My Cat will not come indoors at night

[Jim]

We have owned our female cat for some 8 years , she has been friendly and loyal and absolutely no problem.We have moved three times and she has settled in straight away.

We have lived at our present address for 2 years and we have now found a neighbour has been encouraging all the neighbourhood cats to her home . As a result the cats are not always eating their food at home and nobody knows when their cat will come home. The woman has been spoken to by several other cat owners but she has n=mental health issues and won`t listen.

Therefore cat owners have tried to keep their cats in at night. We did the same and our cat became stressed ( crying, scratching at the window, "marking" etc) now she goes missing and will not come in at night, we are used to seeing her around for some 10 hours a day but she has gone missing and appears just for food.

My wife is very distressed and we would love to get our cat back to her old loving ways ,
Has anyone any suggestions please?

[Kay]

Could you catproof all or part of your back garden, so your girl can come and go freely but only have access to you and your home?

[meriad]

Gosh Jim, that is a very difficult one. How severe are the ladies issues because what she is doing really isn't right at all - but it's difficult to stop her if she just won't get it. Does this woman have a family or carer(s) that comes in regularly that someone could speak to? Hopefully they could get through to her.

I have a cat that I often don't see for a few days, but I do know that she comes home for food and that when she's not home she's in the gardens of a few neighbours across the road. Thankfully they know she has a home and owner so don't feed her but she just seems happier to be out and about vs at home (unless it's really cold and bucketing it down - then she'll be home). I do suspect that she does pop into someone's home during the day but given I'm not home and someone else is getting the benefit of her company then I'm happy if she's happy.

Is there any way you could cat proof your garden so your cat can still come and go during the day and night, but can't get out your garden?

[meriad]

snap Kay

[Jim]

Thanks for the comments. Firstly the lady does not get it , she feed badgers , foxes and birds and cannot accept that she should not do so as they become to used to humans. She is in complete denial, she has a daughter who has managed to avoid helping her so she is alone and driving us all mad by feeding the cats.

In respect of the garden we have a 6 foot high fence all the way round but the cat still gets out and what we really worry about now is where she goes at night.
We just want her to get back to her old ways and be our old loving friend, home at night where she is safe

[Kay]

attaching inward facing brackets to your fence, and then covering with netting would be a cheap, effective and if necessary easily removed method of keeping her in

another more robust system is to attach revolving poles to the top of the fence - http://www.katzecure.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

this woman may move or stop attracting other people's cats, but there are plenty of other dangers out there and catproofing is the only way to have peace of mind whilst allowing your cat to have some degree of freedom