Training. Just like my cats are trained not to go on the counter surfaces, scratch the furniture or be too much of a pain in the rear. They also only ever bring their huting trophies home, and I can assure you to the knowledge of what I see (and it seems they only ever bring things back) they don't get any songbirds. Mice, rats, wild rabbits, wood pigeons, even magpies every now and then, and the occasional bat (now that is a bit bad of them) but no songbirds.

Best way of keeping cats out of your garden is to have your own cat .

ours look for the kittens when they are out...I always know what tree they are in by the ''pointers''

I have lots of ''rat'' trophies from the kittens who at 7 months have perfected the art of catching them using tag team tactic's my adult cats just don;t catch anything...apart from the sun rays

Yes, Id see that as totally true from your post.

We have two cats. They tend to stay in the garden when we let them out. They do follow the dogs when we go for walks, and come back inside with us.

As for fouling other people's gardens, ours play outside, then come in and use their litter tray.

Same here - ours will only use litter trays

It's enough picking up after two dogs....... I'd hate to do poo patrol after two cats as well

See I'm a little on the fence, I do think it is a danger for them to be out, especially mine, where I live. On a main road where it's a 40 speed limit but we'll be lucky if anyone actually listens and does that. The other side of our garden is a field where it's farmers crops, then a river, then woodland. And there is a lot of hunting terriers walked there, not to mention the wildlife, Wheatley is mainly white and small so is easy prey, he's also not afraid of dogs, which would be stupid of me to let him out because of the neighbour who lives at the end of the farmer's crops has no fencing and 12 dogs that wouldn't hesitate to get him.

However, that was before he started acting like a loon, ripping my wallpaper off, running up and down stairs. Of course cats need visual and mental stimulation too.

So we let Wheatley out in the garden on nice days for an hour, we're out there too, Louie makes sure he doesn't go too far up the garden (well I reckon he just likes to chase him back down to the house ) He sits and watches the bunnies in their hutches and birds in the sky, gets to feel grass, eat grass plays catch with the midges, pounces on Louie's tail whilst he's sunbathing, sunbathes..

So whilst I don't let him wander - I let him enjoy the outside. And why shouldn't he? I think it's good middle ground, it isn't save for him to roam, but it isn't fair to keep them in. And if you're cat proofing - then you'll be doing yourself a favour

We have several visiting cats or cats that cross our garden so quite often wouldve got more than dog poo. Then i struck on idea of lifting cat poo & in its place put a dog poo. Few times & cats got message