Recently we have had neighborhood cats decide to visit our yard. Never a problem before, but we have floor to ceiling windows and when our dog sees a cat she goes nuts with the barking for many minutes, and now it is several times a day. We have no fence and can not have one as we rent, but keep her on a long lead in the yard. Even if we let her out to 'see' where the cat has gone, she still goes ballistic and annoys us and I'm sure the neighbors.

Just today, I found out a new game the cats play. They sit in our neighbor's yard when they know the dog is on the leash and can't reach them and just taunt her until I come out a shoo them.

This is a very recent occurrence, but the barking from my dog it causes is distressing to us and although the neighbors have not said anything I'm sure it annoys them. I do not know who the cats belong to, and it is no one in our building. It seems that cats can run free here but strict rules about dogs....

We were thinking of putting up some cat repellent that would not be harmful to dogs. But don't know of any. In the States I had a device you stick in the ground with cat repellents (not harmful) to keep them away.

Any suggestions?
Thanks much!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/STV-Internat...7743245&sr=8-1

I find this is the only thing that works, and doesn't harm the cats.

Tell me about it.

I wish owners would bloody leash the things.

I was skating a long the public path the other day and one jumped out and nearly made me break my neck, was like the time I cycle past one several weeks ago while it was sitting on a fence, it jumped on my back and dug its claws into my back. More training and stricter laws on rogue cats methinks.

Poison, guns, and letting the dog at them are successful methods, but somewhat extreme to some.

Alternatively, a few scattered 2 litre bottles of water. The light reflects them and the cats tend to stay away.

THank you sooo much! I will certainly be purchasing!

First, I empathise. The neighborhood moggies seem to get a kick out of invading our garden just to wind the mutts up. The boldest of them sits on our windowsill and quite literally flips Hooligan the bird. It's not a pleasant situation, I understand what you are dealing with.

You are right that cats do have the right to roam, their owners bear little responsibility for what they get up to. Dog owners, on the other hand, must have their dogs under control 24/7, which also means quiet. It may not be fair, but it's the reality we must live with - while finding a way to give our dogs a good life here.

Bottom line - there is little one can do to keep a determined feline out of a place he wants to go.

So instead I've chosen to concentrate on the thing that is within my control - rehabilitating and training my dogs.

First step when trying to train out any undesireable behavior is to try to change or manage the environment so that the dog gets fewer opportunities to practice the behavior, and to buy you time to work on changing the behavior.

Towards that end, as a temporary measure can you block the view from the windows? Curtains, shutters?

Are you at home during the day? If not, consider getting a sitter in so that someone is there to step in when your dog starts to bark. Again, this should hopefully be a temporary measure.

You are working against very strong instinct here, so do expect a long slog while working on this.

---

Are you familiar with BAT (Behavior adjustment training), a form of systematic desensitizing?
http://functionalrewards.com

"BAT reduces reactivity by giving dogs socially acceptable ways to communicate their needs. BAT Takes a Functional Approach
When the dog does a problem behavior, it is usually because an event in their environment, an environmental cue, triggers the dog to want or need something. Fulfillment of the need or want that is triggered by the environmental cue is called the functional reward."

And a fuller explanation:
http://ahimsadogtraining.com/blog/bat/

When one can't control the trigger, one needs to learn to live with it another way. Cat-reactivity is especially difficult because of the cat's right to roam issue means that you will likely always be faced with a cat-trigger. As BAT focuses on learning to function differently, this situation could be a good application for the techniques.

I've made some good progress with Hooligan by incorporating BAT into our training regime, less so with the Belltie. But he's a bit... special, in the Swiss sense.

So - something to think about.

But in the short term, think about ways you could quickly control your dog's environment to give you breathing room to work on the behavior.

Wishing you and your doglet all the best. Been there, done that - and done that and done that and still doing that.


---


Re: Cat repellants.

Do be aware that these are also audible to dogs, and often to humans too. If audible to your dog you could be setting up another problem, as the unpleasant noise links to an instinctively unpleasant situation. Monitor the situation carefully if you choose to go this route.

Another neighbor has an anti-cat ultrasound thingy. The boss moggy just walks over and urinates on it before sauntering off, unbothered.

Thanks MC. As always good advice. We thought about putting something on the bottom of the windows, a blind thing in her line of vision, so she couldn't see them. But when she goes out she still smells them and goes nuts.. After all it is her yard.

Since she is a schnauzer, she feels it is important that she informs us what is going on and sniffs these things out. The trainer told us we can practice on this but they were bred to protect so it is hard to go against the instinct. A bit of what helped today is that when she was barking, I came out, saw the cat, acknowledged my dog first good to sniff it out, and shooed the cat and praised my dog for seeing it. She seemed calmer as she wanted to tell me this. But we can't do this all the time.

How about an AK-47?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/AK47-Aqua-Fi...7750207&sr=1-2

We also have problems with cats on our terrace.

My dog is not a hunter at all, and outside she absolutely doesn't care about cats, except to sniff one if it passes close to her.

But our terrace is HER territory, and the cats invading it make her bark like mad. As we are in an apartment, I can't tolerate this behaviour.

But several cats roams freely in our neighbourhood, including one terrible black tomcat who enjoys peeing and pooing in all the neighbour's plants on the balconies.

I've never found anyway of preventing them from coming. We spent some time with a water pistol (child toy) to splash them, but obviously they never came when we were waiting for them...

The cat scarer might also annoy your dog with the high pitch noise.

I know dogs, and probably cats too, hate the smell of chilli. Get some strong stuff at the Indian grocer and sprinkle some where the cats like to sit.

Another idea is to buy a movement sensor, and link it to a water pump with a spray.

That's what I am going to use this summer:
http://www1.westfalia-versand.ch/sho...er_schreck.htm

Make sure all the diary food, especially milk is out of sight. Otherwise difficult to get rid of meowing. She came once and was tough to convince her to leave

buy some lion dung from your local zoo.... believe me, it works!

Needless to add it has started innocently like that:

Cats dislike citrus scents...Maybe you could put out lemon/lime/grapefruit peels? They also dislike cologne, but it might not be practical to spray the entire garden....

A couple of neighbour cats like to crap in our garden (back at home). I've tried using citrus peels (lemon and orange), old coffee ground and partially filled water bottles to keep them out. None of it bothered these cats, and the garden became a mess of mouldy citrus peel, water bottles and cat turd.

Chilli powder would probably do the job but it can hurt (and maybe harm?) the animal... chilli in all the wrong places would sting an awful lot!

Next time, I might try hanging some shiny CDs on the tree and maybe the light bouncing off them will put the cats off.

But I'm hoping some day to give them a good soaking with cold water and the shock of it should make them think twice about coming into the garden again.

Use the chilli if they dont like it they wont be back so objective achieved even if that cat gets a sore ring it will only last to it goes through their system. If they dont want the pain they stay away

True, a fiery ring won't be forgotten soon. But I've read that if the chilli gets into their eyes, they can hurt themselves trying to rub and scratch it out.

And besides, I'd get a good laugh drenching those cats.

And what is the problem - they wont come back with fiery eyes

Objective achieved

Yes drenching them also works

Better still

Do both

I think the water option is the best. They will hate it, but won't get hurt in the process.

My brother in law thought it was funny to let my dog sniff some chili powder... the poor thing sneezed madly for half an hour after that... this is really cruel.

I'm aware cats an be a real nuisance, but I refuse to hurt them to make them leave my place.

This method certainly works.