There is this cat that has started hanging out on our property. It has a collar, but no tag. It just sits there in my shrubberies, pooping and meowing at us. We have never given it food (it is a very healthy-looking, plump cat, so no accusations please), but it keeps coming back. This has been going on for a couple of months. It does not belong to any of the neighbors that we can find out.
How do I get this stupid cat to go away and quit hanging around?
I don’t know what it is about our property, but we seem to have a stray-cat-magnet or something…
Is it feral? If not, do you think you can fix it up at the vet and take it in? If you can’t, I suppose you could call a no-kill animal shelter to pick it up.
Oh, and I’d post “Found Cat” signs up, since you say it has a collar. Is the collar very tight? This could mean that it’s been without its owner for a while.
If you can catch it and it is nice, take it to a vet or shelter to get it into a new home. If it has a collar and is well-fed, one of your neighbors is lying to you. If it is mean, live trap it and take it to a shelter for disposal unless you know someone who needs a barn cat.
In answer to DarkSideoftheFloyd, feral cats don’t wear collars and meow at people. They are usually so afraid of people that they will run away when someone approaches. This cat obviously belonged to someone once. Also, someone is feeding it if it is still plump after a couple of months.
If the cat will let you, try attaching a note to its collar with your name and phone number. That way, whoever has been feeding it can call you, and you can discuss keeping the cat off your property.
If you do take the cat to a shelter, please look for a no-kill shelter. The Humane Society is usually OK. Most county-run animal shelters will kill cats after only a couple of days.
Nice. I sincerely hope you don’t move onto my planet anytime soon. If you shoot my cat, I’ll have some words with you. My 2 good buddies are family members.
You’re the redneck that shoots my family members? Forum rules forbid the documentation of your fate. I like my cats a lot better than I like you.
It’s a cat. Get over your shootin’ self. Let the cat do its thing and scoot away. We can talk after the episode and figure out how to handle the situation.
It belongs to one of your neighbors. It appears to be a rather nice cat, so please don’t do anything bad to it.
Print out a “is this your cat” and delilver one to each neighbor and post a few around. In it, ask them nicely to keep their cat out of your yard. Explain that if you get no reply, you’ll have to assume it’s a stray, and have the Pound pick it up.
Please do not just take it to the Pound without trying this 1st. Some Pounds kill cats withing 3 days. However, it is fair to take it in if- after a reasonable time- no one contacts you about the problem.
At your local pet store there will be a spray of stuff that cats don’t like. Try some of that in the areas it seems to like to hang out in.
Ooh, spray stuff, hm? I’ll try that if a squirter doesn’t work.
About the cat belonging to a neighbor: the little girl next door, who loves cats, told me when it first showed up that she didn’t recognize it. She knows every cat for a few blocks around. So that’s where that info came from. We’ve wondered if its family also lives in a corner house (as we do) and it’s lost or something, but it must be a really dumb cat if that’s the case…
I don’t really know if anyone is feeding it–maybe it’s catching mice in the empty lot next door or snitching out of other cats’ bowls. But it’s a very healthy-looking cat.
I don’t really want to take it to the pound (I’d probably have to take it in myself, I guess I’d borrow a cat-carrier from a neighbor), but I guess I might have to. I’ll put a notice around or something.
It obviously belongs to someone since it has a collar. Your best bet may be to take it to a shelter. If it’s lost, it may have a microchip (a lot of shelters do this now), and the shelter can find the owner that way. If it’s an outdoor cat, it’s obviously straying pretty far from it’s owners since you can’t find them among your neighbors.
Spraying it will make it go away, but if you’re not there to spray it every single time it’s there, then it won’t stay away. There are also products available at garden supply stores for keeping animals out of a garden, including cats. A large pet store may have something like this as well.
Still, I think your best bet is the shelter. Collared cats can easily get stuck on things outdoors and hurt or kill themselves. Taking it to the shelter will probably do both you AND the cat a favor.
stockton, go search the SDMB before you spout off like this. It’s been established in other threads that in some places it’s legal, and in other places it may not be so. The OP was soliciting advice, and whether you like it or not, you implications are definitely outside the bounds of GQ.
dangermom, if you like cats, just take them to a non-killing shelter as already suggested. If they have collars and owners, tough – they should be responsible owners. If it makes you feel better, check your state’s and municipality’s “animals at large” codes. If you don’t care about cats, just take them to animal control. If they kill the cat, it’s a guarantee that it will never come back.