and seed from next doors bird feeder. I gave it some boiled chicken and asked neighbours and no one knew who it belonged to and I couldn’t leave it in that state. Took it vets, de flead it, popped a collar on. Three weeks later the neighbour three doors down knocked on and told me I’d stolen her cat. By this point the cat was thriving, no fleas, started to look a much more healthy weight (had been wormed too) and was very friendly. Neighbour didn’t want the cat back and said it was a vicious thing that would scratch and bite. Not my experience. Neighbour also had four other cats, clearly wasn’t looking after them properly. One of the other cats ‘moved out’ and started living with another neighbour - same story. Was underweight and covered in fleas until neighbour treated her.

I’ve derailed a bit, sorry, just wanted to say I’d never feed or encourage into my home a lovely cat (which I’m sure yours is). But sometimes cats will choose another home.

One of my cats, many years ago, was nicknamed the burglar as she started getting into a friends house via their bedroom window on an early evening. She didn’t move out, but she gave my friends a fright the first few times it happened.

@Grumpyoldpersonwithcats we also have four. We were being visited by two brothers who were terrorising oug two old ladies, eating their food, and shitting on our carpets. Luckily all cats have to be microchipped so we got a microchip catflap and the big boy problem is a problem no more.

We also got two brothers of our own, but at first they were just 12 week old kittens against a couple of well fed bruisers of 3 or4! Now ours are bruisers too. Seems to be stalemate.