Thread: Durned Cats!

My neighbor has a beautiful fish pond in his back yard. He had issues with cats, water birds and raccoons. He found a motion detector set up that triggered two high volume water sprinklers, no more issue......Yes I walked into the target zone once by mistake as well....

If nothing/nobody else is going to walk in these beds, then anything pointy in the ground should do the trick.

Nice guy: stick toothpicks in the dirt.

Bad guy: take staples and bend them like this.

lol its amazing the ignorance in this thread towards cats .but i can solve your problem, pursue a manlier hobby !

Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

I've used cayenne pepper against squirrels, and it works pretty well. No harm to try it against cats, and it's probably cheaper than commercial cat repellents.

I, too, have had fantasies of sitting quietly on my porch with an air pistol, waiting . . .

Charles

Some years ago, before the anti-firearm fascists took hold, I had a little air rifle. We had a problem with dogs from next door, a shepherd and a pitbull, coming into our yard and going thorugh our rubbish bins. I finally got sick of them. I caught them one afternoon doing their usual and went and got my little slug-gun. By the time I got back they were happily trotting back down out driveway, so I shot the pitbull in the bollocks. Didn't know a dog that big could make a noise like that. He never came back into our yard.
My cat, a 6 pound (tops) female got sick of the shepherd so she took to him a few days later. Vanished right before my eyes and reappeared attached to the shepherd's face. Front claws in it's eyes, teeth in it's nose and hind claws gouging at it's throat. Poor dog never knew what hit it. He took off down the drive squealing. The neighbour though he'd been in a fight with some other dogs, took him to the vet and got him stitched up. He never came back into the yard again, either.
And I'm sure someone will chime in with a "well if it was MY dog it'd have blah blah blah". Don't bother. I saw that cat tear two dobermans to pieces after they were skitched onto my sister's little maltese mop-end terrier. My dad was threatened with legal action and vet bills she did so much damage to them.

Some near neighbours had 4 Siamese cats which my dogs didn't like too much, however one by one they used up their nine lives playing with the traffic. The downside was that it became apparent that they had been keeping the rodent population in check.
I'm no lover of cats, but I'm opposed to cruelty to any kind of animal.
I'll kill animals to eat, but the kill has to be as quick and clean as I can make it.

Originally Posted by eleblu05

lol its amazing the ignorance in this thread towards cats .but i can solve your problem, pursue a manlier hobby !

What's manlier than providing food for your family? Plus, when the rugrats are out "helping" me, I can shoot them with the hose. And I don't think I've seen any ignorance towards cats. Just a lot of people who recognize them for the malicious little devils most of them tend to be.

Originally Posted by cpcohen1945

I've used cayenne pepper against squirrels, and it works pretty well. No harm to try it against cats, and it's probably cheaper than commercial cat repellents.

I, too, have had fantasies of sitting quietly on my porch with an air pistol, waiting . . .

Charles

Skinning squirrels is fun. Plus they're good eating. I could see Cayenne accenting the flavor nicely.
Best thing to do is skin them, pull the guts out, remove the heads and throw the rest in the slow cooker. Toss in some onions, garlic, butter, salt, pepper, and anything else you want. Just cook 'em till they fall apart then you just pull the bones out. Or you can skip all the seasonings and just cook them, pull the bones out and fry up the pieces for squirrel nuggets.

I have/had a cat problem in my neighborhood. I sought the advise of our AC officer. She asked where I live and I told her. She laughed and said she couldn't be bothered and she didn't have the time to take care of the amount of cats in my neighborhood. It was apparently a known problem area, with one neighbor actually having a permanently affixed sign to a tree in his yard (wood with hand painted lettering) that stated "free kittens" that never came down. Well they would breed under our house and fight under house and give birth under our house etc. (I was constantly resetting my block vents because they would knock them out). I finally asked the AC officer what to do. She let me "borrow" a trap and told me to bait it with sardines. I asked what to do with them when I caught them? She said the city couldn't handle them all because they were barely keeping the lights on at the animal shelter and had to take donations for pet food even. Soooo I asked her point blank-"What do I do with these once I catch them"? She told me "get rid of them, I don't want to know how or where, but get rid of them". Hopefully you don't have the same problem with your local area as I did. Needless to say the problem is not so much a problem anymore. I also think it is much more cruel to feed strays and perpetuate the problem than a single .22LR into the ear canal of a feral cat. Killing is not inhumane, perpetuating their suffering is.

Originally Posted by EMC45

I have/had a cat problem in my neighborhood. I sought the advise of our AC officer. She asked where I live and I told her. She laughed and said she couldn't be bothered and she didn't have the time to take care of the amount of cats in my neighborhood. It was apparently a known problem area, with one neighbor actually having a permanently affixed sign to a tree in his yard (wood with hand painted lettering) that stated "free kittens" that never came down. Well they would breed under our house and fight under house and give birth under our house etc. (I was constantly resetting my block vents because they would knock them out). I finally asked the AC officer what to do. She let me "borrow" a trap and told me to bait it with sardines. I asked what to do with them when I caught them? She said the city couldn't handle them all because they were barely keeping the lights on at the animal shelter and had to take donations for pet food even. Soooo I asked her point blank-"What do I do with these once I catch them"? She told me "get rid of them, I don't want to know how or where, but get rid of them". Hopefully you don't have the same problem with your local area as I did. Needless to say the problem is not so much a problem anymore. I also think it is much more cruel to feed strays and perpetuate the problem than a single .22LR into the ear canal of a feral cat. Killing is not inhumane, perpetuating there suffering is.

If I knew for a fact that they were feral I'd be out buying one of those .22 air rifles that shoots at 1200fps to get rid of them.
On the downside, they charge $56 per ton to bring dead animals to the local landfill. It would take a lot of cats to get 2,000lbs of them.
(This is copied and pasted from the county landfill's page)
Dead Animals
$56/ton
Appointment Only, Monday-Friday 7-11am, Must call Landfill and fill out a small questionnaire

Irresponsible pet owners are the cause of the stray cat and dog populations, they are just trying to survive. There are other ways to take care of stray dogs cats without firing a 22LR into its ear canal. There are a lot of humane animal care groups in most cities who can be called out to bait and catch strays. They will try to rehabituate and adopt out those that are saveable, and at least give them the chance that their original owners did not.

moth balls or (get off my garden) spray repellent