The Queen of the Universe’s Realm being on the verge of open, declared warfare with the neighbors’ loose cats, today we spent a number of hours fortifying the ramparts. Enough was about enough when I caught Cassie eating, as dogs will do, one of the little gifts Other Daughter’s tabby likes to spread around the backyard. But now we see that Tabby has arranged a détente with the black-and-white predator belonging to the renters across the street.
Where before she would try to kill this interloper, of late she has entered a pact with the beast, not only standing down from all warlike acts but indeed, engaging in a peace treaty and alliance. The other day the two of them were spotted perched together atop the backyard wall, presumably searching for Abert’s towhees to kill. And so now enough is decidedly, definitely, indisputably enough!
On reflection, I really couldn’t bring myself to do Tabby in with a dose of rat poison. In the first place, the potential for overkill is obvious. But more to the point, it’s hard to bring much animosity to bear on this pretty little cat, and harder still to bring it to bear on her innocent, sweet-natured, dumb-as-refined-sugar human.
All the commercial cat-repellants, when reviewed, appeared to be pretty useless. At Amazon, a reviewer even suggested the best use of one of them would be as a kitty treat. The cinnamon scheme looked altogether too folkloric, and having tried ole-wives’ remedies (like cayenne) in the past, I chose not to waste my time and money. Other than electrocuting or poisoning the damn cats, something needed to be done.
Something mechanical. Something to discourage them from entering the yard.
Briefly, I thought of revisiting the Dragon’s Teeth, strips of one-by-fours embellished with roofing nails and wired to the top of the wall. Back in the day, these served their purpose, which was to discourage further vandalism after a local entrepreneur did $10,000 worth of damage to the pool. But they’re gross, obtrusive, and radically eccentric. The neighbors already think I’m crazy enough. They don’t need any more encouragement.
But how about a more discreet version thereof? How about, say…dainty carpet tack strips?
These are cheap. They’re not so bizarre-looking, unless you’re staring hard at the wall. And those sharp little tacks hurt like the dickens when they stab. Why not?
So the other day I picked up 100 feet of tack strips at Home Depot: $19.
Today I finally had some time to work on this little project. Of course, a storm is blowing in and it’s colder than a bigod out there So, numb fingers, runny nose and all, nothing would do but what I had to spend half the day attaching carpet tack strips to the tops of the walls.
Time-consuming (amazingly!). Boring. And annoying. But the westside and back wall are now armed. All that remains to fortify is the east wall.
I don’t think this looks half-bad...certainly not compared to the late, great dragon’s teeth:
Hardly visible, eh? Really, the only way you can appreciate the full glory of the looniness is to climb up on the woodpile so you can look down on the top row of the fencing block:
And y’know what? If that’s what you take it into your head to do, you pretty much deserve what you get. 😉
LOL! I’m pretty sure these will work to repel the enemy, at least for the time being. And when he finds his way around them? Yeah. Barrels of boiling oil!
Four more papers to grade, and then choir. And so, to work…
The easier (and safer for kitties) option would be for the neighbors to keep them indoors. =(
Your solution, however, reminds me of one of the most beautiful walls I’ve ever seen. It surrounded a compound in Mexico, but was basically a 5-ft tall cinderblock wall covered in stucco, but atop it was a rounded mound of poured concrete with large multicolored glass shards permanently sticking out of it. Climbing the wall looked like a bad idea, but the wall was gorgeous to look at.
Yes, that’s very common in Mexico.
The carpet tack strip idea was something that came from a friend who owns a flooring company. She was Mexican.
We discussed the idea of setting broken glass into the top of the walls. She said she thought it was against the law in this country, and since she lived in a part of town where one would like to have broken glass atop the hacienda walls, I figured she knew what she was talking about.
When we were initially discussing schemes to keep the Perp and the Son-in-Law out, she felt carpet tacks would not suffice — all it would take, she thought, would be a heavy jacket or towel to pad the tacks well enough for a man to hop over. Hence: the dragon’s teeth.
However, cats and raccoons do not go around in bomber jackets. So with any luck this scheme will accomplish the present tactical goal. 😉
Once while writing an article about keeping cats out of one’s garden, I interviewed a veterinarian. She opined that keeping the soil very damp might help, as cats prefer DRY toilets. (Not much help to you guys in Phoenix, of course.)
Other tactics she suggested? Sprinkling ground red pepper all over the area and, I swear to god, burying turkey skewers points-up here and there. The idea is that once kitty gets stabbed or gets pepper in eyes/on paws (and hence into mouth when grooming), kitty will avoid that area in the future.
I’m wondering whether pet owners who read the article decided to avoid that vet in the future…!
In the first house my husband and I lived in, we had a beautiful covered atrium with lovely little tropical plants, one of which was a delicate umbrella plant. We had these damn Siamese cats (sometimes I do amazingly stupid things…), and one of them was fixated on eating that plant.
To protect it, I would smear it with tabasco sauce (which would burn its leaves) and sprinkle it with powdered cayenne. The cat developed a taste for hot pepper!
No joke. It would eat the plant, pepper or not, and actually seemed to relish it.
A vet told me that mouse traps make a good cat repellant. The idea is, you lay unbaited but set mouse traps around the flowerbeds the cat has decided will be its latrines. When the cat hunkers down, its tail sets off the mouse trap and the loud SNAP (and with any luck a sharp pinch) scares the cat off.
He insisted that he’d never seen a cat or a dog with a serious injury from a mouse trap. But the mental picture of a cat running off with a mouse trap clamped to its tail gives me the willies. Besides, the issue here is to keep the cat from coming over the block walls.
LOL! I can’t afford a lawn. The cost of watering a yard here quickly exceeds the cost of air-conditioning a house in 115-degree heat. However, there are motion-sensitive sprinkler gadgets that supposedly will go off whenever an unwelcome critter enters a certain area. That looks like another nuisance, though: first, you’re likely to get wet yourself, and second, it would tie up all the garden hoses.
Besides…cats like to go in your flower and vegetable gardens. The soil there is usually moist anyway, and that doesn’t seem to deter the little darlings.