- Joined
- Jun 26, 2018
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- 8
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Hi Cat experts!
I’ve got a bit of a feline difficulty. I’ll give you a short version first, then a long version.
Short version: A cat recently came into my apparent and did a nr.2 on the floor. (Thankfully not my bed or similar!). My question follows - how can I best prevent this from happening again?
Long version: I’ve recently ‘sort-of’ befriended a cat in the neighbourhood. This was probably very stupid on my behalf. By ‘befriend’, I mean, when I go to the trash which is right next to my apartment I say hi to him (dunno if it’s a he or she..I’ll just say he for simplicity’s sake). I petted him him once and also kind of wave at him when I close the windows when I go to bed. He literally hangs out right infront of my ground floor apartment all of the time. Also he was ‘crying’ (not meowing, more of the circular mouth kind of ‘crying’ for lack of a better word) in the apparent building - sometimes people leave the door to the hall open and he get’s in. On one occasion I also gave him a pet and talked a bit to him. I generally have a good understanding with cat’s/dogs and also quite like them. Regretfully with cat’s I am quite allergic to them so I make a point of keeping the petting to a minimum, although waving and saying hi I’ve never had difficulties with.
Anyways, today, one of my students (I teach music), came to her lesson with a small baby dog. It pooped in the corner, I/my student cleaned it up. No problem. Adjacent to where I teach and work is my bedroom which has an open window, unless I’m sleeping there and then it’s closed. So today, unbenounced to me, this cat (I can’t prove it, but the likelihood that it is him is high) came into my bedroom and pooped. This cat has come into my apparmentment once before, and when it saw me it froze, like cat’s do, and I said hi, and then kept on working. I assume that it then left seeing as that I wasn’t really interested and also I don’t want to encourage him to come in so I didn’t pet him or anything like that. Of course I haven’t given him any food and don’t plan on it. It was probably dumb of me in the first place to pet him on two occasions. It’s probably ‘confused’ now.
So what to do. I can stop opening that window - which I don’t really want to do since I quite like cross ventilation of my appartment. I’m pretty sure that the next time I see him it makes sense to just ignore him - ie. forever. So as not to be unclear. As for aggression - I don’t ever plan on hitting it or anything of that sort, but if I do keep my window open, and he comes in, I’m not sure what the best plan of action is. My instinct is that I stand up and scare him a bit so that it’s clear that he’s not welcome and he leaves the way he came in.
I’m not very well versed in cat psychology - perhaps the pooping was his way of saying to the other animal “go away this is my domain!” ? Or is it a “I hate you because you haven’t invited me into your home and haven’t fed me?” He’s made it clear with longing eyes that he wanted to come in, and since I’ve got allergies and don’t want to encourage behaviour which is going to be bad for me (sneezing with out end) it’s best that I don’t have him come in. I guess I can put some kind of netting or similar so I still get the cross ventilation, but so that he can’t come in. Maybe I could put something like that up for a while and then later take it down so that he get’s the idea. Oh man…I can still smell poop I hope he didn’t do it in several different places in my bedroom!!
Anyways, I’m grateful for any suggestions!
Peter
I’ve got a bit of a feline difficulty. I’ll give you a short version first, then a long version.
Short version: A cat recently came into my apparent and did a nr.2 on the floor. (Thankfully not my bed or similar!). My question follows - how can I best prevent this from happening again?
Long version: I’ve recently ‘sort-of’ befriended a cat in the neighbourhood. This was probably very stupid on my behalf. By ‘befriend’, I mean, when I go to the trash which is right next to my apartment I say hi to him (dunno if it’s a he or she..I’ll just say he for simplicity’s sake). I petted him him once and also kind of wave at him when I close the windows when I go to bed. He literally hangs out right infront of my ground floor apartment all of the time. Also he was ‘crying’ (not meowing, more of the circular mouth kind of ‘crying’ for lack of a better word) in the apparent building - sometimes people leave the door to the hall open and he get’s in. On one occasion I also gave him a pet and talked a bit to him. I generally have a good understanding with cat’s/dogs and also quite like them. Regretfully with cat’s I am quite allergic to them so I make a point of keeping the petting to a minimum, although waving and saying hi I’ve never had difficulties with.
Anyways, today, one of my students (I teach music), came to her lesson with a small baby dog. It pooped in the corner, I/my student cleaned it up. No problem. Adjacent to where I teach and work is my bedroom which has an open window, unless I’m sleeping there and then it’s closed. So today, unbenounced to me, this cat (I can’t prove it, but the likelihood that it is him is high) came into my bedroom and pooped. This cat has come into my apparmentment once before, and when it saw me it froze, like cat’s do, and I said hi, and then kept on working. I assume that it then left seeing as that I wasn’t really interested and also I don’t want to encourage him to come in so I didn’t pet him or anything like that. Of course I haven’t given him any food and don’t plan on it. It was probably dumb of me in the first place to pet him on two occasions. It’s probably ‘confused’ now.
So what to do. I can stop opening that window - which I don’t really want to do since I quite like cross ventilation of my appartment. I’m pretty sure that the next time I see him it makes sense to just ignore him - ie. forever. So as not to be unclear. As for aggression - I don’t ever plan on hitting it or anything of that sort, but if I do keep my window open, and he comes in, I’m not sure what the best plan of action is. My instinct is that I stand up and scare him a bit so that it’s clear that he’s not welcome and he leaves the way he came in.
I’m not very well versed in cat psychology - perhaps the pooping was his way of saying to the other animal “go away this is my domain!” ? Or is it a “I hate you because you haven’t invited me into your home and haven’t fed me?” He’s made it clear with longing eyes that he wanted to come in, and since I’ve got allergies and don’t want to encourage behaviour which is going to be bad for me (sneezing with out end) it’s best that I don’t have him come in. I guess I can put some kind of netting or similar so I still get the cross ventilation, but so that he can’t come in. Maybe I could put something like that up for a while and then later take it down so that he get’s the idea. Oh man…I can still smell poop I hope he didn’t do it in several different places in my bedroom!!
Anyways, I’m grateful for any suggestions!
Peter
