I'm a newbie and need some advice on my wimpy cats

Hi everyone

I'm looking for some advice please.

We moved into a property with a large garden recently. The one challenge we have is that all our surrounding neighbors have many mature tom cats that have marked the garden as their own territory and they have some veracious fights over it in the middle of the night.

Last year, we adopted two short-haired domestic tom cats from the same litter and they are now 13 months old. They are neutered and both love exploring in the garden. The problem is that they are bullied by the visiting cats to such an extent that they do not want to venture into the garden anymore.


How can I assist them and at the same time stay out of it? Any advice will be appreciated. 

Yoes

Hi and welcome to TCS. The problem here is that if these other male cats are not neutered, they will continue to instinctively fight for territory. Your cats could be seriously hurt or possibly catch diseases from them depending on all the cats' vaccination histories and health. To be honest, I would fence an area that these neighbor cats cannot get into to keep your cats safe from them. I would not allow unsupervised visits outside until then.

Sadly I agree with @vball91, it seems such a shame to keep your cats in but I would be really worried about them getting caught up in the tom cats' fights over territory, and the tom cats will be much more driven (and more heavily muscled) due to their hromones and your cats are not likely to come off well in any encounter.  If you do look at some kind of fencing it would probably have to be pretty secure to keep other cats out.

Thank you for the replies.

I suspected that would be the only solution. Logistically, however, its near impossible to keep the other cats out due to numerous trees overlapping the adjoining properties. <SIGH>

In any case, its wonderful to be on this site. I am learning so much.

Our cats are Trunks and Go-ten (my 10 year-old daughter is a DragonballZ die-hard) and it is fascinating to watch then develop into separate and distinctive personalities. Trunks thinks he is a human that happens to be a cat, and Go-ten thinks he is a huge lion and stalks everything, from flies to bees to the large squirrel population in the trees. I shudder to think if he ever gets close to an adult squirrel. He already got a fat lip a few weeks ago from a bee that he "caught" !

Yoes 

Your babies look awesome

Sorry to hear about the troublesome neighbours though. I know you mentioned that the difficulties with fencing due to the many trees - but I have seen some 'cat-fences' which are attached to the top of the garden fence. These cat fences are at an angle and deters the cats from jumping. Not sure if that would work for your situation though.

Perhaps you could try supervised play in the garden? The cats get to explore with human company - making sure that neighbours don't invite themselves to the party.

You could also invest in some cat jackets and teach your little guys to go for walks with you. It would expand their environment while at the same time ensuring that they have you as their protector

If you want your cats to continue having access outdoors and fencing the garden isn't an option, would an area offering a 'cat run' give them more freedom that indoor only or on leash?

I have seen some pretty amazing threads for outdoor cat areas on this site and they can be quite large if your garden has space.  That has the benefit of sides and top preventing unwanted traffic in or out - just your boys between the house and the run.  You can include climbing and play areas in there but probably won't be able to protect local bugs and insects.... or prevent bee stings.