Copyright Harrison Weir
KEEPING YOUR CAT SAFE IN ITS HOME. If local cats are coming in through your cat flap, they may be looking for food. So do not leave food down during your absence. Feed your own cats at set times and pick up any uneaten food. If the invading cat is an un-neutered male, ring your local Cats Protection, and see if you can help them cat and rehome him – make a generous donation too! You can now stop the neighbours cats coming indoors and terrorising your own in their own house. There is a cat flap that works off your own cat’s microchip. It is http://www.petporte.com. This should stop strange cats coming indoors and does not require a collar. I consider all collars potentially dangerous for free ranging cats. Protecting your cat from a neighbourhood bully is not easy. Claire Bessant of the Feline Advisory Bureau (helpline (01747 871872 9am-5pm weekdays) suggests "See if you can negotiate a time-sharing agreement with them, so that they keep their cat in for an hour, say, when you get home from work, so that you can let your cat out then." Close the cat flap at night anyway. It is preferable to keep cats in at night anyway -- most cats are killed on the road at night. Wildlife suffers at dawn and dusk from their hunting. If necessary, keep it closed all the time and let your cat in and out.
MAKING YOUR GARDEN SAFER FOR YOUR CAT. Set up a hose with a sprinkler in the and switch this on whenever you see unwanted cats in the garden, making sure this isn’t when your own cat is around. The secret is not to let the invading cat see you turn it on! That way he will think the garden is unsafe, even when you are not in it. If he sees you with the hose, he may realise that it is unsafe only when you are there. If cats continue to enter your home you may have to shut the cat flap and only let your own outside when you can bodyguard him. Otherwise poor frightened your cat may start spraying in the house. If necessary, block your cat’s view out from windows and French windows using cardboard and, if this works, then use Humbol Glass Etch spray. Staring is a method used by cats to intimidate others. Get Prickler anti-theft strips and put these down on walls or places where the other cat sits and stares. From www.screwfix.com or 0500 414141. Quite expensive and they need nailing or sticking to the surface. Using wire netting scumpled up might act as a cheaper deterrent on sitting places. There’s also a product called Bird Ban (www.petplanet.co.uk) 2 metres of prongs for putting on ledges. Not sure what healthy and safety would make of this. Might be a good idea to check. “Make your own cat some high up sitting places, like a shelf in the branches of a tree, where he can sit and look outward across the garden,” says Jon Bowen vet and behaviour counsellor of the Royal Veterinary College. “It is important that these are made facing away from the house, with the view into the house blocked, so that the bully cannot use them to stare in.” If you think the bully is spraying on the wall near your own cat flap, or on the garden door, then clean up thoroughly by scrubbing with biological washing liquid followed by surgical spirit. Place Prickler strips where the cat would stand to spray. Then put some plant pots or garden ornaments further back in the garden so that these get sprayed on rather than the house wall or door, thus keeping the bully’s scent marks further away from your cat’s core territory in the house. Prickler anti theft strips can also be used to make places where intruder cats lurk less comfortable, for example on the top of a wall or shed that overlooks the house. “It may also help to make a series of cat latrines round the edge of the garden,’ says Jon Bowen. “Dig a two foot deep hole, fill with one third gravel and then top up that last third with soft playground sand. You can flush away urine but you will have to pick up poo regularly.” Put your own cat’s poo there first to establish whose territory it is. DETERRING THE ENTERING CAT The most effective idea to stop an invading cats comes from D S of Blewbury. He suggests fixing a sensor alarm, which is put on, while the resident cat is kept in a different part of the house. For more detail see lower down this information sheet. If you don’t keep the resident cat well away from the alarmed cat flap, it could trigger the alarm. Then it may never use the flap again and it might refuse even to go into the room with the flap. So the alarm is used as a one-off to deter the invader, and switched off from then on. Another aid is to invest in a long distance water pistol and ambush the cat. Empty tin cans with pebbles can also be thrown from a window, not aimed directly at the invading animal, but nearby so as to scare him off with the noise. This method may not entirely stop an animal entering but it may insure that at least it doesn’t come into the garden while you are there to bodyguard your own cats.. A reader who had a deaf cat, rigged up a portable tape recorder to a motion switch attached to the flap, recorded a real din of people shoouting etc, and this deterred all invading cats! But this would only work with a deaf cat otherwise you risk giving your own cat a nervous breakdown. If the tom is coming in during the day, or both day and night, then get your cat a litter tray, get rid of the cat flap, let your cat in and out by yourself making sure you don’t leave it out too long. You will have to become your cat’s bodyguard. Secur-A-Cat garden cat proofing will cost around £1,000 to cat proof an average garden. It will stop cats coming in. More details from 01487 815909 or www.palacesforpets.com . The only disadvantage is that squirrels can eat through the netting, leaving a hole through which a determined cat can push through. So following the FAB instructions might be better if you have squirrels. There’s another possibility on www.PurrfectFence.com PVC drain piping on top of a wooden or chain link fence can be used to prevent escape – www.corporatevideo.com/klips/index.htm Metal fencing rom prpofiled steel painted like wood – www.colourfence.co.uk If doing it yourself, consult – Fencing your Garden on www.fabcats.org or send an s.a.e. and small donation for it to Feline Advisory Bureau, Taeselbury, High St, Tisbury, SP3 6LD. IF YOUR CAT IS THE BULLY If you are the owner of an invading cat, then give a water pistol to your neighbours and ask them to use it. Also, if your cat has not been neutered, get him fixed quickly. Neutered cats are less likely to be bullies. Finally, give this information sheet to your neighbours to help them take precautions such as not leaving food down and keeping the cat flap closed at night. It’s worth trying to be nice to your neighbour about this. Retired lecturer Peter Gray kidnapped his neighbour’s cat, Tiggy, and drove him six mils before letting him out into the countryside. First he put him in a cat box and phoned Liz McMahon to say he had him but she was out, so he dumped him. Then he tried to get him back by putting an advert into the local paper. He was angry because Tiggy kept being aggressive to his own cat, Monty’s Double . The RSPCA prosecuted him and magistrates ordered him to pay £100 compensation. (Daily Mail Sept 17 2005) Please forgive me for not coming up with a solution. I haven’t got one. I wish I had. Sometimes cats will work out their own timeshare with the local top cat using the best hunting times such as evening and early morning and the less assertive ones using mid-day (when the dominant one is taking a lunchtime nap). DISCLAIMER All normal safety precautions should be taken when dealing with animals. Whilst I make all reasonable efforts to ensure that the advice and information provided on this information sheet, letter or website is accurate, it does not constitute veterinary or expert behaviour advice. Because it is not based upon an analysis of your own personal circumstances, it may provide information, which is inappropriate for you and your animal. In addition the information and practice upon which it may be based may very well be subject to advance and change and despite my efforts the information may not always be up to date. For this reason the information on this website is no substitute for the advice of your own vet or pet behaviour counsellor based upon a full understanding of you and your animal’s individual circumstances. Accordingly, you are urged, if you do require advice upon which to place full reliance, to seek the assistance of a vet, a pet behaviour counsellor or some other suitably qualified professional person having the relevant expertise to assist you with your problem. As far as the liability of myself is concerned all implied warranties and conditions are excluded to the maximum extent permitted by law. Neither I, nor my suppliers or affiliates will be liable to you in contract, for negligence or otherwise in tort or otherwise for any indirect, consequential, special or incidental damage or loss arising from your use of this information nor for any information contained in it or omitted from it.