New cat on the block causing issues with my two.....

[Jules]

We seem to have a new cat appear in the neighbourhood over the last few months and it's causing an issue for our two girls that I need some advice with

We've got 2 female cats (Jasmine and Meg) who are around 7 and 5 years old. They both get on fairly well with each other and we generally don't have any issues with them Over the last few months we've spotted a very large white cat (who I'm guessing may be a male mainly because it's so big) appearing in the garden at night (it doesn't usually show up until about 8pm).

One of our girls is petrified of it and tries to run away from it and get back inside whilst screaming her head off and she tries to hide in the house from it. Our younger cat Meg tends to square up to it and tries to chase it off and a few scraps have ensued As soon as we hear any kind of commotion we rush outside and the white cat tends to scarper at the sight of us and we bring our girlies in. I don't think it's a stray as it's a beautiful long haired white cat and it looks really well fed and it's coat is in lovely condition (I can't see a collar on it but as it runs when it sees me I can't get close enough to check). I've asked around with the neighbours but no-one seems to know who it belongs to.

Thankfully our girls are always kept in overnight anyway but on a couple of occasions over the last few weeks this other cat has tried to smash it's way in through the cat flap in the early hours of the morning waking the whole house up On the first occasion it completely smashed through the catflap and I had to buy a new one and then a few nights ago it smashed it again at about 3am My other half ran downstairs and chased it off before it actually got in to the house and we've managed to fix the catflap and then last night about 9pm there was another fight in the garden between the white cat and Meg (thankfully she doesn't seem hurt).

I'm just not really sure what I can do to try and improve the situation so any advice would be greatly received :flowers:

I want to try and buy some sort of cover for the catflap to protect it from being continually smashed up - this is the one we have...........

Catflap

Pets At Home don't seem to sell any kind of cover for it but I wondered if anyone had any ideas for what I can use? I've previously looked into getting one of those microchip reading catflaps but they look quite tricky to set up and I think if the intruder cat is just going to smash his way through a locked catflap anyway I'm not sure how useful they'd be?

I'm hoping that as summer turns to winter and the weather is colder the new cat may not be out so much overnight but I'm just looking for any ideas to try and avoid my girls getting injured in a fight and just making them feel a bit happier as I think Jasmine in particular is getting quite stressed by the whole situation Our catflap leads into the utility room so the last couple of nights I've shut the utility room door at night and put the litter tray in the kitchen instead so that if the white cat does manage to get it in can't go beyond the utility room and get to our two girls The other thing that worries me is there are also occasions when our girls won't come in at night as much as we try to get them in and I don't like the thought of them being outside with a potential fight situation brewing up :err:

[Grace56]

Hi Jules and welcome.
I feel for you and your girls as my cat, Dave was a stray and terrorised my nieces cats. So I adopted him.

Anyway, could you take a photo' of this bruiser and, if so, log onto this site:

https://www.streetlife.com/

and join for your area, and post a photo of him and see if he belongs to anyone local or if anyone knows who he belongs to. It's a very good site for local news, and lost and found etc.

As a temporary measure, could you put a large piece of wood across the outside of cat flap and pile some bricks against it once your girls are in for the night so blocking it.

If you bought a special flap, maybe someone could fit it for you (ask on Streetlife)

That's all I can suggest for now. Hopefully, someone else may be able to suggest other measures.

Good luck and fusses to your poor, beleaguered girls.

Grace

[catslave16]

Hi Jules
I think an electronic cat flap may provide the solution to your problem. I got one when I adopted Rufus and had him micro-chipped. In the past other cats had got into the house which sometimes upset my beloved Blake and I was determined not to have the same thing happen again (there was no cat flap available in those days that worked with Blake's micro-chip). Besides, I can't afford to feed other people's cats.
I got the electronic cat flap at Argos. It was pricey (£86) but worth it. The modern ones work with all chips and can be programmed for up to 25 different cats. Once it's locked, it really is locked. An intruder cat is more likely to bump its nose than to get in.
And don't worry - they're really not that hard to install. The opening was identical to the old cat flap's - even the screw holes were in the right place (I had one that looks identical to yours). Just make sure you read the instructions first - sounds obvious but guess what I did?... - and test it before you fit it. I felt intimidated by the instruction book but it turned out to be in different languages so was in fact only a sixth the length I thought it was. You can programme the flap to open and close at certain times or according to light levels. I think it's a great piece of kit and it gives me peace of mind. Rufus was happy with it once I put a couple of bricks outside the back door to reduce the long step down. And no, I don't own shares in the company.

[Crewella]

As a temporary measure maybe you can rig up some kind of barricade over the catflap at night, inside or out, with something heavy to try to stop him?

If you can get near him, it might be worth putting a paper collar on him with a note to see if his owners pick it up, but if he's really hard to get close to then you're stuck with asking more neighbours. Maybe there's a garden that backs onto yours so you need to try a road further along?.

I guess you then really need to decide if you want him in your garden at all - if you decide he's really not welcome then try chasing him out of the garden every time you see him by hissing at him, and maybe even a water spray, to make visiting a much less attractive proposition. It's a difficult one, good luck.