Am I being unreasonable?

[Carmel2]

Let me say from the off, both of us like cats, we had two for 12 years when we were land-based.

A boat about five down has a cat that's all over the boats, OK good rat deterrent I give you, but when you find it's been on board while we were out and has started padding our cockpit cushions, it now looks like a dartboard. We showed the owners, they didn't say sorry, in fact one couldn't even be arsed to get up and have look! I am not about to give it swimming tips........ What would you do, bearing in mind I have to walk past them 3 or 4 times a day for the winter.

 

[stephen_h]

Don't leave the cushions out

 

[Normalfornorfolk]

Swiming tips? I'd give it swimming trips!

 

[Carmel2]

So what's next? A nice teak deck as a scratching pad.

 

[maby]

Well, it should be up to them to keep the cat under control - and I say that as the slave of a ship's cat. Ours is not allowed out unsupervised and we know exactly where he is welcome and where he is not - he does not go on the latter. That said, it looks like these cat slaves are not willing to control him/her and it's difficult. I'm glad to see that you are not inclined to take direct action against the cat - it's not his fault that he is not adequately controlled. Pets At Home sell a Cat Repellent spray that seems to be quite effective - when ours was young and exercising his claws on the new furniture, I sprayed the chair seats and he stayed away. To me, it smells of citrus fruit, but our cat reckons it is unbearable!

 

[Mwinda]

R-A-T deterrent benefit > cushion paw marks downside for me!!

 

[sarabande]

Water pistol with some vinegar added to the water.

 

[PhilipH]

Relocate it to another part of town where there are feral cats.

 

[Resolution]

Water pistol with some vinegar added to the water.

Works on dogs as well.

 

[stranded]

Adopt the cat and drill a hole in the hull of its owners’ boat.

 

[crisjones]

Seems like you are tied up in a marina so you presumably have mains water on the dock, then just use the hosepipe with a good jet nozzle to persuade the cat to go somewhere else whenever you see it anywhere near your boat. Most cats learn quite quickly to avoid such soakings and no permanent harm is done.
I suppose you could also try the same on the cat's owners if they are so oblivious to the problems their pet is causing

 

[Poignard]

Borrow a Jack Russell terrier.

 

[TQA]

A Super Soaker 50 will soon teach it to stay clear.

Cats CAN be trained with one of these

View attachment 66836

 

[Flica]

Uncontrolled cats, dogs and even children are a social hazard.
Whilst a shower would be my choice for control of a cat of unknown provenance, the owners of this one are known and close to Carmel 2. Any such direct action as a shower, might be considered (probably would be) as enemy action by the incompetent owners - Catguard appears to be the best all-round solution.
At least the cat is not yet marking its territory in a more pungent manner - yet!!

Perhaps a more crafty answer would be to suggest to the owners that rat-poison has been put down locally and that you've witnessed the death of a cat by such means and would consider it irresponsible of the owners to not take precautions.

 

[sailaboutvic]

Uncontrolled cats, dogs and even children are a social hazard.

So are boat owners who play loud music , empty black tanks in the sea , cross anchors , speed there dinghy through anchorages , don't turn on anchor light , have anchor light of every colour other then white , piss over board , go naked , run engines to charge up batteries, get drank and become a pain , the list goes on ,
so I guess that make everyone of us here a social hazard , and being humans we should know better .

The really problem lays with cat loves on boat that done have cats them self , they encourage cats on board with treats , first thing we say to people don't encourage our cat we don't want him on other people boats , what the first thing they do , you guess it ,

The water solution it the way forwards , we tell people if he comes on board throw water over him , you only need to do it once and he won't come back , luck for us our cat don't spray and now he very rarely wondered on other people boat anymore
We do our best to make sure he doesn't but no matter what any of us cat owners do cat will go off and do they own Thing .

We had. A problem some years back , in our winter Marina , we had a Germany couple just four boat away that kept birds in cages , right on the stern of their boat , if that's not bad enough they would go away for days at a end and leave the birds out , these birds would sing from morning till night and to top it up it encourages wild birdsp to arrive in bundles and crap over the boats , so much that if left his boat you come back to find his deck covered in crap .
Putting that to one side how do you keep a cat away from that ? Well in the end we moved ,
so did other boats on the pontoon some next to us , they rather have a cat that might wonder on their boat then to wake up every morning and clean bird crap .

 

[Carmel2]

Relocate it to another part of town where there are feral cats.

It has its own GPS!

 

[Poignard]

It has its own GPS!

So it can be tracked? Then the answer is a drone strike.

 

[NornaBiron]

As a cat owner, we have two on board, I have no objection to them being sprayed with water to keep them off your boat. As Vic says, often the problem starts when a cat is, inadvertantly, encouraged to approach a boat and then thinks it is welcome at all times. I've asked my neighbours not to feed/encourage my cats and to spray them with water if they don't want them on board. We also clip our cats' claws so that if they do visit they cannot cause any damage - wish the cat down the quay was treated the same way!

 

[[2068]]

A cup of cold water aimed in it's direction will send one kind of message.
A small bowl of "Dreamies" in the cockpit will send an entirely different type of message.
Cats are actually quite responsive to these types of messages, especially if repeated a few times

 

[Carmel2]

Well apologies have been made and repair is under way, so all is well with the world.