KEEPING CATS THAT AREN’T YOURS OUT OF YOUR YARD

You have cats that are indoor-only, but stray, feral, and owned cats (belonging to your neighbors) hang out in your yard, using your planting beds as litter boxes. Your dogs may eat the cat poop. Your children may play in it. The cats outside may upset your indoor-only cats by looking in windows, starting “fights,” yowling loudly.

You may like cats or you may not, but it’s for sure: cats that aren’t yours are not welcome in your yard.

I asked online for animal lovers and animal professionals to share their suggestions on the topic of deterring cats that aren’t yours as kindly as possible from entering your yard, without any danger to the cats.

“What methods have worked for you? What methods have been total fails?”

Jeanne Brennan (California) My concern isn’t cats so much as skunks (had a run-in with the dogs last year at 11 pm ). I bought a couple of motion sprinklers and that seems to have worked. Since skunks go under fences (can’t jump over), I also made sure to block potential holes. I have also placed some battery-operated motion-detector lights low to the ground and on the ground. I read it startles the skunks, and I can spot where my dogs are in the yard. For the animals that can go over fences (mostly I don’t want the dogs jumping up to pull opossums off, because I adore those little creatures), I can use the same motion sprinklers. I was looking at carpet tracking strips to nail up there. I don’t think it would harm them, but it would be uncomfortable. Recently, mostly due to some Nextdoor posts and human animals jumping fences to go in back yards, I found a different deterrent.

Similar to the carpet strip idea—I purchased these:
https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Plastic-Anti…/dp/B07CZ2MSYB…

I have them glued and nailed to the top of my fence line—not on the 2×4, but a few inches lower. They are on the side yard fence line where someone human might attempt going over. For a cat, if I had an issue, I could try putting these along the area where a cat usually jumps up (they also tend to be creatures of habit, so they are predictable).

For my gardening friends who don’t want cats pooping in their gardening beds, I get it. That is a problem. I would do the motion sprinklers, I would “install” the product I posted, using with long spikes in gardening beds, and I might try motion lights (I use and swear by Mr. Beams). If all else fails, and you maybe want good rodent patrol, provide litter boxes for the cats (you can also add attractant). For comedy, you can do the plastic forks in the gardening beds—but the disarray left after other animals, probably not cats, that have cruised through looks like a mess to clean up.

Photo by Mary Hayward

Jill Gibbs (Montana) Cats avoid my yard for obvious reasons (resident dogs). Mothballs work, but you don’t want your dog eating them. If cats are coming in via an area that can be covered in tinfoil, they hate that.

Jacqui Halvorson (Washington) My neighbors purchased something at the hardware store they would sprinkle on their gravel parking area specifically to keep cats from using it. I’m sorry that I don’t know the name of the product or any other details, but it worked!

Colette Kase (Mexico) Any cats that enter my property are likely to be trapped, sterilized, and ear-marked. Most of them don’t come back, but we do monitor their welfare in the neighborhood. We did our 18th last week.

Debby McMullen (Pennsylvania) They don’t go in my yard (because Mela will literally kill them and they FAFO the hard way), but they traipse around the back part of my property so much that I spend about an hour every day deleting cat videos from my security cameras. Nothing has worked.

Lynn Honeckman DVM (Florida) This happens in our yard daily/nightly. My next-door neighbor feeds them. The reinforcement history is high.

Bonnie Hess (Pennsylvania) Impossible, especially if the owner across the street refuses to do anything, refuses to take cat to the vet or allow you to, refuses to relinquish the cat to you, and refuses to bring the cat into her home (it is “her” outside cat). Thank goodness she moved . . . but poor cat!

Laura Bourhenne (California) Plant marigolds.

Lynn Brezina (Illinois) Don’t feed them. Don’t feed birds.

Laura Nott (California) For fence tops: roller bars. Another solution for animals digging under the fences: Use hardware cloth buried under 2–3 inches of soil. Depth depends on size of animals, plus soil type and location. Locate hardware cloth next to or, preferably, under the fence and extended (12” or greater) into area on either side needing protection. Cut openings for plants as needed. Stake down with 6” or longer U-shaped stakes at edges and corners, and distributed throughout center of the hardware cloth to keep hardware cloth in place. Hardware cloth should be a welded type, if possible, for strength and longevity.

Timothy Page (Oregon) Dogs. We have two. They keep the cats out of the catnip so there is plenty of catnip for the bees. I think catnip is the favorite plant of the bees in our yard. When I did have a cat, we had to put a cage around the catnip because a few catnip plants had been decimated.

Dawn Barer (Washington) I like the scarecrow motion-sensored sprinkler system.

Sunni Mace (Washington) I love cats, but really don’t appreciate the ones that I am sure are actually someone’s pets, but hang around my yard to stalk my birdbaths and the birds that use my bird feeder. I would love any good ideas to discourage them from hanging around.

Teri Stripes (Washington) Our tall white vinyl privacy fence helps (nothing to climb). But, if they get in by other means, it is very hard for them to get out, especially when hunted by a boxer. We have privacy fencing on two sides and wood fencing on the other two.

Darcey Byrne (Washington) I have had very little success. This is an issue that goes to the core of poor animal stewardship. What tees me off the most is that the victim is responsible and not the perpetrator. Aarrgg. I come back to this: Why, when I am harvesting from my vegetable garden, do I need to put up with cat poop? Cats carry diseases that are not safe for humans. I do not have a heavy pocketbook to buy gizmos to scare off or deter cats. I don’t have a dog. I truly am gripped by anger watching neighborhood cats decimate the birds. Again, pet stewardship is a lacking quality among many pet owners and I do hope I see this change in my lifetime.

Beth Fabel (Washington) I struggle with cats messing with my goldfish pond, pooping in my garden, and triggering my security lights, but the biggest issue I had was cats spraying my front door with urine and fighting—apparently my yard was the designated MMA ring. I had to replace my whole doorway including the frame to remove the odor. That’s the only thing that’s stopped it.

Sarah Adams (Oregon) At my Portland house, I had cats getting into my basement and tearing up the insulation on my ductwork. Expensive.

Photo by Patty Sikkila

Lori Leah Monet DVM (Colorado) I always liked the idea of attaching a note that says:

“Hello, your cat was wandering the neighborhood. Today you get your cat back, none the worse for wear. This note wasn’t harmful; however, next time it could be a large dog or coyote. It could be a car driving through the neighborhood. Your cat could be trapped and taken to a shelter where it may be euthanized. Or a caring family who adores cats might adopt it and keep it. Today, you were lucky. Your cat came home. Please keep it safe in your home.”

It doesn’t work and makes a lot of people angry because “cats need to roam.” That does keep the coyotes fed and veterinarians in business.

Eric Baldwin (California) There is no way to prevent feral and stray cats from entering your yard aside from spreading repeated treatments of coyote or puma urine (which is potent enough to keep you out of your yard). Make a pass through your yard once or twice a week and remove the offending feces or provide a sandy area for the local intruders. It’s much simpler to learn to live with animals than to try and change their instinctual habits.

Inna Krasnovsky (New York) I suggest getting to the root of the problem, which goes beyond irresponsible cat owners who allow their cats to roam. The issue is that there are millions of homeless cats. They are not spayed/neutered and have multiple litters a year. I suggest getting involved with local rescues who do TNR (trap, neuter, release). TNR has been documented as an effective way to humanely reduce the homeless cat population. Well-taken-care-of community cats also keep other cats from their territories, (hence, fewer cats).

Jeanne Brennan (California) Because of the pandemic, TNR programs were hit hard. In 2020, at the beginning, all spay and neuter surgeries were suspended because they were not emergencies. Our state (and probably others) had to temporarily waive the law requiring animals from shelters and rescues to be altered before going into their new homes. This was due to shortages of various medical supplies. Currently, the national shortage of veterinarians and RVTs is adding to the problem.

Last spring, boy, did we pay for that temporary suspension of all TNR programs. My shelter still isn’t taking in trapped ferals unless injured. We are going to be paying for it again. It is so sad to talk to the people who TNR, many using their own money when our local free options have zero appointments. Areas that were getting under control are now full of kittens and the health of all the cats is affected by the overpopulation happening again. There has been a huge set-back and it will take a few years to get back to where we were with strong TNR programs.