The Australian Experience - Cats, Dogs and Small Nuisances

Fred Flintstone has a lot to answer for. At the end of every cartoon show, Fred dutifully put his cat out at night, which I assume has become the norm for cat owners. At least Fred's cat had the sense to jump back inside and lock Fred out. Serves him right!!!

If you have a vegetable garden, I am sure that you have ventured out of a morning to pull some weeds or maybe pick some lush red, home-grown tomatoes, lettuce or even pull a carrot or two, and then have your senses inundated by the stench of cat faeces and urine!!!!!

This problem is the bane of every gardener's existence. How can we expect to care for our gardens when we are continually exposed to this stench each time we try to do something in our gardens??

When someone owns a cat that they profess to love like one of the family, why can't they train the animal to use a kitty litter box rather than putting them out at night to roam into the neighbours' gardens to do their business? It has been proven by eminent scientists and doctors that cats carry a very dangerous germ and if they urinate anywhere where children play, there is an imminent danger of a child picking up this germ and becoming very ill. Sand pits in playgrounds and back yards are renowned for this problem when cats wander around looking for toilet facilities. It comes down to the responsibility, or lack of, of the animal owners. If they own a pet, they are directly and ultimately responsible for the care of that animal and also responsible for the damage or disease it may cause. Cats are closely related to foxes and everyone knows that foxes will never despoil there own area. They always go somewhere else!!!! So cats do the same unless they are kept within the owner's boundary and trained to do their business correctly, which does not take a lot of doing!!

When I was living in Tasmania I read about a man and his garden. He was continually beset every night by a neighbour's cat using his vegetable patch for a toilet. He caught the animal one night, and through pure frustration, threw his garden fork at the cat. Whether it was a fluke or whether he had been practising  is not known, but he was charged by the Police and RSPCA for an act of cruelty towards the cat. What cruelty??? He killed the vermin outright!!! Good on him, I say. Besides, it could not have been intentional. Have you ever tried to hit anything throwing a garden fork?? Virtually impossible!! 

The animal would not have felt much at all, at least a lot less then the poor bloke who had to put up with the stench in his garden every morning. I believe that after this incident, cats stopped visiting his garden!! Maybe they have an underground communication network to pass on incidents such as this as warnings to other cats??

On the other side of the coin - Have you ever settled down of an evening, flashed up the barbie and cracked a tinnie for a quiet meal with friends and relatives only to be inundated with the continual barking and howling of dogs??

I cannot believe that some people who own dogs can also be so irresponsible as to allow their canine pets to continually bark during the day and, worse still, during the night until very late or even into the early hours of the morning. I think that every dog in the area joins in right from the mastiff type large dogs to the yappy little lap dogs. Once one starts barking, they all want to have a go.

Nothing irks me more than the irresponsible owners of these pests who allow this to go on night after night. Surely they can hear the noise their dogs are making?? Do they just think "The dog is just letting off steam" or "The dog is letting everyone know he is on guard", or are they absolutely deaf to the barking when its their own dog?? Studies have shown that some dog owners ARE ignorant of their own dog's barking.

I doubt whether they realise that the continual barking of dogs is classified as noise pollution and the dog owners can be summonsed to appear in court and will receive quite a hefty fine if they don't take action to stop the dog barking.

Also with dogs there is the problem with 'diggers'. These beasts derive their pleasure from digging under the neighbour's fences until either the garden on the other side caves in or they get the hole big enough to get through to "explore" the neighbour's vege garden. I had this problem and complained until the Council forced the dog owners to put a barrier along the fence to stop it. As you can see, they do a lot of damage.

My side of the fence

Over the fence

Another one on my side

The Council forced the neighbours to get rid of one of their 3 dogs and I

think that the dog that went was the 'digger' as I haven't had any such problems since.

It still amazes me that the animal owners do not venture into their back yards and notice this blatant damage being caused by their so-called "loved pets"!! Usually the dogs are never taken for a walk or exercised to any degree. This is the main cause of digging. The dogs are just plain bored out of their simple brains. It also goes to show that their owners' brains are not much better as they continue to sit around their barbie with a few beers and dote on how well their dogs are behaving. Little do they know that the dogs have begun mining operations further into the back yard!!!

Apart from the noise of dogs and the stench of cats, how about the tiny insects like ants, flies and mozzies?? Isn't it marvelous how they always turn up as soon as the wife puts the salad on the table or you flash the barbie up and the first succulent piece of meat begins to sizzle. Flies appear from nowhere and buzz around almost suicidally trying to to get a taste of your meat sizzling away. Even when you have cooked the meat and sit down, they are still there, buzzing around, annoyingly and are just plain pests!! Combine the flies with the hundreds of ants that appear at outdoor meals and we have a "real problem Houston"!!

We cannot always be shut inside to enjoy the summer months, so I suppose we just have to grin and bear it. Commercial insect sprays are not the best idea around food, but sometimes citronella candles work OK. The best solution is what is referred to in Australia as a "Mozzie Zapper". It is an ultraviolet light that lures the insects to an electric charge and they then become dust on the bottom of the light. Great invention!!

If only there was something like a candle or zapper to stop the annoying pests that owners call their pet dogs and cats!!!!!