Cat Wars

At the end of last week I installed some of those ultrasonic cat-scarers in our garden. A comlex operation to work out the best pattern but I was fairly hopeful that I'd managed good coverage. Demonstrating what I good job I've done, here's a photo of Mrs L trying to get the washing in that evening. The next morning my nice shady garden relaxation area, aka the litter tray, was clear. Wow! The general aroma of my garden is still Eau de Renard, but there is a marked lack of solid offerings over the past few days. Is it really that simple?

Yes. Well no actually. A couple of days later we were preparing an al fresco evening meal in the kitchen - salads, cheeses, bread, cold meats, that kind of thing. We were almost ready to go when the Olympic 100m men's semi-finals started, we had missed the first one as it only lasted ten seconds, but the whole family decamped to the front room to watch the final two races. These were also pretty speedy.

The athletes had nothing on the small ginger and white cat that was on the kitchen counter licking the paté when we came back. It shot out of the kitchen like an exocet missile, back through the conservatory and out into the garden. Hopefully a little blast of ultrasonic noise about half way down upped its pace a little. A gold medal performance. We threw the paté away.

Bloody hell! Is it not enough that they strut around my garden thinking it is their own?!! Unbelievable. The trouble with cats is that the owners are entirely absent and unaccountable. People buy a cat and then probably never see it again. I have no idea where this one is from and the people who introduced it to the neighbourhood probably have no idea where it is or what it is doing either. A dog running around loose could probably be traced, and then you could give the owner a piece of your mind about letting it out of their sight and so on, especially if you found it on your property. But it seems perfectly acceptable that if you have a cat that you're able to completely absolve yourself of any responsibility for it. Cut a hole in your back door to let it out and that's it, your job is done. You need not concern yourself with minor details such as it crapping in someone else's garden, obliterating wildlife, exploring other people's houses and spoiling their food, it's not your problem. In fact you're oblivious to this even happening, you just have a lovely pet that sometimes sits on the sofa with you and purrs. Bliss. Actually the little fucker spends most of its time tearing round the neighbourhood causing havoc.

As I said, I'd not knowingly seen this particular one before. There's a horrible larger ginger and white one, a fat and fluffy wholly ginger one, a black and white one, and then one of those actually quite nice looking but still a bastard grey ones with yellow eyes. That one is called Pepper and I know where it lives when it isn't shitting in my garden. Being cute is no defence. The others I have no idea where they come from or who owns them, but it is completely unacceptable that any of them dare come inside my house. Yes the door was open, but that's not an invitation to come in and have a meal. Again, where are the owners in all this? Nowhere that's where. Shouldn't be allowed.