In our backyard, we don’t have to worry about it because our backyard is fenced, and the dogs keep a tight perimeter. However, out front I’ve recently been spooking cats hiding in the bushes beneath our bird feeders.
I hate putting my dog on a long lead(she gets tangled), but I’m thinking that putting her on a lead out front occasionally could help train the cats to avoid the area. Otherwise, I’m considering trapping them and dropping them off at animal control. Id rather not do this because our city’s animal control is overwhelmed with stray cats and dogs, and I don’t want to add to their workload.
So if anyone has an effective way they like to deter or harass cats and it’s ethical, please let me know!
Thanks.
Feral cats are usually pretty easy to distinguish. They’re often in poor condition; skinny, dull coats. They have outbreaks of cat flu when numbers build up, with gross mucus around their eyes, and they are mostly wildtype tabby. You know you have a problem when you start seeing them frequently stalking through the hedges and you start seeing the same cat causing trouble. They shit in the hay barns and cause toxoplasmosis-induced abortions in sheep and humans, not to mention the catastrophic impact on native birds. They need to be controlled. Taking every feral cat in to see if they are chipped is really not an option practically, financially or sensibly.
Even so, mistakes are possible, but if at any point they directly start attacking livestock, like chickens, it really doesn’t matter if they are a pet or not. That’s the outcome for any animal hassling livestock, including dogs, and it doesn’t matter a jot if they are someone’s pet.
Lots of things in that are untrue, but the OP is asking about free roaming cats, not feral cats.