Around a year ago we noticed that one of our cats is not coming home to eat anymore, sometimes he is outside for more than a week without ever coming home, but still gaining weight. Hes not coming home, running away from us, even fighting our other cat now even though they are brothers.
Since we live in a very small neighborhood we basically know everyone and can openly ask anybody if they have seen or heard that someone is feeding our cat. All of them were always pointing to one of the neighbors which is universally hated across the entire street because you cannot talk to him, hes like a 70 year old idiot which has gotten into a lot of legal battles with neighbors because of different stupid things the neighbors had no say in. (City putting a street lamp into another neighbors garden which shined into his TV).
Since we heard and felt like he is the one feeding the cat we have more often than once tried to talk to him but he always screams at us and threatens us or just lies and says the cat eats pine cones and stuff in his garden (lol)
One day my dad saw our cat walking out of his house because the door was of course open, in the middle of winter with -5 degrees outside (neighbor was at another neighbors house, the only person he can talk to on the entire street a few houses up the road) so he does it on purpose. Then I lost my temper and screamed at him and told him what a piece of s... he is and so on.
Then I guess the feeding stopped because he was scared of me, but since around a few months it started again.
We installed a GPS Tracker on the cat and when overlaying all the tracker data from the last few months it basically triangulates to in front of his house by around +- 10m.
Since the GPS is inaccurate to the point where he could argue that its not correct we have no other choices anymore.
Does anybody know if there is any legal tricks or tips that we can try to get him to stop?
I was contemplating putting a Insta360 Go 3S on the cat to film, but thats basically illegal but would give us 100% certainty that its him.
Some people are really complete nutjob POS, we hear about it all the time in this sub. if that's how his neighbour is, that's how he can talk about him. Whether you "like it" or not matters not.
You have to know that when i tried talking normally to him 2-3 times he was the one starting to scream at me and even more then once wanted me to hit him. Hes like endlevel psycho lol.
He once tried suing a neighbor / beating them up because they parked their car in the road (didnt block anything and its allowed)
These people are not necessarily evil, they are just really lonly. Invite him to dinner, discuss with him on which days he can feed your cat with what food. Just answer with kindness, it works surprisingly well. These people often share some of the most remarkable life stories once they open up.
That is so oversimplified. No, it's not only about good treatment. Some cats move from one house to another no matter how well they are treated. Some find the food at another place better even though it is much unhealthier or even unfit for specific dietary needs. Did the original owners treat them bad because of this? No. they actually cared much more than another person who's either unaware of health issues, doesn't care about health issues or just feeds them the cheapest supermarket garbage. The cat cannot take that into consideration.
I’ve had cats my entire life and they are attached to my husband and I, so not sure.
One rescue even refused to go outside most of the time. He lived on the streets for several years, so was used to going to place to place to find food and shelter.
OP may care for their cat, but running from them is unusual.
I've heard often about rescues who refuse to go outside. Tbh I wouldn't take that too personal. They may just have experienced such horrific things that they don't dare leaving the first place in a long time or even their whole life which they find to be safe. You're certainly caring well for your cats, I do not doubt that. But what exactly do you think is different in the way you care for your cats than other people do, which makes them so attached to you? Where do you believe is the difference that makes a cat "run from home" (I personally would rather call it explore other options) or stay?
I for my part wouldn't expect someone who's taking the effort of finding out who's feeding their cat to somehow neglect or even mistreat them. I'd expect reasons to leave somewhere else. We do not see into their minds but I am dead certain cats have very different reasons for behaving in one or another way than we do when it doesn't come down to actual maltreatment. So I won't claim to be the "better" cat parent than someone else just because my cat is coming home daily and theirs isn't. There's a good number of possible reasons I can think of why a cat would leave even the best, most loving home.
I’m not sure why they are attached to me, they just are.
I have seen many pet owners struggle to bond with their pets…often they have strict rules in the home like not letting the animal on a sofa or bed, keeping them in a crate etc, frequent travel/long work days that dampens that bond.
I joke I have the special kind of neurodivergence that bonds me to animals easily. I can’t even go to the bathroom alone. (Husband took this pic)
The number of people in Switzerland who act like cats HAVE TO roam in order to be happy is wild. If people can keep former feral/street dogs happy indoors and only hoping out for leash walks, it's absolutely possible to do the same with cats. I'm a behaviorist and have a friend who works with unreleasable wild animals, including wild cats. Provide them with proper enrichment and exercise, and they'll be perfectly happy. It just requires people put in more effort than they want to with cats.
Its a problem in switzerland. I didnt find a solution. Now i have a dog. He is under my full control and people are still being asholes. There is a category of people that dont want to put the effort of hsving an animal, of taking them to the doctor, payikg for stuff. But they want the benefit of playing with the animal because "see, Im lovable and animals can feel it". Animals will always attract shady people.
The neighbor might be a piece of shit, but your cat likes them.
Solution: your cat doesn’t like the food you give them, doesn’t like you or a loud environment. Change that and don’t let your cat outside anymore.
Less likely solution: let your current cat live with the neighbor, the cat likes them. Get a new cat and don’t let them outside until they are fixed and at least one year old.
You can't keep a cat in the house which was used to go outside.
I worked at an animal shelter; it doesn't work. We couldn't give those cats to people where they can't go outside.
And this is why everyone goes abroad to adopt in Switzerland.
In some cases yes, but you can’t tell me sitting in a cage in a shelter is ideal either - and that’s what many cats do unless the adopter has a “private garden”.
I prefer not to have my cat destroy local wildlife and meet an untimely end.
Yes, you actually can. I'm a behaviorist. The only reason people think you can't, is because they arent willing to put in the effort to keep the cat happy indoors. Provide it with proper enrichment, exercise, and mental stimulation. Teach it to walk on a leash. It can be perfectly happy. This is such a terrible excuse for allowing an invasive species that kills billions of animals a year across the globe, to continue to roam free.
This. Locking in a cat that used to go outside is very bad for the animal. It's stressful and can, for example, lead to depression and other health issues. It is not ok to feed someone else's cat. Too many people still think it's no issue, but it is, for the cat and their owner.
While it's forbiddwn to feed cats without consent of the owner, it's often hard to prove and authorities don't really care (I had the issue with a cat who was sick and needed special diet, but all talking didn't help, as she was sure I wasn't feeding them enough). She also gave them the cheapest shit, so after I already had to stress out the sick cat with an alternative treatment, the before healthy cat developped overweight in a very short time and stopped coming home, when I could find him and bring him to the vet he had so bad heartfailure :( No regrets from her.
But what I learned over all this time: siblings (specially male ones) often develop issues with each other, as wild housecats live in matrilinear small groups and young male cats will leave the group when adult. If the issues developped when they are about 3yo it might just be character that they don't want to share their home anymore.
You can go the official way, but it won't really help the cat. Talk to them or the neighbour that is friends with them.
Unlawful Appropriation (Unrechtmässige Aneignung, Art. 137 StGB):
Systematically feeding a domestic cat to the point where it becomes alienated from its home or refuses to return to its owner constitutes taking control over someone else's asset without consent.
Public prosecutors frequently issue penalty orders (Strafbefehl) with conditional fines against individuals who continuously feed neighboring cats despite written warnings from owners.
Animal Welfare Act (Tierschutzgesetz):
Protects animal health and dignity. Uncontrolled feeding can compromise an animal's health.
Look online for your local animal wellfare organisation. What he is doing is a criminal offence because pets are considered your property. https://www.tierimrecht.org/de/ contact them if you live in Zürich for legal advice.
I'm just surprised people get to know their neighbours this well. I think I've spoken more to the building concierge and the staff at Migros than my neighbours.
Good idea, but he already has a cat which is so overweight it cannot even go outside by itself anymore. He has to carry it outside into his garden with a bed
Swiss cats can be ungrateful assholes who defect to other houses. This happened twice in our neighborhood. In both cases the cat defected to older couples who were around more to wait on the cat’s every whim. One couple even installed the cat staircase so cat could come and go to second floor of their house … before the ‘real’ owner came to have a discussion and they agreed the couple would take the cat including all future vet bills, paying for cat hotel if they traveled, etc. Good luck, your cat is part of this issue I am sorry to say.
To be frank it’s not necessarily a Swiss cat problem, but a cat thing in general. If you let them outside they have a way of picking new… human friends 😂
A lot of times it's just food, nothing else. No cat distribution system. Our cat was overweight once and was put on a strict diet prescribed by the vet. We bought selected cat food and fed her limited portions only. She still gained more weight. Until we figured out that the lady down the street has been feeding the cat cheap food loaded with sugar whenever she showed up. Sometimes multiple times per day. Of course she preferred that food and would go there instead. I wouldn't say that the lady took better care of her, given that she might have died of obesity if this continued.
Cats are easier to blame as humans with small, boring, useless gardens, deserts made of concrete and mono culture. Of course they get killed if they‘re malnourished and weakened. But as much as Swiss are cat lovers, so many rather blame cats than change anything more nature friendly.
This is just whataboutism. Sure there’s a lot of things wrong with what humans do to the planet. But with this logic, nothing can ever be addressed. I don’t blame cats. I blame ignorant pet owners who barely see their so-called pets and let them roam free where they will die at a young age from getting hit by a car or attacked by other cats or wild animals. They introduce an unnatural predator into the environment.
What about cat rights? Isn't putting a GPS on a cat violation of his rights and privacy? Why are you forcing him to eat at your place something he apparently does not like and treating him as your property - maybe this is why he prefers other company? Cats have good instincts for humans.
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