Outdoor Cats

What Is a Community Cat?

"Community cat" is a broad label that covers any free-roaming cat without an owner, whether it is feral, a stray or one that lives in alleys and behind businesses. A healthy community cat usually has someone who looks after it, and several neighbors may care about it. Where many cats have not been spayed or neutered, they tend to gather in colonies, and those colonies can multiply quickly. Over seven years, one breeding pair and their kittens could in theory produce tens of thousands of cats.

Cats that have been fixed make far better neighbors. They are much less likely to fight, yowl at night or spray. Most important, they stop having litters, so the number of homeless cats stops climbing.

When an unaltered community cat comes into the shelter through the TNR program, it often signals that more unaltered cats live nearby. Animal Services staff use that information to follow up and offer extra help in the neighborhoods where it will do the most good. Many cities and counties back TNR because it is the only approach shown to reliably slow the growth of feral cat populations.

Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR)

Fredville Animal Services works with volunteers to run a free program for community cats known as Trap-Neuter-Return, or TNR. The goal is to shrink the stray cat population humanely.

TNR has three steps:

  1. Trap every cat in a colony, or as many as possible.
  2. Have each cat spayed or neutered.
  3. Return the cats to the place they were found.

Before release, each cat has the tip of its left ear removed so anyone can tell at a glance that it has already been sterilized.

Keeping Cats Out of Your Yard

You do not have to love cats to want them treated kindly. If neighborhood cats are getting into your yard or garden, the ideas below can help you make your property less inviting without harming them. Fredville Animal Services recommends these humane options.

1. Scatter scents cats dislike

Cats steer clear of citrus, used coffee grounds and pipe tobacco. Coffee and tobacco also work as mulch, so your plants benefit too. Scents wear off over time, so plan to put down a fresh layer every few days.

  • Essential oils make good repellents as well. Try eucalyptus, citronella, lavender or lemongrass.
  • Coffee drinkers can save the morning grounds and spread them around the garden about once a week.
  • The same smells can keep your own cats off furniture and counters. Clean counters with a citrus cleaner, or mist upholstery with a lavender fabric spray.

2. Plant herbs with strong smells

Strongly scented herbs tend to keep cats away, and a few are especially unpopular. If you only try one, choose coleus canina, sometimes called the "scaredy cat" plant, which nearly all cats avoid. Other good choices include:

  • Rosemary
  • Lemon balm
  • Lavender
  • Chives
  • Pennyroyal

3. Lay lattice or wire over garden soil

Pressing lattice or chicken wire into the soil makes digging difficult, which is especially helpful in vegetable beds. With so little space between the openings, cats cannot get their paws moving and usually give up.

  • When using chicken wire, bend the cut ends under so that cats and other animals are not poked.

4. Cover bare soil in flowerbeds

Cats are not trying to ruin your flowers. They simply enjoy loose, soft dirt. A layer of smooth river rock looks attractive and removes the temptation to dig.

5. Use an ultrasonic deterrent

Ultrasonic repellents can be staked in the yard or mounted on a wall. When they detect movement, they give off a high-pitched tone that people cannot hear but cats find very unpleasant. Most cats will move on, and any that wander in rarely stay long.

  • Over time cats can get used to the noise. Moving the device now and then, or pairing it with another method, will keep it working.

6. Add a motion-activated sprinkler

A sprinkler that switches on when it senses motion gives a cat a quick spray each time it enters the protected area, and the cat will run off. It may test the yard from several directions, but it will stop trying once every route gets it wet.

  • The sprinkler works because it reacts every single time. Chasing cats yourself with a water bottle or squirt gun is less effective, because it only teaches them to stay away while you are outside.

7. Use predator-scent sprays

Some repellents imitate the urine of dogs or large wild cats such as lions or panthers. A cat that thinks a predator is close by will not want to hang around. Most home improvement stores carry these sprays.

  • Be aware that many of these products have an unpleasant odor, and they need to be reapplied about once a week and again after a hard rain.
  • If spraying the yard regularly sounds like too much work, look for granules that look like small pebbles and can be sprinkled directly on the soil.

8. Run a wire along the top of your fence

Cats cannot balance on a tight wire. Stretch one about 3 to 5 inches above the top rail, and a cat trying to climb over will have nothing steady to grab.

  • Rolled plastic fence toppers or tubing do the same job, but a single wire is tidier and hard to see.

9. Close gaps in your fence

Fences mean nothing to a cat. If there is a gap big enough to slip through, a cat will use it. Find any holes or open spaces in your fence and patch them with chicken wire or lattice so cats walk past instead.

10. Take away food sources

Keep garbage cans tightly closed and pick up spilled food right away. Leftovers that look unappealing to you are a feast to a hungry stray, and they draw other pests too, so lock your trash lids down.

  • If your pets eat outdoors, feed them at set times and pick up the bowls afterward. Food left out all day becomes an open buffet for every cat nearby.

11. Give the cats a spot of their own

Setting up a comfortable shelter along the far edge of your property may sound like giving in, but it works. Cats visit yards looking for food, cover and a place to relieve themselves. Provide those things in one out-of-the-way area and they will tend to stay there instead of in your garden.

  • Grow some catnip near the shelter to draw them to that corner.
  • Loosen a patch of soil and cover it with sand to make an outdoor litter area.
  • If you choose to feed them, put the food by the shelter at the same times each day so they stop hunting around the rest of the yard.
  • If cats are already using part of your yard as a litter box, drench the spot with white vinegar to remove the odor and break the habit.

12. Mix homemade repellents

These simple sprays can be made from items you may already have at home.

  • Essential oil spray: add two drops each of lemon, wild orange and lavender essential oils to 2 ounces of water.
  • Vinegar spray: combine equal parts water, white vinegar and liquid hand soap.
  • Citrus spray: soak about a cup of orange, lemon, lime or tangerine peels in 2 cups of water, then stir in 2 teaspoons of lemon juice and a little lemon-scented dish soap.
  • Citronella spray: blend 20 drops of citronella oil into three-quarters of a cup of water.
  • Garlic, pepper and lemon spray: mix a teaspoon each of cinnamon, dry mustard and black pepper with one crushed garlic clove and 3 or 4 drops of lemon essential oil, then add water.

How You Can Help

Become an advocate for community cats.

The city's community cat policy, part of the animal care ordinance, asks anyone who feeds free-roaming cats to do all they reasonably can to confirm those cats are spayed or neutered, either through a veterinary record or by checking for an ear tip.

All Fredville residents are encouraged to take part by trapping community cats in their neighborhoods.

Animal Services lends traps whenever they are available. To check, call (555) 010-5898 and choose option 2. Traps may also be available through a local volunteer community-cat group.

Community cats from Fredville can be spayed or neutered at no cost at the Fredville Paws Adoption Center.

  • Drop-off times: bring trapped cats to the intake door only, Tuesday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m., or Saturday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. If you are bringing three or more cats, call (555) 010-4930 first to schedule an appointment.
  • How cats must arrive: to protect residents, staff and the animals, TNR cats are accepted only in a trap or a hard-sided carrier, and they must go home the same way. Put just one cat in each trap or carrier. The only exception is a nursing mother with her kittens.
  • Stay safe: most community cats are feral, so please do not handle them. A bite or scratch means the cat must be held for a longer quarantine.

After surgery, you can collect the cats from the clinic, and you will get a text message explaining how. Animal Services officers can also return the cats to the neighborhood where they were trapped.

Each community cat in the program is sterilized, ear-tipped and microchipped, and receives rabies and FVRCP vaccines.

Cats need to be at least 12 weeks old to enter TNR. Younger kittens are evaluated for the adoption program instead.

Spaying and Neutering Pet Cats

The city encourages residents to have every pet cat spayed or neutered. Affordable options are available through groups such as the Fix-It Pet Clinic Network and the Cottonwood Coalition for Animal Care (CCAC), which offer rides for pets from the Fredville Paws Adoption Center.

Found a Stray Cat?

A cat out on its own that has a glossy coat and looks well fed probably lives with someone nearby. Cats are skilled at getting back home and usually do so on their own. Fredville does not prohibit cats from roaming, so please leave a stray where you saw it.

Cats With a Tipped Ear

A tipped ear is a small surgical mark that shows a community cat has already been spayed or neutered through TNR.

Unless it is sick, an ear-tipped cat should not be trapped again or taken to a shelter. It belongs in its neighborhood, where it helps keep the cat population in check. Research shows that a stable, fixed colony discourages new cats from moving in, and these cats will never produce kittens. Even people who are not fond of cats benefit from the work ear-tipped cats do to keep a neighborhood pleasant.

Kittens

If kittens are not in immediate danger, leave them where they are so their mother can return to them. This matters most for kittens that are still too young to survive without her.

Fredville is a demonstration city built by Talk to Fred. Names, numbers and details on this page are sample content.