I was happily working in my office yesterday while Mrs F was gardening, when she stormed upstairs saying a very rude adjective several times over in front of the word "cat". She is sick of one or more locally deciding that our garden is a much better feline lavatory than its own. Mrs F (who blames the owners) thinks there should be a law against it. Her current strategy is to place orange rind (not very tidy) and lemon juice in the potential targets.
Thursday 9 August 2007
Unwelcome guests
I was happily working in my office yesterday while Mrs F was gardening, when she stormed upstairs saying a very rude adjective several times over in front of the word "cat". She is sick of one or more locally deciding that our garden is a much better feline lavatory than its own. Mrs F (who blames the owners) thinks there should be a law against it. Her current strategy is to place orange rind (not very tidy) and lemon juice in the potential targets.
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West Highland Terrier available for hire. contact Florries Mum....
We have a high wall, rose bushes and a westie to keep the southgate cats at bay, BUT I am told by my neighbours that "tiger dung" works well, and can be dug into the garden afterwards.
Sweet looking cat seems a shame not to encourage it to think your garden is also its home, and it can do its business next door.
My friend Dorothy lives in Southgate Street and she has a plant in her garden which has a smell that cats hate. That might help Mrs F. I'll try and find out the name of the plant.
BB - it may look sweet but what it leaves in our garden isn't. Anyway, this is just a picture I found. We have hardly seen our mystery donor.
21CM - thanks, it would be useful to know. Incidentally, there are about 16 Dorothies (is that the pplural?)in Abbeygate.
On one of the BBC gardening pages there are several suggestions-including a product called Silent Roar, made from lion dung, or a plant called Pee-Off (honest)! I am also told that water-pistols work well, if used frequently in the cat's direction they soon learn to use another neighbour's garden.
ps thanks for the link to SID-request put in to-day.
FM - I would gladly use a water pistol (why bother with the water bit - tee hee) but it always happens at night.
I know what you mean Paul we have the same problem with our neighbour's cats. She has three cats and they like to use the neighbouring gardens.
It is very irritating that I always have to go out and clear the garden of cat mess before my two children can go out and play or else they end up covered in it. What is also aggravating is the horrible spray that they do everywhere that just smells so vile. The reason that we do not have pets is for that mess and yet we still have to clear up after animals.
We keep our grass very short and this has deterred the cats from using the lawn as a litter tray. I tried oranges but this failed. Our neighbour hasd a dog but this doesn't keep the cats either. My children have destroyed our plants so perhaps I ought to try tiger or lion dung - where on earth do you get that other than the zoo?
My sympathies Amanda. If you see it happening try a water pistol!
Our problem is nocturnal, but using the borders around the grass has temporarily stopped since Mrs F put some large pebbles on the ground. I suppose its an unpleasantly uneven surface which can't be pawed afterwards.
Paul - I've even found this post. I hadn't bothered with it up to now because I can't comprehend the word 'pets'. There are 'animals' in fields and 'people' in houses. That some 'people' keep 'animals' indoors is just too silly for words.
When Richard and Michael were little, they each had a pump-loaded water pistol. One day, I saw this cat in the garden so I quickly filled one of the pistols, pumped it up to maximum, then went outside and aimed a jet of water at the cat.
My aim was brilliant, except that the cat saw the water spray coming towards it and just moved out of the way. Silly me!
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