[psiga]

Despite having not visited LPN in some time, I decided to stop by to see if there was anything interesting from Timbo. Indeed, a big fat bastard of an entry: http://largeprimenumbers.com/news.php?nid=274 It makes for a great epilogue to the State of Tokyo X series, in my opinion. Anyway: He mentions a stray cat.

I had to deal with a stray or two after moving to a new neighborhood with a slightly higher population of them. There don't seem to be enough of them to think that it's a feral cat problem; they're probably spayed and neutered and all that. But Tim seems to be having a problem with a really shitty one, so that got me thinking of ways to make cats leave. I'm presuming that Japanese animal control is either nonexistent or gives up as easily as most Japanese agencies seem to, so we'll just dwell on personal tactics.

Some things to consider are that they have more sensitive noses than we do, and preen themselves a lot. If you, say, put down pepper spray where you know they will walk or rest, it'll get in their paws, annoy them, then punish them when they preen it out. After a while, they learn to stay away from those regions. Cayenne pepper itself works as well, but the red powder will stain horribly. They dislike the smell of oranges, blood, and anything with 'aluminum and ammonium sulphate', though I don't have experience with those methods personally. Moth balls work well, though they are toxic, and so should be kept away from stupid animals/children; this is the method that I have used personally.

If a cat is shitting up a storm in a relatively small yard area, consider the possible cost effectiveness of chicken wire or tinfoil. They tend to hate walking on it. If you're fortunate enough to have a wall that the cat needs to climb over, then lovely possibilities exist there, depending on how devious you are: Caltrops, crinkly things, and strips of upturned tape, for example. For some reason I'm smiling at the idea of tape with cayenne pepper on it, because the cat will instinctively go trying to get the sticky stuff off.

Motion-activated toys might work to varying degrees if the cat is particularly skittish. There are also motion-activated water guns, but they tend to be expensive.

These methods are designed to make pretty much any cats learn to stay away. In the particular case of Tim's unwanted guest, it sounds like it's feral and reproductively active, as well as a terrible nuisance, so I wouldn't hesitate to put it in a situation that spells its certain demise -- however, it's hard to say whether there are other cats that could be harmed in the process, so one might as well try the deterrents instead.
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[psiga]

If I thought that it'd be possible to safely capture the cat with a rented cat trap loaded with nip, then that'd be dandy.

But animal control would probably kill it anyway.


Also:


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