To be cross about neighbours cat in my HOUSE

lilygran that really made me laugh.

I`m a great cat lover as well, couldn`t hurt them for the world.

Free range chickens (I mean really free range, not confined in an outdoor run) are a good cat deterrent. Now that we no longer have chickens, the neighbours cat visits the garden much more boldy. Before it used to just sit at the perimeter and watch.

Cat's are pretty, I'll grant. I can understand why some people wish to keep them as pets. But having an unwelcome animal in one's house uninvited not nice. Would you cat lovers like it if next doors jack russell came into your house and ran around hysterically or went to sleep on your bed?
You thought that was a funny story petallus ? I can't understand why. Would it have been funny if the invading animal had been a neighbour's dog attacking someone's foot in their own house? I think it would be a very frightening way to wake up.

We have 2 black cats ( I hire hem at Hallloween) lol..they are left overs form when my daughter moved and they don't allwow them where she lives at the mo. I do like cats.but!! I don't and woudnt want any Tom Dick or Harry waltzing in through my house or cat flap.as we did few yrs ago...we had a Tom cat some how getting in the house at night and "spraying " all over the furniture!! yak!!! it stank!! my DH and DD said I was "imagining "it!! until I sat up in the dark one noght to see! the culprit and fathomed out how it ws getting in (our have magnetic collars) apparently the cat flap wasnt just weighted enough to shut it completely and it was left "unmagnetized" a couple of 2ps glued to the flap soon sorted it out...but nooo I do not want other peoples cats in my house . (have enough with these 2) and once these depart this world, they will be no more...

Granjura, if someone had harmed my cat, as your awful Staffordshire neighbour did to yours, I would have contacted the RSPCA.

Someone in Oregon has contracted bubonic plague by trying to stop his cat choking on a mouse.

Then it was all the fault of the mouse, Bags!

bags I have 4 free range chickens wnd three in a big run. Last week I went down to check foe eggs and there, sunning itself on a warm flagged area was a big black and white cat. The chickens ignored it. In fact I was more worried that it might attack the chickens than anything else. It shot over th hedge when I yelled at it.

JessM Of course you're not being unreasonable – and am a cat lover and owner of five cats. As far as I know, none of the cats I have owned over many years had the slightest interest in entering another house without an invitation. In fact, I had the opposite problem. A couple living in the house the back garden of which backed on to mine, used to call one of my cats to come to them, sometimes late at night. They called him by his name so they had no reason to believe he was a stray. He got very confused (the cat not the neighbour) and I got very cross.

I should go for the water pistol option if I were you although I have always found a good loud hiss tends to make strange cats turn tail and hop it.

I've had no cats come through the cat flap other than my own. Although....now I remember, a good few years ago there was one who used to sit in the garden with one of my earlier cats. He did come in one night - no doubt with the approval of Spider, and jumped up on top of the wardrobe knocking off some hat boxes (and a heavy shower of dust)! He had 6 toes on each foot. Didn't do any harm, other than reminding me that a duster might be required just now and again !

Yes, marelli, I realise it "was the rodent's fault". I posted the link just because it's an interesting illustration of the extremes having pets can lead to. Not that it always does. Thank for the . Here's one back .

They hate aerosols as well; I remember that from when I used to spray my cats with nuvantop [now banned, I believe ]. I'm not saying to spray the cat but just shaking one with intent used to make my cats disappear for ages. I think it's cleanliness that makes cats use other people garden, as they don't want to soil their own territory. I started to provide litter trays for mine to stop them using my neighbours garden [she was a cat lover and very tolerant of mine]. However, it's only since I stopped having cats that I realised just how much mess they create. My last cat, a silver tabby, used to leave a trail of white hair everywhere she went, and another one always jumped onto the kitchen cupboards straight after using his tray [he used to look me in the eye just before he did it; thought it was a huge game]. I love having birds in my garden now but a couple of days ago the biggest fluffiest tabby cat was sitting on my fence [we don't have many cats round here these days]. I almost wanted him to come and say hello. He looked like a Maine Coone or something. I might yet forgive him any hair shedding if he comes back.

marelli you obviously found out about the 6 toes by examining the imprints in the dust!

Nanadog - !! The bed is covered in 'sticky-willies' at the moment, because Daisy gets covered in them when she's out and about. She's white and long-haired - I could do with a pair of gauntlets for brushing them off her tummy!

My fluffy white cat sheds hair all over the house. The white rabbit leaves hair and sawdust around the place too but that's my fault because I have a habit of letting him into the house last thing to have a bit of company (rabbits are social animals).

It is true pets are a nuisance, expense and sometimes a health hazard; ditto children and houseplants.

Difficult to explain the satisfaction and pleasure that makes the inconvenience worth while to someone who doesn't like animals.

I believe there has been some research which shows pets are beneficial to ill people.

...I suppose worrying about my pets stops me worrying about other things....

It is true that people who are ill or have psychiatric problems do find pets therapeutic. My sister used to organise volunteers at a psychiatric hospital and an organisation called therapets used to bring animals in to meet the patients - the favourite apparently being a soppy Rottweiler.

petallus, I've always had cats, and couldn't imagine not having one in my life! All my cats have been 'rescues' and have given me so much love back.
crimson, don't you find that your pets seem to know when you're feeling a bit low?

One of my Lhasas is a Pets As Therapy dog. You should see the old faces light up when he bounds into the care home. Though I tried not to allow it I was fighting a losing battle as he was encourged to jump up onto laps to be cuddled and fussed. Luckily he doesn't eat tipbits or he'd be as fat as anything. Plus he doesn't shed.

Last week he made a beeline for one very frail old lady in particular. He was back and forward to her all afternoon. When we went in this morning I was told she had died the very next day. This was not normal behaviour for him and I wondered at the time....

Nanadog There was a tv programme about a dog in America, that visited a care home, and the staff always knew when someone was going to die because the dog always went to the person's room and stayed with them.

I think the programme established that it's either a certain smell or chemical that the body gives off and dogs can smell/sense it.

Dogs are wonderful animals aren't they?

I've heard of cats doing that, too.

I'd never be without a dig ella and yes, I don't think it's anything mystical but with their amazing sense of smell I'm sure it's chemical.

I can't comment on them sensing impending death, but the first time after DH died that my brother visited with his dog (who was very fond of him - or maybe fond of the bicuits he used to feed to her....) she headed straght to the downstairs room where his bed was when he died. She had not been in the house in the two weeks before his death while he was there, or for a week afterwards, and the bed had been returned to the council store. Then she searched all the rooms downstairs for him, and looked puzzled not to find him.

My father died in his sleep while staying overnight at his friend's house. Dad used to take his friend's old dog out for walks regularly, and when he was found that morning, Misty curled up beside him on the bed, not moving until the undertakers came to take Dad away.