Cat invasion - Help required.

[robemcdonald]

Last night Whilst sitting on the couch we heard the cat flap go. The thing is both our cats were in the living room with us!
A quick visit to the kitchen revealed the previously full cat bowls empty. Obviously some scumbag cat is helping itself to our cats food.
we have no idea how long this has been going on and dont want to lock the cat flap as it will freak out our cats.
Any suggestions???

[mat13]

well a six shot, 32 gram load should do quite nicely......

[f1dget]

What about a magnetic?cat flap that's operated by a chip on your cats collar?

[Mobile Chicane]

Keep an ear out and shoo the intruder away?

[pad58]

Get a dog?

[onomatopoeia]

I have a similar problem in that I'm feeding at least one (absolutely huge) neighbour hood stray tom as well as my own cat. My cat absolutely freaked when I put the collar on for a magnetic catflap.

[the_lone_wolf]

We have the same problem, you can get a cat flap that reads your cat's ID chip and unlocks the flap, but it's pricy, roughly £100 IIRC

The cheap method involves setting the flap as inbound only every few months, catching the unwanted cat and making it's life unpleasant to discourage it from returning. Water pistol and getting the dog to chase it out the door seems to work for us...

[Saddle bum]

What's the matter with your wussey felines? They should have been "up and at 'em" in a flash.

[Slashmb]

Had this exact problem too.

Our male cat got really upset by others coming into our house and nicking all his food so I turned to PH and ended up buying a sureflap for about £75. www.sureflap.co.uk

Must have saved us more than that in not having to feed half the neighbourhood cats.

I tried setting the old flap to in only and then soaking the intruder but it never stopped them for more than about 2 days.

[kambites]

If you can establish a pattern to when it happens, set the cat flat to let cats in but not out at the right time, then spray it with a water pistol or something before letting it out.

Edited by kambites on Thursday 21st January 19:10

[onomatopoeia]

Saddle bum said:

What's the matter with your wussey felines? They should have been "up and at 'em" in a flash.

My cat is due a telegram from the Queen soon, she doesn't do anything "in a flash"

[robemcdonald]

Slashmb said:

Had this exact problem too.

Our male cat got really upset by others coming into our house and nicking all his food so I turned to PH and ended up buying a sureflap for about £75. www.sureflap.co.uk

Must have saved us more than that in not having to feed half the neighbourhood cats.

I tried setting the old flap to in only and then soaking the intruder but it never stopped them for more than about 2 days.

Bought one of these and it arrived today. Seems a good bit of kit but pricey at £85. Thanks for the advice.

[SunnyD]

My cat (before she passed away) had a little box thing on her collar which triggered her catflap. This worked fine until the battery died one day and she was found at the back door, repeatedly headbutting the flap trying to get in.

(no, this isn't how she died!!!!)

[deviant]

Dont discount it being a rat! MIL & FIL have got a small dog that has a flap to get out in to the back yard and one night MIL walked in to the laundry room in time to see a grat big rat run from the dogs biscuit bowl and through the flap!