barbaral@tekig1.UUCP (08/30/83)
A friend bought some cheap mousetraps, and put them in his garden to scare the cats, but not hurt them. He reported that the cats are just too smart for that...they dig around the mousetraps, and infact pile dirt on the mousetraps! The nice raised beds I formed are getting all deformed by the cats. I don't mind that as much as I do them using my raised beds for their litter box. I hate digging around and finding their "remnants". Someone else I know uses a BB gun, and shoots the cats in the rump. I wouldn't mind doing that, except a friend's cat got a BB shot in it's nose, and I wouldn't want something like that to happen. Shooting them in the rump though, I think the BB just bounces off their fur, but scares them. I'm not home most of the day, and can't "catch them in the act". For a while I caught them, and sprayed water and vinegar on them (originally intended for slugs), and that stopped the cats for a while. Again, any ideas will be appreciated!
madrid@auvax (09/02/83)
Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a ferocious neighborhood
tom who was threatening our kittens. In fact, he injured one quite
badly (but not incurably). Naturally, we wanted to express our
inhospitability in terms that the tom would understand and respect.
We put diluted household ammonia in a squeeze bottle, and mounted
a watch. (This was during a lazy summer in the late '60s, the
participants were the inhabitants of a co-op house, so there was
always one or more people available. Aah, nostalgia!) I guess
this cat (and, I hope, cats in general) really hate the smell of
ammonia. (Not an unreasonable supposition. It's disagreeably
pungent to humans, and a cat's sense of smell is more acute by
a very large factor.) Anyway, it only took a couple of body-hits
and said tom took the hint. He would cross the road to pass by
our area.
P.S. Later that summer, the tom was injured by a car in such a way
that it was necessary to neuter him. From then on, he was a
very amiable pussycat. Why, oh why, do pet owners not neuter all
but breeding stock as a matter of course? It's kinder to the
neighbors, kinder to unwanted generations which follow, and a
way of protecting the pet against injury resulting from fights.
Is it because the owners want a vicarious sex life through their pet?
R.
auvax!madrid