Cat owners

[bunsen_h]

[Poll #1854852]

By "cat owner" I mean to include any variation of "I am responsible for the care of a cat" such as "My cats own me!".

I anticipate another dispute with a neighbor whose cat has been coming onto my property and causing trouble.  I need to determine which neighbor before I can complain to the city.
 

Comments

[kattale.livejournal.com]

My answer would be:

* Allowed to run free unless the pet causes damage or inconvenience to a neighbour. I am a cat owner.

To my knowledge, cats are not allowed to run free in city limits, so you could ask the owner to restrain their pet or you will call animal control.

However, from a pet-owner point of view, training a cat to a harness is utterly traumatizing for an adult cat, and keeping a formerly-outdoor-cat indoors usually provokes peeing everywhere, scratching everything, and just is generally brutal. It's easy to train a kitten to being an indoor cat, but really hard to change habits already built, and often causes more property damage than would be caused by letting the cat roam free.

My suggestion is to ask the cat-owner to cover any costs of damage by the cat, or the cost of cat-proofing your yard. Often certain plants discourage cats from going in your gardens, or there are sprays or sound-barriers that can keep a cat away - something to consider. No, it shouldn't be your responsibility, but it's part of being in a neighbourhood community, just like lawns being mowed during naptime or kids crying at 7:00 a.m. Good relations with the neighbours mean you can usually work together to brainstorm problems.

Hope you work it out!

[henrytroup.livejournal.com]

One of the neighborhood cats that ran free seems to have come to a sad end this morning. I saw the said cat, alive, as I picked up the morning paper. Heading to work, I believe I saw the same washed-out ginger, dead on the other side of Munster Road.

[utsi.livejournal.com]

sorry to hear that you are having trouble with someone elses cat. unfortunately, i can only suggest spraying cat/dog deterent spray & see how that goes. i'm not a big fan of letting cats roam free, because of the various things that can happen. but i know that like some body parts, everyone has an opinion (whether it's right, wrong or justified...)