

To GPS my cat and go and speak to the neighbour?

(151 Posts)
LongGoneBeforeDaylight Fri 14-Jun-13 14:12:15

I own a very large ginger Tom cat. He is supposed to be on a diet but comes home licking his lips and smelling of food. And also, often,
cigarette smoke grin
I bought a "cat nav" device for him (v small USB thing which attaches to his collar). I have used it three times now and downloaded the data and it shows him going into a house about 8 doors down and not moving for an hour.

AIBU to go and speak to them and ask them to stop feeding him? I wasn't planning on telling them about the GPS device... grin

Or would you leave it?

I am aware this post reads like I am a mad woman, btw. I promise I am sane. I just can't bear the patronising vet telling me he will get type 2 diabetes if he doesn't lost weight hmm

Ceebee77 Thu 18-Jul-13 02:07:05

Hi there, I came across this post and wanted to know what tracking device you purchased. I'm pretty desperate at the moment. I've suspected a neighbour has been feeding my cat as she has been putting on weight. In the last month she has come to my house twice a week and I haven't seen her, apart from a fleeting glimpse in a garden, for a week so the person has obviously decided to keep her inside. My cat is seriously obese and she's now so fat her long fur has become matted as she can no longer groom her back. She needs to go to a vet ASAP but can't get hold of her. She was a rescue cat and I spent years of hard work socialising her (she used to bite anyone that touched her). I feel very upset about it as I feel this person is killing my cat by overfeeding her. How do the cat navs work? Do they tell you the number of the house where the cat is or is it just an estimated area? My cat has a collar, identity tag and is microchipped. So they know she has a home.

MinesaBottle Wed 19-Jun-13 12:57:23

We get 2 cats from down the road who come in now and again - we don't feed them but they just seem to like exploring. DH once came home to find them sitting by the front door waiting for him to let them in so they could roll around on the hall carpet and check out the bath, all the while complaining that we weren't feeding them. I'd be mortified if the owners complained - we don't encourage them and I'm sure we're not the only house they go to! Luckily they don't usually stay very long.

LongGoneBeforeDaylight Wed 19-Jun-13 11:08:30

Ah, I am friends with Yollo on the gpaws site! So you can observe all of the houses my boy's been in... grin

unobtanium Wed 19-Jun-13 10:49:11

Love this thread and LOVE your cat. He can come over my house any day (and I WON'T feed him, don't worry!)

Ann74 Wed 19-Jun-13 08:22:55

My husband was one of the team that developed the G-Paws product but I don't think he wanted to cause waring neighbours! It's a tricky one, Yollo wears a collar asking not to be fed but since we've been tracking him we know people do, don't want to confront them and at the end of the day he always comes home...

LongGoneBeforeDaylight Tue 18-Jun-13 13:39:48

CSIJ We would need to do that with both the door to the conservatory (which is one large glass panel - patio door) and then the French doors leading to outside. Plus we rent off people we know very well and they have said no, so wouldn't feel happy doing it even if we did reinstate. Besides, if I got a catflap I might never see him. At least he sleeps in my bed. That's the only way I know he's truly mine!

TryDrawing Tue 18-Jun-13 13:38:35


My cat likes the trampoline too - and I caught her having a go on the neighbours slide!

LongGoneBeforeDaylight Tue 18-Jun-13 13:34:28

This behaviour is completely unacceptable. My cat is gaslighting me. I need to LTB.

This is brilliant and has really made me laugh. I needed cheering up as I'm in bed, ill, so thank your porky moggy from me, Op grin

I've had cats all my life and they've all been tinkers. Our first cat, a tom with attitude who cared not for authority, went missing for almost a week when I was a kid in the late 80s. Our next door neighbours came back from their holiday to find their previously shut bedroom window wide open, and our cat in their bed with his head on the pillows and everything. They came and knocked and asked my dad to come and see grinGod knows how he got the window open. His sister, a grumpy tabby, had a fetish for cleaning tools like sponges and brushes as well as rubber gloves. She would steal them from all over the district and horded them at the back of the shed. This only came to light when my dad was doing something in the garden and came across 50+ sponges and literally hundreds of rubber gloves. She must have been stock piling them for years! She also used to break I to our rabbits run and beat the poor bunny up!! We had to get the run reinforced.

Two of the cats I have now are cheeky brothers who've always been a handful. This happened when they were very little and only just going outside. Our next door neighbour has small children and in her garden one of those trampolines with a guard around it. One day she came round laughing hysterically after having just filmed 10 minutes of footage on her mobile of our cats jumping up and down on the trampoline. They had jumped from our shed and onto the trampoline and were happily bouncing like it had been put out there for them to enjoy.

TryDrawing Tue 18-Jun-13 13:28:37

This is probably in bad taste but I've just read through the thread and it's more and more like the tale of an unfaithful boyfriend.

OP, you've got to talk to your cat about this, talking to the OW won't solve anything and will only cause you heartache wink

Or, as suggested, put notes though the doors of the relevant houses saying he has worms and fleas and that, should he somehow find his way into their houses, they should probably get a pest control company in to save them from having to burn their carpets later.

The cat GPS is GENIUS grin

digerd Tue 18-Jun-13 13:17:24


And you let him out during the day to get some exercise? That one woman said he was in her house <probably on the sofa >for half the time. He's a very canny and charming cat by the sounds of it smile . 8 houses he went into - everybody loves him it seems.

One of our neighbours put letters through our doors saying his cat has tummy troubles and please do not feed him.

DrinkFeckArseGirls Tue 18-Jun-13 12:47:18

Your pussy is a hussy shockgrin

CSIJanner Tue 18-Jun-13 12:27:16

If you have a panelled double glazed door or small panelled window in the conservatory, you can take out the lower panel and place door/window upvc and place a cat flap in it. Then when you leave, you pop out the old panel and reinstall the glass. We own our house and DH did this to a small window. Took him about 90 minutes to install.

msrisotto Tue 18-Jun-13 12:25:32

grin He's giving six dinner Sid a run for his money grin

LongGoneBeforeDaylight Tue 18-Jun-13 12:23:44

According to the tracker he has been in seven different houses these past few days. I've got no hope of dieting him have I? hmm

DiseasesOfTheSheep Sun 16-Jun-13 17:45:19

"Stop fucking with my cat, you feeder" would be much more entertaining for us when reported back though...

My mother is terrible for this - every cat she sees, she assumes is stray and is desperate to feed/lure in/steal. Despite the fact she gets very twitchy if she thinks someone else is feeding one of ours angry

HeavenlyYoni Sun 16-Jun-13 17:08:11

ahh, not worth it then, unless the landlord would agree to it being installed and not being put right again.

TwitchyTail Sun 16-Jun-13 16:41:11

She might genuinely think she is doing the right thing. My mother, bless her, used to put a bowl of cream and a tin of tuna out for our childhood neighbour's morbidly obese feline beast because "he looked hungry" hmm

With this in mind, I would go over again with a bunch of flowers and apologise for your cat bothering her, thank her for "looking after" him (with straight face), then politely explain about the borderline diabetic/vet advised diet business and ask that she cease and desist. Hopefully followed by pleasant chitchat about the silly things pets do and the weather. I imagine this will actually be much more effective than "stop fucking with my cat you feeder".

LongGoneBeforeDaylight Sun 16-Jun-13 15:44:38

Ah, I am in a terrace and all-glass conservatory covers back (main road out front). Would need a cat flap into conservatory as its freezing 9 months a year, and then cat flap to out doors, both in glass (£££). Plus I rent so would have to reinstate the property when I left (£££).

Well you've inspired me to order one of those G-Paws thingys.

We have 3 cats, but having watched that Horizon programme I have suspicions about the particularly lardy one.

I think I will track him first and then see if what the other 2 are up to.

Your cat looks very similar to one of mine, he's called Desmond and is only slightly thinner, although our vet said he was just 'big-boned', he burns lots of calories shimmying up the drain to cry outside my bedroom window, usually straight after demanding to be let out of said bedroom.

hugoagogo Sun 16-Jun-13 13:16:37

That looks like bad photography, rather than bad workmanship to me.

Sallyingforth Sun 16-Jun-13 13:08:47

not just for doors here
Hmm. I don't think much of the fitting of this one. Doesn't he have a spirit level?

HeavenlyYoni Sun 16-Jun-13 12:50:05

not just for doors here

LongGoneBeforeDaylight Sun 16-Jun-13 12:12:19

Yes, for v boring reasons it would be impossible for me to have a cat flap. I do agree though!

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