Conference misery::feline

462.0. "Toms, Territoriality and Trauma" by SALSA::MOELLER (SNMP Agent to the Stars) Mon Dec 21 1992 13:56

Here's a story on dealing with aggressive toms...

We have a walled-in backyard, and a cat door cut in the back door for our
7 year old black female cat.  LOTS of cats in our neighborhood, and even
the females are aggressive.  We've done fairly well discouraging other cats
from coming in our back yard and chasing our cat by the simple expedient
of keeping a bowl of tennis balls by the back door; I have a fine throwing
arm.  They've mostly got the idea.  

Except some folks moved in next door with 3 cats (more now, one whelped, 
couldn't be bothered to spay) and one of the cats is a tom.  He's cagey 
enough to not come in our yard when we're home.  But we've come home to find 
his yellow fur inside on our rug; at least he's losing fur by getting clawed 
by our cat.  Also he'd clearly been eating her food.  Apparently he chased 
our cat Sushi enough times where she shot thru her cat door, to figure it 
out for himself.  A couple months ago I came home to see him sleeping (!) on my 
livingroom couch - he was gone out the back instantly.  The next morning
there was cat feces in the middle of our livingroom floor - and our cat
has NEVER even had an accident in the house.. so here's this tom chasing
our cat, coming in our house, eating her food, and now defecating on our 
floor.  This was war.  War plans:

Assumption - we want this cat to stop coming in our house and preferably
in our yard.

Assumption - we want our cat to keep using the cat door.

Assumption - no point in talking to his humans, who had already proved
their unfitness as cat people by adding to the cat population, and
saying it was so their children could "witness the miracle of birth".
Really.  So they're not going to keep their cat in, or if they do, sooner 
or later he'll come back.

Assumption - we are not going to hurt the cat, or take it to the pound
or the desert, although these last two have a certain appeal.

Assumption - thus the only way to accomplish our mission is to trap
the cat and traumatize him just enough so he'll never come back.

So what we did was get a Havahart trap, and set it up in our kitchen in 
the regular place where our cat's food is kept.  Baited it with tuna.
We discouraged our cat from going in there.  It took two nights, but we 
caught the tom.  We kept him in the cage for about eight hours before 
we did anything.  

I used a plastic baseball bat on the top of the cage for about 5 minutes, 
and then hauled the cage with cat out to the back porch and gave him several 
high-pressure soakings and a talking-to.

And then left him loose.  He hasn't been back.  

As we rented the cage for a week, we baited the trap in our backyard and 
caught another tom, even more aggressive than the first, but who hadn't come 
in our house.  He hasn't been seen in our backyard again, either.  This may
seem unnecessarily cruel, but recall we didn't want to have either of these
toms killed or even banished from the neighborhood; just from our house and
yard.  I'm convinced cats have emotional memories, and we gave them both
just enough trauma to associate our house with cages, noise and water; 
a terrible place.  Certainly neither of these cats will ever get caught in
a Havahart trap again.  During the, uh, trauma sessions, we kept our cat 
out of the way in a back bedroom.  So she's happily romping in her uninvaded 
back yard again.

karl

    Why don't you get a cat door that only opens for your cat?  (The kind
    that she has to wear a tripping device on her collar for.)
    

    Wow!  I am not quite sure what to think...  I suppose what you did is
    an okay thing.  You didn't actually hurt the animal but did give them a
    scare of their life!  It actually is sort of funny from a different
    point of view.  
    
    When faced with the choices one can make, I's say you did okay!  I hope
    they don't come back!!
    Karen

 >    Why don't you get a cat door that only opens for your cat?  (The kind
   > that she has to wear a tripping device on her collar for.)
    
    As a 'high tech' kind of person, this was a major hope.. however our
    cat, while she doesn't fight a collar, has lost/shed 5 or 6.. so that
    could get expensive.  And I have some worries about it getting caught
    on something, and her strangling.  So our cat door is a hole cut in 
    the back door with a hinged flap.  You know, low tech..
    
    karl

    You have my sympathy.  I've been through this myself.
    
    You could trap the cat, have him fixed, and either find him another
    home or keep him caged until his fixing heals and then let him go.
    
    A bit expensive but better than having to buy a new carpet; or as in
    my case a completely new living room set.

    Hi Karl,
    
    This is Jeanne (yeh, the one from the office).  You might want to talk
    to John Van.  He set up some type of electric wire on top of his
    backyard wall to ward off unwanted visitors.  Apparently the jolt is
    not enough to really hurt a cat but it's enough to keep them away after
    they have run into it a few times.
    
    Good luck!
    
    Jeanne (and her 4 kitties)
    

    Hi.  I hope you didn't wet these cats down in this kind of weather.
    Or keep them outside in the cage for 8 hours.
    
    Sounds kinda cruel to me.
    
    I would have opted for the electronic type collar for my cat instead
    of the measures you took.  Would have been more humane!