The House at Cat Poo Corner

Here's a problem that is vexing -
moral question quite perplexing -
when a cat poops in my garden
should I offer it a pardon?

I confess to you, my forgiving readers: recently I did an officially 'not-very-nice' thing. Yes, I've checked my actions out with a trusted friend who assures me it is definitely not the thing to do if I want my neighbours to like me. Who of us wouldn't prefer our neighbours to like us?

Are you burning with curiosity to know what I did? Dare I tell you? But you might not like me! You might not leave nice comments on my blog! What? Oh yes, that's right - you don't leave nice comments anyway. Ok, I guess it's safe then.

Early one morning as I strolled in my garden enjoying the blue skies and golden sunshine and proudly checking out the newly sown flowerbed-in-the-making, I noticed a fresh fecal deposit in said seedbed. As mentioned in a previous blog post , the garden appears to serve as the public cat-litter box. Carefully with a garden trowel, I lifted this undesirable gift and just as carefully deposited it through the open trellis fencing into the neighbour's garden, inwardly justifying my action as one does in such matters by saying that it was not my property, and I was merely returning it to the owner.

Subsequently I advertised on freecycle for chicken wire or the like to lay across the ground in order to deter further unwanted deposits, and the photo shows the mesh panels I received in response to my request. These haven't been quite as successful as I'd hoped, the sure-footed culprits merely selecting the fringes of the area which the panels don't quite cover. Besides the mesh panels I received a couple of, um... 'helpful' suggestions:
1)grow a lemon tree. Apparently this is a sure-fire way of letting cats know your garden is off-limits. No explanation on how this works was offered.
2) scatter the ground with half-full plastic water bottles. No data on how many bottles per square metre was supplied. I suppose if there were sufficient, there would be no room for the cats to walk. How the seedlings would fare as they tried to emerge under the weight of the bottles is also undocumented.

So there you have it, folks. I know the Bible is very clear on the principle of 'turning the other cheek' should the enemy smite you on one cheek. I suppose going the extra mile in this instance would be creating an inviting custom built dirt box as I read about on this blog. (the link will take you to another webpage - scroll down to read how Mad Wicca dealt with her own cat's toileting needs). Will I be doing that in the near future? Answers on a postcard, please - or why not use the comments link below?