Evil Cat

[ChrisO]

Our cat's life is being made miserable by a horrible neighbouring cat.

OK London terraces aren't ideal for territorial creatures but all our cat wants to do is sit in her own garden. I took her out into the garden yesterday and even when I was holding her she was growling and squirming and as soon as put her down she hightailed it inside.

I don't know why the evil cat feels the need to annex our garden into whatever territory it thinks it owns.

Anyway I just want to get rid of it.

I caught it with a well aimed squirt from a Specialized water bottle this morning as it sat insolently on our shed roof.

But short of trapping it and leaving it somewhere (like the middle of the M25) can anyone suggest a more  grudgingly humane approach.

[Charlotte]

Paintball gun?

[border-rider]

Get a bigger cat - or move

The problem is that, as you say, they're territorial animals and unfortunately the boss of the area will exert his rights of violence on any other moggy in his patch.

Usually if you leave well alone an uneasy compromise develops (eventually), which involves the one cat doing whatever he wants and the other not getting in his way. That way they avoid constantly fighting, but to get there there must be fisticuffs.

You can deter the other cat all you like but it'll only come back when you aren't around if it thinks your garden is its territory.

[matthew]

Our cat knows that nextdoors garden is out of bounds , they feed the local avian population, as each time she went in she got a bucket of water thrown at her.

She learnt very quickly.

Matthew

[Jaded]

Pee round your garden. Preferably when the cat is watching.

[pcolbeck]

Get a good water pistol and squirt it every time you see it. Supersoakers are the heavy artillery of the water pistol world. Whether it will work or not depends on how stubborn the moggie is.

[Moloko]

Book a self-assertion course and a subscription to the local gym for your moggie.

[ChrisO]

I'm afraid no compromise is likely.

She's not a territorial cat really. There used to be another cat nearby who would come around and eventually they compromised in the sense that Daisy just let him walk around and even come inside. But this cat goes out of its way to terrorise her, even banging menacingly on the catflap.

Super-soaker might be the thing.

[PrettyBoyTim]

You could always get a small dog that would fit through the catflap.

[TimO]

I'm not sure that there is much you can do to help your cat fight back.  As others have said, spraying it with water will dissuade it to an extent, but ultimately it needs your cat to assert herself a bit more, and at least make the other cats life difficult enough that it stays out of the garden when she's around.

Talisker isn't terribly territorial, or inclined to fight other cats, but since he's been here, he has been guarding the back gate, which I think a number of the local cats had been using as a convenient shortcut from the front of the houses to the back gardens.  He's obviously had at least one aggressive fight, since he lost a bit of his ear, but generally these sort of fights don't result in much injury.

If you have any issues with the other cat coming into your house, you probably do want to try and stop that, since that could excessively stress your cat.  Either a conventional cat flap with a magnetic lock, or better an RF ID flap, such as the Pet Porte will stop that.