Cat Chasing
Let me preface the below statement/question with the following: we have a long-standing tradition of cat-hating among the women in my family. My mother hates cats, my grandmother hates cats, my great-grandmother hated cats. In fact, my grandmother fondly tells a story of her mother (my great-grandmother) who, upon finding a cat in her (farm) kitchen who had decided to partake itself of a recently cooked chicken, picked it up, broke it's neck and threw it outside to be eaten by the dogs.
Let's just say the apple doesn't fall far from the great-grandmother tree.
As a child, my mother regularly chased cats out of our yard, and I did the same. Now, as a home owner myself, I do it in my own yard. For whatever reason, people in my neighbourhood seem to think it's acceptable to allow their cats to roam the streets freely, peeing and pooping and pillaging people's yards as they see fit. Despite bylaws against these activities, cats are in abundance around these parts, wandering in and out of yards regularly.
Are there any foreseeable consequences (other than dead or injured cats) to encouraging Casey to chase cats out of my yard?
As it stands now, I'm chasing them all out, but if I've got a dog, why not get her to do it? Does encouraging her to chase cats encourage her to chase other small animals? That is, does encouraging her to chase one thing, encourage other things? I feel like it doesn't, because we play chase/tug with toys, but she's smart enough not to chase other things when told not to, but I'm just curious.
Has anyone else trained their dog to chase off animals? How did you do it? How did it work out?
Comment
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Comment by sheila hatcher on August 8, 2010 at 10:07am
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A CITYS CAT BIRTH IS A LONLEY EXCISTENCE,NO ONE WANTS YOU AND THERE IS NO PLACE TO SLEEP ,NO HANDS TO LOVE AND COMFORT YOU I could never imagine a life witout human contact,God gave us animals to keep us company and to love.
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Comment by Edison on August 6, 2010 at 12:14pm
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Edison is not allowed to chase cats. We live in a city (it's depressing how many people have outdoor cats in the city) and there is too much risk of him getting hit by a car while in hot pursuit. Even dogs in less populated areas run the same risk- my husband's beloved childhood dog (who was a famous hunter of muskrats and similar) was hit by a car and they lived down 1.5 miles of dirt road.
That said, the mere presence of a dog will tend to keep cats away, whether or not they're actively chasing. Have you tried letting her out in the presence of cats? The neighborhood felines make a run for it when they hear Edison's tags jingle.
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Comment by Carla on August 6, 2010 at 10:43am
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@Ella and Derek - That picture is full of win. Too funny.
@David - Interesting suggestions, thanks! They didn't list my current tactics, which include the spray nozzle on my hose and a broom handle, lol. And shouting from open windows.
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Comment by Beth on August 6, 2010 at 9:37am
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Ohmigosh, I love the picture of Kung fu kitty! Did someone put that onto LOLCats? If not, they should!
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Comment by Ella and Lily on August 6, 2010 at 6:32am
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I highly discourage teaching your corgi to chase cats. Ella is afraid of cats for a VERY good reason.
Cats know Kung fu.
Seriously though, Beth knows what she is talking about. My friend's German Shepherd lost an eye to a Tom and his face is seriously scarred. They ended up spending a lot of money for the infection it ended up getting from some wounds they missed beneath its fur. Go with a different method other than putting casey in a position to get hurt.
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Comment by David on August 5, 2010 at 11:38pm
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Believe me, even though I like cats, I don't like strays digging around in my yard either. Living in an area now where we deal with woodchucks, skunks, foxes, raccoons, and countless other critters, the cats just sort of join the steady stream. I don't like what they do to the bird population, and of course they carry diseases and parasites.
That said, taking in a stray and spaying/neutering and then releasing actually does help the problem. A single intact female quickly turns into a couple dozen totally wild cats (I've seen it happen). When you spay her, she stays just the one cat. Cats start reproducing at under a year old, and while the life expectancy of an unfed feral cat is short, the survival rate of kittens is fairly high and numbers can quickly spiral upwards.
Years ago, while I was a young adult living at home, we rescued three that turned up over a five-year period. Two were kittens, one very young who became my house pet and one a few months old who we spayed and deflead, vaccinated and took care of ear mites, and then turned over to a friend.
The third was an adult when we found him, and never did transition to a housepet. We neutered him and got all his shots, and yes he did stay out most of the time. It was either that, or have him euthanized. We waited weeks before we started feeding him, and watched him get thinner and thinner. Even without food, he slept on our porch every night and hung out in our yard every day. He just sort of adopted us (as is often the way with cats) and we gave up. We could not watch him starve to death slowly. No one in my entire family ever had a pet that we let roam, before or since, and this goes back to the days when many let dogs run loose. So I understand your feelings, truly I do, just giving you the reasoning that goes into the decision. A cat shows up, we don't want a cat, we figure we'll ignore him and he'll go away. He does not go away, we feed and neuter and vaccinate him, bring him inside and he's an absolute disaster. We'd never had cats and perhaps there were things we could have done differently, but he bit, he opened cupboards, he got into everything he could find. So now we have a cat who is clearly miserable in yet we've already taken him in. The choices we faced were euthanize him, or let him back out.
My aunt, who lives on acreage where things are a bit different, just had a starving cat show up and refuse to leave. She's lived there for 15 years and never taken in a single cat, but this one was in sorry shape. She's highly allergic and can't keep it in the house, so again her choices are have it killed, or put it out. The no-kill rescues are all full and not taking pets. The kill shelter has something like 300 cats. She'll have her spayed and give her shots, and thereby prevent one cat from turning into 20. It's not an easy ethical dilemma to solve.
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Great advice and information Beth, thanks!
I admit, I was writing more from a frustrated standpoint than a practical one. We saw one puttering around in my front flower garden as Casey and I were walking back to the house this evening, and as usual it irked the crap out of me. I chased it off, knowing full well that in 10 minutes it or another of its kind would likely mosey on back to putter around in my yard again.
It would likely be more work than its worth to try and get Casey to chase a cat anyway; any cat she's ever met she's tried to befriend, and when they swat at her she runs off like the chicken that she is, lol.
BUT - while I agree that cities should step up their game in terms of feral cats, people who feed them just continue to add to the problem, and possibly make it worse, so I most definitely judge them and judge them harshly. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. Plus, cats are just giant rats anyway, so I say let'em starve. Just kidding....sort of :P
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Oh, and yes I have trained Jack to chase off crows and woodchucks, but not by actually "chasing" them. I open a low first-floor window, call him over, and have him "speak". The sound drives them off. It won't work for most cats, though.
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I am very fond of cats, but I will answer from the practical aspect of your post.
First, please don't be so quick to judge the "owners" of the cats that frequent your yard. It is true that some cat owners do let their cats wander loose. However, my experience is that in urban/suburban areas, the vast majority of pet cat owners keep their cats inside. It is also my experience that a large number of people end up taking pity on some half-starved feral cat, feed it, take it into the vet for shots and spay/neuter, and more or less let it stay out. They may have tried to turn the cat to an indoor-only cat to little success, or they may already be maxed out on animals and just don't want to see one starve on their doorstep, or they may be highly allergic to cats but again don't want to watch them starve. I have personally known people who fit the above scenarios. I don't know how it is there, but here all the shelters have hundreds of cats, and turning one into the humane society is an almost certain death-sentence. The feral cat population is enormous. We have strays who visit our yard regularly, and none of them look like they've seen the inside of a house in some time. Until the municipalities start getting serious about catch/spay/release and eliminate the problem, there are no good options for those who don't like to see feral cats starve, and so there are many who care for cats who are not even truly theirs.
Now to your chasing question. I would never allow my dogs to chase cats. A big tom can easily go 15 to 20 pounds, and believe me, he knows how to fight. Some cats will just run from a dog, but others will run til they get in a corner and then turn and fight. They do go for the muzzle and eyes, and they do know how to rabbit-kick. There is a good chance that the cat will know how to fight much better than Casey does, and many a dog-owner has had a dog lose an eye to an angry cat.
Even if the dog "wins" the fight (and some dogs instinctively still go for the death-shake and can kill a cat), a cat bite is tiny and hard to spot beneath heavy Corgi fur, and cat bites almost always get infected, sometimes badly so. An infection in a deep puncture wound can be hard to treat.
Besides toms, you need to worry about queens guarding a litter, and an angry mom-cat is a sight to see. Feral queens have gotten the best of many a rescuer, who is exponentially heavier and more cat-savvy than your dog.
There are some better options. Most cats don't like citrus, and scattering orange peels in the beds she is bothering will redirect most cats. You can also buy (cheaply) some plastic thingies that you put over your beds to discourage digging. Many cats don't like tin foil, though that option could be pricey. Some people have luck with sprinklers.
Chasing is not likely to eliminate your problem, since outside cats are most active at night when no one is there to chase. (Indoor cats generally learn to follow their owners' schedules, just like dogs do). Cats are very intelligent and a dog won't keep them away, they'll simply learn the dog's outside schedule. I have seen cats, many times, sitting just out of the reach of a dog on a stake-out, calmly bathing themselves and making a great show of it while the dog barked like a fool on the end of the chain.
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