Hi everyone,

We have a 2 year old male cat (Hercules) and moved house about two months ago, into a pretty busy neighbourhood with lots of cats.

We're having a real problem with one particular cat who's bullying our boy. This cat is very intimidating, he'll sit on our back fence just staring in and waiting for Herc to come outside. He's often chased Herc right back into his cat flap too.

He's caused a bit of damage to Hercules now, twice we've had to go to the vets with wounds that have got infected. I think Herc is an easy target as he is very easy going and a good target for bullies.

I'm not sure what to do - I would have thought by now that territory shouldn't be an issue. He's not been fighting with any of the other cats.
Hubby and I have tried to chase this other cat off, when we've seen him, but he's not remotely scared or intimated by us, he'll just stay put.

No idea who he belongs to - we're surrounded by large bocks of flats and loads of terrace houses and really can't tell where he comes from.

I love animals, so poison isn't an option

Any ideas? Is water the best deterrent for this kind of thing?

Lol, just re-reading that I realised what a terrible choice of name we gave him!

Get a dog?

I love cats but the intimidation thing is a problem and can lead to urinating and messing in the house because the victim starts to try and make their only safe area smell distinctly of them. And the vet bills get expensive because bites (usually on the back legs or tail as the victim flees) often result in an abcess which needs treatment.

Get either a high powered jet washer or one of the big water pistol / sprayers and direct it at the visiting cat every time you see it. Ideally, without it seeing you. It needs to assciate your fence / house / garden with an unpleasant (though harmless) experience. If you are using something with a reservoir like a water pistol, cats hate citrus so add some lemon juice to the water.

Eventually, the cat will associate sitting on the fence / your garden with getting a faceful of water and it will tend to go elsewhere.

That's exactly right, we've just had to get his tail treated as it had an abcess on. He's dosed up on anti biotics at the moment and not himself at all - I imagine that's a combination of the medication and fear.

Thanks for your advice though, very useful.

My cat is the same, he is only now 10 months old and there are 2 horrible toms who come into our garden and bully our kittie. One time I was asleep and my cat was on my bedroom balcony and downstairs the patio was open for him to come and go. I woke to hissing and wailing and this big black thing was in my bedroom giving it large to my cat who was shaking with his back to the railings.

Often our cat comes flying in through the door to get away from either of the two bullies. The thing is that before we had him, I never saw these cats in our garden, only on the neighbouring streets. So I know they only come to us to give our boy hassle, because they can.

We have taken to running outside and chasing them off and also have a small be-be gun that we fire the balls at the bullies. It doesn't stop them coming in though. Last week I had to run out and separate one bully and our cat and ended up giving the big bully a little kick with my flip flop, I would never hurt another animal but he wouldn't let go of our cat. The thing still wouldn't go away. Grrrrrr....

The trouble is, I now don't like to leave the cat out if we go out anywhere, in case he can't escape the bullies and they do hurt him. This is hard as when it's time to come in, he does a disappearing act!

I will be buying a water pistol tomorrow ready to fire at them.

we've had a couple of cats that aren't known to us coming in the garden in the last few months

i have rabbits who run in two enclosed areas of grass, it was a white & ginger cat who was coming in and getting in the grassed areas with them, crouching and waiting to pounce at them (they're young feisty rabbits though and the cat wasn't any trouble for them)
but i second the water-spraying option.
it only took a couple of days of spraying with water and sending the dog out to the fence to see this cat off for good.

now we just need to deal with the black and white cat who keeps coming and stealing the white cat whom we feed's food...

Had the same problem before I moved. A cat kept trying to get into the house and although my cat didn't seem particularly bothered I was. This cat (and I never found out who its owner was) used to sit at the front door waiting until it was opened and then run in quickly so I used a water spray and whenever he was there at the front door I just sprayed a bit of water on him. I know it sounds horrible but it did work eventually,

Just a quick word in defence of the invaders - they're only doing what cats do so they're not necessarily evil, horrible animals... they're just operating on instinct. And the toms may not be toms (ie, not neutered) just very territorial. But it is a bleddy nuisance and the high power water pistol or jet setting on a hose pipe won't hurt a cat but they will really hate it. And firing water at them may sound unkind but it's much kinder than throwing things at them or, worse, firing something at them that could do them damage if it hits an eye.

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Flossy - sorry to hear you've got the same problem. Horrible isn't it when they're so scared. Hope you get it sorted out too


Yeah, you're right, it is just what some cats do. I'll definitely be getting a water firing device...I'd never throw anything worse at a cat - I feel mean enough just with the water! But, by the sounds of it, it'll do the trick so I'll certainly give it a go.

I agree. I don't really like cats being referred to as bullies as they're only following their instincts. If the local cats have lived in an area for a while they won't take kindly to a new cat in 'their' territory.

When I first moved to my current home the previous owners did not have cats so a local cat had adopted my garden as 'his' territory and he did not like my Tabitha using her own garden, he chased her away etc - but she had a cat flap to get back into the house quickly which only she could access (magnet on collar). I used to chase him away (I don't think I used water) and, over time, as Tabitha's scent took over the garden he just left her alone and I rarely saw him. I haven't seen him for years so I don't know what happened to him.

I always tried to protect my Tabitha, from when she was a kitten in my previous home, from cats who chased her and I felt she was the one who was always victimised, she was never the aggressor - until one day I saw her chasing another cat away (and not in a nice playful way) and she would periodically be quite unwelcoming to various unsuspecting cat visitors over the years. Most cats she got on with and I don't know how cats decide, at a glance, whether a cat is a friend or foe. They barely have time to take in their body language.

I took on 2 rescue cats last year and they've had no problems at all with local cats - probably because my Bernard is so well established here and they have his scent. I sometimes have up to 5-6 cats in my garden, all playing with each other.

Having the same problem myself and it's bloody soul destroying

New cat (un-neutered tom) started coming into our garden and despite us chasing it every time, and never feeding it, it won't stop coming back. Our cat (neutered tom) absolutely hates it and growls and hyperventilates every time he sees it. They ended up in a fight about 2 months ago which led to my cat getting an abscess on his head and being diagnosed with stress.

He's gone from easy going and friendly to very high-strung and anxious and often lies down with his eyes open looking totally miserable. What's worse is when we finally coax him to go outside, the other cat is there so he spends his entire time sitting on the window sill staring and growling at the other cat, instead of playing and exploring

It's not nice is it, ours looks such a state - he's got big bald patches all over from where his scabs have fallen out and taken all the fur off with them. He's lost all his confidence too.

Hope you can get your situation sorted very soon too.

Must add that the other cat doesn't actually pick on my cat. He'd happily play with him. But my cat cannot tolerate another cat on his patch.

Toms are notoriously territorial.

There is a ginger tom that hangs around our garden and attacked my elderly cat making her very distressed. After she died, one of our new cats has made it clear that our garden is hers, not ginger tom's and it's getting the message but our cat has had some injuries along the way.

Could you put some plastic spikes on your fence to stop the cat jumping up onto it? You can buy special ones that won't hurt the cat, just make it uncomfortable for them to tread on.

Get a water gun (quite a powerful one) and every time you see the bully give him a squirt. I agree with adding some lemon juice, just enough for other cat to smell, no enough to douse him in it.

I hope he soon gets the message and finds somewhere else to hang around!

Our cat is the same. We get a black cat, who comes into the garden. He/she will sit and stare at our cat through the window. It chases our cat and mieows loudly at her. She won't have anything to do with it and sometimes cowers.