Hi. I'm very new, just registered. I need advice.

I have 2 cats. They are 7 months old. For the last month they have been venturing outside, I waited for them to have their injections and be neutered and micro chipped etc.

I still have a litter tray and will continue to do so. I also lock them in at night at the moment, but I do intend upon getting a cat flap so they can come and go as they please, whenever they please.

As soon as they went out my neighbour asked me if I would come round to her house to pick up the cat poo in her garden. I said sorry but no as there were a lot of cats around here and she can't be sure they are mine. Also, my cats still use their litter tray inside so I wasn't prepared to go round and clear up poo which may be another person's cat or even a fox.

She said that she had seen my cat poo in her flower beds and she only had a problem with cat poo now my cats were outside.

Since then she has been flicking poo into my garden - I don't want to say cat poo because it could be fox poo - but whatever animal, it is still poo. We live in a small village and a friend told me that my neighbour is extremely pissed off and is thinking of saving the poo up and leaving it in a pile on my front door step.

Is her behaviour legal? Is she really legally allowed to throw poo into my garden?

Also was I acting legally by saying no? (aside from any moral argument)

legally speaking you're in the clear and she can get into trouble for throwing poop around

what I would do is sneakily keep your kittens in for a few days but still go outside and call them etc so it's not obvious they are confined- and see if she still carries on finding poop.

other than that the only solution I can think of is catproof your own garden/make a large enclosure over back door and point out to her that your cats are now contained and it can't be them

Legally yes, but morally I would say you were in the wrong which you seem to accept.

I don't imagine there is any specific law against it, maybe something about causing a nuisance or something. But then I imagine that your cats are causing him a nuisance also.

But honestly, this could have been solved by you doing the right thing This sort of thing gives outdoor cat owners a bad name. Why wouldnt you spend ten minutes on keeping your neighbours happy? if you had children and an animal was coming and pooing in your garden and your children were getting it on their hands, how would you feel. i find it very selfish personally to refuse a reasonable request.

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Sadly (or I guess not so sadly) I have a large garden, which is separated by hedgerow and trees, rather than fence or walls. I can't really cat proof it. They will just wonder as it is a rural area.

They are quite garden proud and have lovely flower beds etc. I don't think my cats are pooing out in the open on her grass. I think they are digging it into her flower beds. Although I am not sure that is any consolation to my neighbour.

However, I'm not sure what she is expecting of me. Does she want me to go round her house and dig around in her many large flower borders to see if there is any cat poo? I guess if one of my cats had taken a large poo in the middle of her lawn I would go round and clear it up, but they don't, they hide away and dig in the flower beds. To find the poo would mean searching for it, for what could be hours.

I don't think for a second she is asking you to go dig in her flowerbeds. If it was hidden she wouldnt know it was there herself.

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What about a compromise? Speak to your neighbour and say that if its definitely your cats you'd be very happy to clean it up and help her with cat proofing her garden. Tell her you'll keep your cats in for five days and if there is no poo, then you'll accept that it was your cats in the first place. If there is poo, maybe you could be neighbourly and help her to discourage cats from visiting her garden?

Neighbours are kinda important........... Maybe she'd cat sit for you one day when you need it, if you're reasonable now.

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I had been told that the training procedure with cats was difficult. It's not. Mine had me trained in two days. ~Bill Dana

It's difficult, seeing as it's not just your cats. I have had the neighbours cat poop in my garden, but I don't mind picking it up seeing as I was cleaning up after my dogs anyway- however if it was more often I might start to get a little irritated- but then I would look at natural and safe kitty detterents rather than demand she do something- what can you do?

Both my girls are indoor cats, but if they decided to venture out and started pooping in the garden next door I woulod feel terribly guilty. Not sure how I would solve the problem though.

I do agree that keeping the cats in for a few days and guaging her reaction would be a good way to start- then you can have a reasonable conversation about all tha blame being laced on you.

Try to be empathetic towards your neighbour, and see if you can reach an agreement which suits you both. No matter how angry she is she really shouldn't be throwing poo into your garden though!

I'll be interested to see how others would deal with the situation.

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Tricky..... I think I would be inclined to "sympathise" with her, show her that you are doing everything you possibly can to persuade your cats to go in your own garden, etc. I would be worried that if I acted completely unsympathetically she might start taking it out on the cats, throwing things at them, chucking buckets of water over them etc until they ended up traumatised and weeing/pooing all over the house because they daren't go out and do it, because they get a brick landing on them or a drenching.

You're obviously a responsible owner (vaccinating/neutering etc) - you need to demonstrate that to her - at the moment she's probably of the opinion you turf you cats out when they need a poo to go and do it elsewhere for someone else to clean up. I've seen my own father get very annoyed and upset because the man across the road from him doesn't walk his dog, he opens his door, whereupon the dog promptly walks across the road, cr*ps on my father's front lawn and goes back home again. My dad will have spent ages raking, trimming, spreading feed and weed etc on that lawn, as he's a very proud gardener.

Not sure how to persuade your cats to go in your own garden, perhaps others will be able to help. BUT ... having had a sandpit when my children were small, for which we had to buy a cover because all the cats in the neighbourhood were using it as a tray ... perhaps you could install something that looks like a large litter tray in your garden which might look inviting. I know that causes a problem when it rains, not sure what to do about that.

Could you buy her some cat repellent, take it round and suggest she spreads it round her garden as well, to put your cats off going in there.

Another solution is to cat proof your garden so that your kits can't get out, but that very much depends on your type of garden. Usually easy if you've a smallish, modern garden with a regular shape. My sister's done it with ordinary fence posts and panels, but she has Persians that aren't the escape artists that some cats are. If, like us, you have a big garden with enormous mature trees round the perimeter that they could easy climb and use to escape, it's pretty impossible without spending a fortune and turning the place into Colditz.

I would definitely advise you to try and work it out with your neighbour though and not make an enemy of her. I'm married to a lawyer and know how neighbour disputes can escalate to unbelievable proportions from very trivial beginnings. Then your life really does become a misery, because it gets to the point where it's not about cats any more - it's all out war.

Hopefully people will be along with other ideas, but let us know how you get on.

Ah ... just read your later message and realised that cat proofing the garden isn't an option.

I think Janshef's idea of putting a cat loo in your garden is excellent. It might not stop them going elsewhere but I do agree that they (and probably other cats in the area) will use a sand pit before looking for a newly dug flower bed

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How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven. - Robert A. Heinlein
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Ironically, it's usually the immaculate flowers beds tended by the proud gardeners they go for, as the soil is freshly dug over and loose, rather than compacted and difficult for the cats to scrape about in.