shooting neighbor's cats in my backyard

[RunDownHouse]

[ QUOTE ]
Antifreeze is quite toxic and many animals like it.

[/ QUOTE ]
When I was talking to the guy who set out bowls of the stuff, he said it tasted sweet, on the level of simple syrup. A couple years later, I heard that the manufacturers tweaked the recipe so it would no longer taste good to animals. No idea which, if either, is true.

[ QUOTE ]
Cats pose the same problems as squirrels, chipmunks and other small mammels.

[/ QUOTE ]
You realize that all the animals you listed are potentially pests, right? When I lived with my folks I'd plink away at squirrels digging up plants, getting into bird feeders, and trying to use the house for a nest. I'd actually list cats among the least pest-like out of all of those.

[ QUOTE ]
But in the burbs its no big deal.

[/ QUOTE ]
I dunno, it seems like about half this thread disagrees. If you've got neighbors contemplating shooting your pet, its probably a step above "no big deal."

[grando]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
OP, I love the fact that you're adamant that it's the owners responsibility to do something about the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

NOBODY 'OWNS' A CAT

[/ QUOTE ]

Can anyone really "own" anything else that poops? Why don't you just replace 'owns' with 'is responsible for because they paid someone for it, buy it food, own the house it usually sleeps in, change the litter box when it poops inside, bought it a scratchy post, make it insane chasing a flashlight beam, and let it out to poop in peoples gardens.' If you can mentally cut and paste that in whenever you see someone saying it's the owners fault that would be great. Mmkay?

[/ QUOTE ]

lolz

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
I saw one of the sumbitches trying to hide behind a shrub in one of the flowerbeds this morning while I went outside to smoke a cig. Went back inside and brought a bowl of ice cubes and hurled a couple of handfuls as he scampered away. It'll probably come back though.



[ QUOTE ]
OP, I love the fact that you're adamant that it's the owners responsibility to do something about the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]
Who else's problem would it be then? Letting animals run loose in this town is illegal and dangerous for the pet. [ QUOTE ]
I suppose you also believe that humans possess mind reading powers, and that the cats owner happens to be tuned into yours? I reckon that would be the only way that they'd know that their cat is crapping in your garden.

[/ QUOTE ]
It doesn't take mindreading abilities to understand that cats defecate in the neighbors' yards while they're running loose and that most people don't appreciate free cat poop.

[/ QUOTE ]


Obviously there have been many solutions mentioned that don't involve shooting them which include water-guns, adding something to the soil like citrus or some of the 'boundary' stuff or purchasing one of the motion-detector ultra-sound thingees which supposedly tick them off too.

But on top of that I'm still kind of stuck on why you wouldn't even bother trying to find out who the owner is and then just mentioning something to them.
Seriously.

This seems like it would be so easy to do (especially compared with setting up traps or whatever) yet the excuse given for not doing it is that it is way too much of a hassle.

You ask a couple neighbors if they know whose cats they are.
If nobody has a clue you move on to step-B which hopefully does not involve injuring the animals.

[youtalkfunny]

(Didn't read thread)

When I was a kid, Neighbor One raised pigeons. I guess these can be valuable birds. He shot and killed a cat who got into the pigeon coop.

Neighbor Two owned the cat. He was a large, formidable man, known for his temper. He was clearly upset when he arrived home from work that day, and found his daughters in tears.

Our entire neighborhood went to DefCon 2.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed (or kept their mouths shut because hotter heads had guns), but things were pretty tense for a while.

[tsearcher]

Sorry if this has already mentioned, but having cats around your garden is a good thing. They will either eat or chase away the animals that will destroy your garden.

[blutarski]

If cats were larger, they would eat us without a second thought.

[greyhawke54]

[ QUOTE ]
Having to deal with these cats wormy [censored] where I'm growing food is seriously pissing me off

[/ QUOTE ]

You are aware of what manure is aren't you? Be thankful for the free fertilizer, and organic matter.

Have you ever seen a yard where a dog or other animal has crapped? If you have not then you do not know that in those spots the grass grows faster and greener than most other spots in the yard. So till this stuff into the ground of your garden and be thankful.

[spyderracing]

[ QUOTE ]
Legally, you'll likely be on unsound footing whatever you do, shooting them for sure.

You might be able to trap them and call animal control.

I'd try to poison them. Antifreeze is quite toxic and many animals like it.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't believe what the [censored] I'm hearing out of this thread. Either A) you've never owned pets, or B) you're just a bunch of [censored] [censored]. Some [censored] nut who lives behind my house was doing this to cats (shooting w/ a pellet gun) and caught some pretty serious heat about it (as he should). Some other idiot in my subdivision was poisoning dogs w/ anti-freeze. So help me god if it ever happened to one of my dogs I'd break the [censored] in half. Find out who owns the cats and talk to them for christ sake. Is it so goddamn hard to be civil in this day and age?

[GTL]

thread was really long, but i figured i would share some anecdotal advice anyway.

when i was about 7 my family moved into a new house with about an acre of land. apparently, the people who owned the house before us would feed neighborhood cats. strays, as well as cats that were just roaming around. so every night, a bunch of cats would show up on our deck and in our backyard looking for food.

my mom mixed up a solution of water and vinegar. few sprays with that stuff for each cat, and they stopped showing up.

[lgas]

To all the people saying it's not OP's responsibility to find the owners, and it might be hard, etc. I think the easy solution is to affix a letter to the cat(s) addresses to the owners that explains that the cats have been coming into your yard and why you are displeased, etc. and what the consequences will be if they don't stop, etc, optionally including contact info. How you choose to affix it is up to you, but I imagine if nothing else you could just fold it up and tape it to their collar. If they keep coming back, maybe next time you duct tape it to around the center of the cat. Then the next time you use staples, etc.

If they keep showing up, then I think there's only one solution: