Expert: Becky - 7/17/2005

Question
We have an outdoor cat that my husband brought into the marriage. The abandon fixed (fairly young)male cat adopted him when he moved into his apartment a few years ago, before we married. The apartment basement was not of human use, but cats could get into it from the outside and it basically became a "rest area" for this cat. When he moved in my home, we tried to make it an indoor cat because he was so beautiful and loving. But it would relieve itself anywhere, so out it went. About 10 months later we started finding feces on are back deck. Now this summer we are finding it on our front porch. Granted there are other neighborhood cats and even raccoon,even tho we live in town. I haven't caught the culprit in action, but highly suspect our cat. I even scattered flour out on the porch floor for a week trying to get paw prints, but even tho it left it's mark several days in a row, before the flour, it never happened while the flour was down. Now 1 day after the flour was removed we have several wet spots and one dropping. Do you have any suggestions on how to stop this, short of video taping and trapping the guilty party?

Answer
Hi Kay,

Wow, I guess you can't leave flour on your porch all the time, but it's funny how that is a deterrant.

There are sprays you can by to keep pets away from plants, furniture, etc.  I have no idea if they work or not, but it might be worth a try.  You should be able to get it at any petshop or co-op.

I know a friend of mine trained his cats to NOT get on the kitchen table by attaching a very low current electric shock wire on the table.  When they tried to jump up, it just "buzzed" them, but they got the message and after a couple of tries,  didn't try it anymore.  Would this be an option?   Just make sure its a very low current!!

Other than that, I really have no idea what you could do.

Good luck and God bless,
Becky