Complete and absolute rubbish, cats crap anywhere: grass, gravel, window boxes, even witnessed one laying one down on the pavement a while back.
They do not bury their mess (another myth) You sound like a typical cat owner who doesn’t give a stuff about YOUR animals creating problems for other folk and their kids.
Oh no, can’t possibly be Mr Tiddles sh1tting all over the neighbours lawn/vegetable patch etc. Must be a fox, or a wolf. Actually I remember seeing a bear passing by yesterday, could have been that. Nothing to do with me……………
Sorry for all this, but it’s a slow day at work… Anyways:
You seem angry about this, can I suggest a stop at http://www.reddit.com/r/aww to calm you down, all though there are cute pictures of ickle pussy cats there.
Domestic cats are quite timid animals, the reason for this is due to an instinctive throwback from the mists of time when they weren’t fed out of a can, or murdering garden birds off the feeder and had to put some effort into getting a meal. Sadly for Mr (Or Miss/Mrs, lets not gender stereotype) Fluffy, other things would also quite happily like to turn his/her/its fuzzy backside into a tasty snack.
Now your average diet of voles, bunnies and various insects gives you exceptionally stinky stools (try it and find out!), and on top of this, in general predators have quite sensitive senses of smell. As a result, pre-domestic kitties would bury their poop so as to not signal to bigger, meaner, and hungrier animals that they were about.
The only time a moggy would normally be prepared to take a dump in an obvious place would be to mark its territory for hunting rights.
Now, fast forwards a few thousand years, and suddenly, Mr or Mrs Tiddles is surrounded by humans, who, because they are much bigger, and generally man handle them, ruffle them and make cooing baby noises, are considered more dominant. Because they are a bit stupid and can’t think like anything other than a cat, believe that we go out hunting and like to chew on small rodents and birds too. So as they believe we are the dominant creatures, with the hunting rights to the local territory, cats don’t normally have a pop at challenging things by taking a crap in the middle of your lawn because in cat behavior terms it means “**** off, this is my garden, and I’ll ‘ave your eyes out if I see you”, and lets be honest, cats aren’t stupid enough to think they’d win in a fight with a 4ft plus biped when they’re only a ft or so high.
It’s possible that new cats in the neighborhood can start a territorial dispute (especially if they’re intact), but it’s probably worth bearing in mind that the average male moggy with his nuts chopped off (and lady cats that have been done) will rarely stray more than 300m from their owners house, so the likelihood of cats getting into territorial disputes with neighbors is fairly low (especially as male and female cats will normally share their territories) when there is the possibility of serial crapping to mark territories, but this is normally short lived until the dispute is sorted. Intact males with roam further, but then it’s arguably irresponsible ownership to keep a male cat intact unless there’s a very good reason for it.
Occasionally, when cats get ill, the poor little things might take a crap wherever they are when they feel the urge, but generally we’re talking produce that would score very highly on the Bristol Scale. And occasionally, if cats have been removed from their mummies too early on in their life, and haven’t learned to cover their poop, they may have bad habits and crap casually in places they shouldn’t, but a responsible owner can overcome this.
That silent roar stuff makes domestic moggies believe there is a much larger cat about, and so if the crapping is from a territorial point of view, should stop it. If it’s for other reasons, like the cat is a bit dumb and hasn’t been taught to bury it’s crap, or in fact the poop is coming from a fox (which incidentally don’t have any issues with having a dump wherever they feel like it) then it wont.
So in summary, the vast majority of cats can, and do bury their crap, and generally they prefer freshly dug soil, because frankly, cats are lazy, and will go for the easy life given half the chance.
And for the record, I’m a fairly typical cat owner who treats/worms/inoculates my fwuffy ‘ickle killer. I’ve taken the time to make sure he was fully litter trained, and burys his turds. When he started going out, I made sure he knew his garden was the best place for him to crap. He now uses my flowerbeds as far as I know exclusively for his toileting. I’ve also taken the time to find out what makes him tick, and to overcome bad and undesirable behaviors by understanding the reasons behind what he does. I’ve also trained him to stay, give me a paw, and to trip me over whenever I’m going down stairs. We’re working on fetch.
Whilst I appreciate you have a downer on cats, probably from personal experience of having crap in places you don’t want it, and possibly because you’re worried about the health of your family, please try and remember your prejudices are based on a tiny subset of human experience, and that many many other folk will be living in and around the 7 million cats in the UK and not even noticing their toiletry habits.
I’d make an apology for length, but I’ve never had any complaints before…. 🙂
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