- Oct 12, 2022
- 2,702
Our neighbouring council did it last year. I haven't heard of any of these problems, I'll see if I can find any info later.
At present if a cat is constantly in your garden you can order a cat trap from the council to trap it and take it to a shelter. If they are not registered, chipped and neutered then my guess is they are put up for adoption.
With the new scheme my guess is that owners will be fined when they pick them up. Although I guess this needed to be limited or they just won't bother.
I see this more as asking responsible owners to do the right thing rather than sending our patrols of cat catchers like in cartoons (although there are vans about doing that job).
My two cats come in if it’s raining and windy and we’ve got the heating on, but otherwise they mainly live outdoors (both rescue cats, one semi-feral, one a bit more more sociable)
We keep litter trays available for each, but they refuse to use them even in bad weather, and we’ve tried various litter types/tray locations over the years without success.
TBH, they seem to spend most of their time playing on the railway tracks a couple of streets away, which sounds lifespan limiting, but they’ve clearly got the sense to get off the line when a train’s coming. We’ve also met the more feral of our two while out on a walk 2-3 miles from our home, which came as a bit of a shock when he popped up wanting a head rub on a forest path.
I think the more sociable of our two would adapt, but I’d have genuine concerns as to how the other would respond to having a massively restricted space to roam in.
I can see the reasons for doing it, and now I’m over the surprise of hearing about it I think I might even be in favour of it. I’m just not sure how comfortable it would be for an animal like mine that is at best semi-domesticated and really likes to roam.