There is a cat (not sure if he’s a stray or a neighborhood pet) who keeps coming in my fenced yard, I guess to stalk squirrels and birds. I think he’s the reason all my birds disappeared. Anyway, he also drives my dogs nuts, and one of them just had ACL surgery and is supposed to be quiet…not dragging me to the fence to get the cat! I’m also afraid that my dogs will get the cat one day… So, any ideas on how to keep him from coming in my yard?
That’s a tough one. Motion activated sprinklers might work, but that’s probably expensive and wouldn’t work so well in the cold.
An indoor/outdoor cat of your own? Cats don’t come in my yard solely because of my big Coon Cat, he defends his territory pretty aggressively. Although your cat would likely go after the birds too.
What kind of fence? Maybe a hot wire around the top?
My boyfriend has this problem, except it’s not just one cat… but about 20 semi-feral cats (his neighbor is a Cat Lady, unfortunately).
He’s trying mothballs at the moment. Lots of mothballs, put around the fenceline and under the house and anywhere else the cats get into. He’s had some success at least keeping the /number/ of cats in his yard down, although he hasn’t routed them completely (which might be impossible, given the amount of them).
If you don’t want to scatter mothballs freely (they are toxic to other animals if eaten/licked), you can do what he did to protect my dog from them… take glass pasta sauce jars, punch lots of holes in the top, and fill full of mothballs… set them everywhere.
We also took to defending the yard with a squirt gun. Every time we spotted a feral cat, we gave it a good blast. For extra omph, add a little bit of lemon juice. Really deters them then.
Good luck!
I’d give the cat neighbor a warning that you are not responsible if your dogs harm or kill her cat(s) which she allows to roam loose. Then let your dogs chase the cats away. They’ll learn soon enough not to come near your yard.
A nice pellet rifle is one possible solution.
or,
Get a Hav-a-Hart trap to capture the cat. Take it a long way away to a pound where the owners wouldn’t look.
For more fun…use the trap and cover the cat in skunk musk and send him back home. Seems only fair the owners should enjoy their cat’s wandering as much as you do.
Thanks, y’all
My fence is a 6-foot wood “shadow box” fence. So the cat just climbs up it like a tree. I’m not sure if it’s a stray or belongs to someone. I haven’t seen a collar on it, but it looks chubby and clean, so it could be a pet. And it’s certainly not afraid of people. It will actually just sit on top of the fence and stare down at my dogs, so I had to nudge it off the top of the fence twice. Point is, it didn’t try to run from me. There used to be a big yellow cat that would come in my yard, and one day the neighbor’s Jack Russell got it. The cat eventually got away, but I’ll never forget the sound that cat made when the dog had it. So if my dogs did happen to catch it, I would feel horrible.
I was thinking of keeping my water hose handy and trying to spray the cat when I see it in the yard. I was also thinking of putting a hot wire up on the top, but that seems like a project… Might also try to put moth balls along the top horizontal board in the fence. That way my dogs couldn’t get to them but maybe the smell would deter the cat from scaling the fence.
Water hose is a good idea.
I dont know if a double sided sticky tape would make the top of your fence a less attractive perching spot. Or that sticky stuff people use to keep birds from nesting in a barn.
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Might also try to put moth balls along the top horizontal board in the fence. That way my dogs couldn’t get to them but maybe the smell would deter the cat from scaling the fence.[/QUOTE]
I really like the idea of putting the mothballs inside a safe container like the glass jars. I would imagine that mothballs placed along the top rail (even if it’s four inches wide) of a fence would get knocked down from vibration as the dogs bump the fence, the wind blowing, the cats’ paws, squirrels, etc. And they get smaller as the chemicals evaporate, so smaller pieces might fall more easily.
But I think some form of water pistol (if you can be consistent enough about catching the cats, unlikely as they tend to roam at night) or automatic sprinkler is your best bet.
