Animals & neighbours

Sorry for the long post this more of a mind dump I guess

So we live in a quiet country location with few neighbours and two small friendly dogs. A husband & wife moved in next door and then a year later a cat appeared. They became convinced our dogs will kill their cat so to keep the peace we secured all of our fencing to ensure there was no escape. Over time several grumbles & comments have been made regarding our boys and making sure they don’t escape. We genuinely do our utmost to make sure our boys don’t have the opportunity to attack their cat but mistakes happen none of which have caused any actual contact or injury to the cat.

Today my wife returned from a walk and let the boys into our garden just to chill on the grass in the sun as we usually do. She was unaware the cat was in our garden so our dogs chased it. The cat simply ran off and jumped the fence. The neighbours were in their garden and saw it, the NW (neighbours wife) just glared at my wife. Who offered an apology and turned and went into the house.

Later NW called my wife over for a chat and said in a condescending tone why have your dogs not calmed down yet. My wife did not know what to say so NW went on. She mentioned that one of our dogs had gotten free which was our mistake but he only wandered down to NH (neighbours husband) to say hello nothing happened to the cat. Again NW carried on to say that she noted we walk with the boys off the lead. We do but only for around 500yds from the house and in the evening when we know the cat will not be out and about. My wife bless her trying to keep the peace said we will try to do better and take more care. Today my daughter was at home in her bedroom and heard a conversation NW was having with somebody official on her phone. NW was complaining about our dogs calling us uncaring and if the shoe was on the other foot etc. She went onto to say just so I have my facts straight I can only assume she means what her rights are if her cat was attacked. Remember no injury or attack has befallen the cat so far in maybe 4 - 5yrs.

My wife immediately went round knowing she could not disclose the fact we had heard the conversation and offered reassurance that we will do our utmost to ensure the dogs do not escape and attack her cat and that we do care. We genuinely don’t wish any harm we were cat owners ourselves.

So I am absolutely seething but wondering what to do next if anything ?

Thanks for reading.

If the cat was on your property when it was attacked, it is the responsibility of the person owning the cat. If your dog was on their property when the cat was attacked it is your responsibility.

If this happened on the street and the dog was on a leash, I don't forsee a problem unless the cat was on a leash. How these things are interpreted are based on local consensus, If everyone in the courthouse is a cat owner, your up sh*t's creek

reply to post by macpdm

For a start, you can stop bending over backwards for your neighbours, you are obviously highly responsible dog owners so start asserting yourselves a bit more to your new neighbours, remind them that no injury has been sustained by their pet as a result of any action by your dogs and that you are not prepared to listen to their highly unreasonable demands any longer.

reply to post by macpdm


Get a pellet gun and shoot their cat when it comes in your garden. Then ask your neighbors why they cannot control their pet any better, request that they do, and explain that cats urinate and defecate in garden areas which can spread serious diseases. Especially if the garden produces anything edible.

Seriously. Screw them. Why do you care about getting along with your neighbors? Around these parts, if you live in the country you are basically on your own anyway.

reply to post by nake13


Im with you on this one nake13.

Fact is, I love cats to bits. I think they are fantastic. But your yardspace is yours to do with as you see fit. You have gone out of your way to secure your dogs, to fence them in, and prevent them from harrassing the neighbors cat on thier property, and thats as much as anyone ought to expect from you.

You know what you are doing with your leads, and therefore the only time that thier cat is going to be in the least bit of danger, is when it decides that it is going to invade the territory of your back yard, and try to scent mark all over your dogs territory. If it gets its furry little butt kicked on your side of the fence, then sad as that would be, its not your problem. What they have to accept, is that if thier cat is an outdoor cat, then it is going to get itself in some trouble.

Another thing. A friend of mine had an elderly, small black cat. Her name was Rosie. She was your typical moody old cow of a cat, but nice enough all the same, and pretty unasuming for all that. One night, my friend and I were sat in his back garden, sipping ice cold beers and looking up at the stars, chatting about this and that. Rosie was sat on the fence between my buddies garden and his next door neighbors yard.

All of a sudden, we hear something rattle next doors fence in its morings, and less than a heartbeat later, we see Rosie banzai off the fence, and dive into next doors garden. There followed an unholy combination of cat hissing and a lot of canine growling, mingled with the sound of flesh being parted. Me and my buddy stood up to see what the hell was happening, in time to see a significant number of tufts of red fur fly up into the air, and then come down. A second later than that, we see a fox jump back out of the neighbors garden, with its nose hanging basically off. We were worried that Rosie might have done her damage, but taken a wound, until she jumped lightly back into her original position, looked at us as if to say "Ice skating up a hill... kids these days" and sat back, cleaning her claws.

She was a lethal little thing, but that didnt stop her being enough of a klutz to get herself run over by a bloody great big car out on the main road. What I am getting at by explaining all this, is that cats can look after themselves, but they can also get themselves into real trouble. If anything, if they are concerned about thier cat, then they need to actually take precautions to keep thier cat out of your yard, since you have been good enough to keep your dogs out of thiers, by and large. When you get a cat, you have to be prepared for a number of things. First and most importantly, you have to be prepared to love your animal, and that goes for any pet, and one would hope, goes without saying near enough. Second, you have to be prepared to care for your animal, feed it, slake its thirst, provide as much saftey as possible for it, and look after any health concerns that may arise. Third, you have to be responsible for your animal, and where cats are concerned, that mostly boils down to making sure it knows where to do its business. And fourth, and this is specific to cats, you have to be prepared, if you intend for your cat to live the sort of semi-independant life that a cat should, to allow your cat to roam under its own auspices, for better or worse.

Cats are not like dogs. The majority of domestic cats require a certain degree of freedom of movement, a roaming territory, a stomping ground. Where as dogs can take the behavior of thier masters and thier family, and work thier way into that, cats require thier personal space, to go and do cat stuff, like climbing trees, walking on the roof, hanging out with other cats, sniffing random stuff imperiously, and above all, finding the best spot in a five block radius, to bask in the sun, sprawled on a rock or a wall somewhere. In amongst all that they will encounter dangers that an owner can neither prepare them for, nor protect them from.

So number five on the list of things an animal owner must do, which applies heavily to cats, is that an owner must be prepared to accept that there is a chance that the animal will come into contact with a situation which renders it dead before its biological expiration date. A car, a truck, another owned animal, a wild animal, a nasty young person with a pellet gun, a fall from a specific set of heights (cats have been found to be able to survive some pretty improbable drops before now, survivability depends on several factors however), poisons meant to kill rodents (which are rarely placed as carefully as they ought to be), and many others besides.

What your neighbors have done, is basically bought the cat with unreasonable expectations of how cat ownership works, and how it feels when thier little friend is out in the world.

reply to post by TrueBrit


Well, a pellet gun won't do a cat in. Not any I have used, anyway. It is more about a sting to the butt to scare them off.

But you are right. Owning an animal is a risk, like any other life endeavor.

reply to post by bigfatfurrytexan


No it wont kill them directly, but there was a kid who used to live over the alley from me when I was a young boy, and he had a pellet gun. I actually ended up taking in a cat that he had shot in the eye. We had the cat for about three weeks, and even now I miss the little dude. The vet told my mother that if we had not have taken it in, cleaned its wounds, fed and watered it, and bought it to the vet, the chances are that the cat would have died from the infection, or a bleed behind the eye, from the retinal cluster behind the eyeball, where they eventually found the pellet.

We had to hand the cat over to the Cats Protection League, because we did not have enough money to pay for vets bills, and although the vet was sure that we were caring people, he said he couldnt take the chance that we were the ones who had done this thing, and were just trying to avoid paying... it was a bit hearbreaking really, because I grew to really love having that cat around in the three weeks he was with us.

Sounds like if you're neighbours are so worries about the cat they should stop letting it go outside, and getting angry at other people when the cat is threatend beacuse they cant figure that out. I let my cats outside and if anything happens to them I would feel responsible for it.

Thanks all for the helpful & supportive responses I have calmed down considerably now. Was just surprised how angry she was when our dogs chased it out of our garden!!

Just remembered another neighbour has a springer spaniel which escapes and runs free from time to time but never heard a cross word to the owners of this animal??

You know never once have we kicked the cat out infact its always been welcomed. It got in once and we quickly jumped on it and removed it before the dogs spotted it. We took it round to theirs and told them we had rescued it. She shrugged and said "Oh well it is his own fault", and she says we just dont care !

Sadly she would never let the dogs & cat get to know each other although we feel that is what should have happened. They just decided to label our dogs as killers. Just dont get it ?

Hell hound 1 (Archie)




Hell hound 2 (Rigsby)



I know im going on sorry but the problem is our rear doors face each other but with a public walkway between so she also wants our boys on a lead to and from the garden.The reason for this is because she leaves her rear door, windows & garden gate open for several hours per day for the cat to roam in and out of.

The fact of the matter is we are doing all we can to keep their cat safe but she has said that she will not shut her garden gate or close her rear door because its our responsibility to keep our dogs under control.We have said the dogs may escape by accident as it has happened in the past and we will do our best to stop it happening again but still she will not take any measures to protect her cat should this happen??