We have new neighbours, a couple around our age perhaps a bit older. They have three cats. This seemed to me as as improvement over the stressed little white barkers (west scotland white terriers, you know, from the Cesar commercial) that our previous neighbours had. Unfortunately our first meeting didn't go very well.

We were quietly working up stairs in our work room when we heard a loud cat screech from down stairs followed by a smash. When we went down to investigate we found our two cats with puffed up tails in the livingroom and a plant pot smashed to bits on the floor of the kitchen. The plant that was in the pot is now missing half its roots and some of the offspring is broken too.

What had happened? Two of the three cats from the neighbours had entered our yard and one of them had the balls to get to the window and scare Lina. Our Lina is a bit of a wimp so she probably freaked out, shoved the plant out of the windowsill and got a bigger freight when that pot hit the floor. Earth everywhere! While I cleaned up the mess Matthijs tried to catch the cats and put them back into their own yard. That took some effort and in the end one of the cats proved that our fence with the anti-escape construction will not hinder a cat much if she really wants to leave the garden.

Now we will have to see what the future will bring. The neighbours have already told us to scare away their cats by throwing a bucket of water over them. Perhaps we will, if that is what it takes to keep them out of our garden. But for that you'll need to spot them in time and actually get close enough and aim right... I really do hope that our cats won't get in a fight with their cats and that our Lina and Melisse do not get any ideas about going for a stroll around the block. However, we'll have to wait and see. Until we know, installing a pet door is out of the question as far as I'm concerned.

I really think that people should take responsibility for their pets and take into account the other people living nearby. Yes, it is nice that your kitties can go explore the world and live happily and free outside.(1) Why the **** did you get them as pets? Ever considered the danger they might be to the traffic, or the irritation they might bring to the man a bit further down the block who takes absurd pride in his garden? (He has already asked us if we have a tiny kitty that always uses his garden to relieve himself) And what if the cat gets trapped in somebody else's shed and starves to death there? Or what if the cat just decides that somewhere else is a better home for him/her? Nobody would agree to dogs walking around free, why can cats?
(1) Our neighbours do not necessarily hold to this opinion, but I know people who do and this incident just got me started again.

We have taken special care to keep our cats inside our garden. That is as far as they are allowed to go. So far (a couple of months now) so good. However, we do have an interesting garden with actual plant life an frogs, butterflies and birds. Compared to the tile-display garden of our neighbours this must be heaven. So I can understand why other cats might enter our garden, that does not mean that I like it or approve of it. Saying "oh, they'll be back when they get hungry" and explaining that it is not a problem for you is nice, but have you ever considered how I feel about this transgression? And I guess it's ok to tell people "just throw a bucket of water over her and she'll go away and learn from it" but I do not like tormening animals and I know what kind of stress a cat can experience. I do not want to be the one to evoke that kind of stress. Aside from that, it might be that in the future we will 'baby-sit' the neighbouts cats and then I don't want them to be scared of me. It's hard to teach a cat to be scared (and thus not repeat) something he did (enter the garden) instead of the person that doles out the punishment. It takes a lot of exact timing to get the right results. Teaching the cat "It's ok to be in this garden as long as the humans are not around" is not the goal.

As I wrote earlier we'll have to wait and see what happens next. But this weekend, when we're gone, the plants will have to be put on the table instead of in the windowsill because I don't fancy coming home to earth and shards everywhere because our cats got spooked again.