NEIGHBOURS CAT & OUR DILEMMA!

Sent to me by a guest:-

I'm really hoping someone can give us advice on this stressful and now cruel situation as we are struggling with this now.

A cat started sleeping in our garden on the grass overnight through summer and we assumed her to be a stray. We stroked her, we left only water outside and very quickly she started to come in to our kitchen and meow and our for cuddles.

We noticed she didn't look stray (not overly skinny, good fur) so I decided at this point to snap a few pics and post her to a local FB page in the hopes of finding her owner. Several people came forward who ended up just having similar cats and this wasn't resolved.

I did some more digging determined to find the owner and spoke to more people in the area and finally found her owner. I was so relieved so I sent her a message to tell her about the situation. She came back to me saying things like 'omg she's been missing for weeks thank you so much' - seemed genuinely relieved. She asked me to take the cat indoors this once and was happy for me to feed her this once to ensure that she had eaten something and collected her that evening.

Now the problem lies here:

We seem to be repeating a cycle with the owner now and it goes along the lines of: she keeps her indoors for a day, let's her back out, the cat runs here immediately, we have to ignore her for multiple days as per her request (which upsets us to do), the owner then asks us to let her in after 3 or 4 days of her being ignored by us/sleeping rough as she's still not gone home and does respond to her owner when she looks for her, then collects her from ours.

Repeat. This cat is actively choosing to sleep under outdoor furniture rather than go home to this lady and it's not fair on this cat. She would willingly come into our home if we would let her, but we're not allowed as per the owner so the cat just suffers outside because of this. We are now sick of seeing this poor cat desperate to come in to our home all the while I'm messaging the woman her whereabouts constantly and she never manages to find her and take her in.... But also doesn't want us to take her in, either... so she's stuck in the middle of this and left outside!

The last time this happened she kept her in for a full week. It's now been 3 days since she let her out and surprise surprise, the cats been in my garden most of this time. We literally saw her bolting her way over down the street. I've told the owner again and again where she is with pictures of her just sitting here and her reply was ''oh she's so naughty please can you start spraying her with water so she comes home" - this is something I will not do and this will not make her go home! What would you do in this situation? Is it time to offer adopting the cat ? She's clearly happy at my house and willing to come indoors? I am not prepared to keep living in this pointless cycle with my windows closed, blinds closed, my doors not being open at this ladies request to stop this cat coming in to my home !

Please help!

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JB Responds:

Cats don’t actually have owners. They have staff, and friends. They choose their staff, and their friends. If a strange cat comes to you and decides that you’re their friend / staff, I personally choose to respect the wishes of the cat. You may THINK you own a cat, but it really is the other way round.

The owner above stated the cat had been missing for weeks and I have to ask, did they put up any LOST CAT notices around, did they do ANYTHING to look for their cat as it sounds as if they did sweet FA - and if that is the case, they do not own the cat at all, - oh they may consider it to be their cat - but if they are not bothered to search for it when it goes missing, then they do not deserve to own a cat.

A young black cat adopted my house in London as its home and as I already had two cats and a cat flap they used to come and go from, it became a problem when this strange cat came into the house, terrorizing my cats and pissing on my hall carpet, and being an unsprayed male cat - IT STUNK. No idea how but I managed to hunt down the owners of the cat living on the street behind mine and our back gardens met, and they seemed totally oblivious to the problem of owning a male unspayed cat in a city centre until I threatened to sue them for the damage caused to my property, and then and ONLY then did they actually take action and the cat vanish.

I didn't mind the cat, it was the unspayed bit I objected to as it is irresponsible and selfish to own a cat or a dog and not have hen neutered if you do not with to breed properly, but to allow a male cat to roam wild and pissing in other peoples homes and fucking all the cats it can find leaving kittens in its wake, then that irresponsible attitude - you do not deserve to be a pet owner.