It was a reference to The Shawshank Redemption, my favorite movie. No distress intended, sorry

If someone else's pets invade your property, with or without the knowledge of their respective owner(s), in the USA it is 100% legal to shoot them.

Go figure.

EDIT: Lol. "Invade". I honestly can't believe that in America that's legal, if that's true you could shoot any animals that came onto your land. What you have no animal rights in America at all?

No, the perturbation was quite enjoyable! Familiar name, unfamiliar film; I should really check it out some time.

Did I misunderstand your original post?

I must point out that at least twice I mentioned I'd exhaust other options before considering that kind of action.

But we are encountering two different scenarios in one post:

1. good neighbour, who trains their own pet to stay away from our house. (this person I want to work with -- it very very likely would never come to this, and in the case of my neighbours, they don't even have cats, and they are nice and would work with us anyways, so +++ for us)

2. bad neighbour, who disregards our property and health situations (this person I will only send smoke signals to that it needs to stop, then I will pursue legal recourse, then I will simply defend my property and wife's health), in which case, at the end of a very long road of legal maneuvers to keep animals off my property, I obviously decide to take things into my own hands since the owner cannot control their own pet and is responsible for what the pet causes.

And honestly I don't blame the people that do.

I do wonder what kind of genius pet owner might live in our type of dense neighbourhood with cars driving about everywhere, as well as dogs in most yards, and other potential harmful things, why they'd bring a cat here in the first place. Sure, they technically can, but if this person likes giving their cat fresh air they certainly have no respect for what harm will likely come to it.

That one's easy: yee-haw! bang bang bang!

Really? In all states, and even if they're not a physical threat (like an attacking dog)? Why am I not surprised.
I think trapping the animal and taking it to a shelter is less likely to end up with you in jail, or accidentally shooting something you didn't intend...or your own foot. Har.

If it kept on pissing on my lawn, I'd at least give it a shot in the leg with an air rife. I bet it doesn't come back again...

It is where I live (Indiana). Some states such as WDC and California probably have some particular exceptions but none of that has ever survived when brought all the way to the supreme court.

Admittedly, in most situations it's normally better to seek more diplomatic solutions to the problem. Obviously at the very least shooting someone else's pet will ruin your relationship with them. We've only shot other peoples' pets after putting up with a long period of property damage, (ignored) talk to the offending party, and advice from our sheriff (who just told us to shoot the animals).

As for the risk of harming yourself or someone else, it's about equal to burning yourself with laundry iron. Only particularly inexperienced, stupid, or careless people manage to pull it off.

Not quite. A number of states, including Texas, criminalize the killing of trespassing pets unless they are actively in the process of killing, maiming, or chasing livestock, or damaging crops.

@the international forumers, U.S law on things like this can vary by not only the 50 states, but by individual counties within the states, or even by individual cities or towns. Remember that we're a federal system and as such, regulations on a lot of things are different in different parts of the country.

It's a good job too because that situation would probably get out of hand. You can't possibly train a cat to recognise which gardens it should stay out of. I guess as I type this I remember that the only way to train an animal is through positive and negative re-inforcement... in-which case the only way to ensure that a cat didn't go into your garden would be to make some negative re-inforcement; which of course has implications of it's own.


Come one mate, you don't think that's a little bit of a weak self-justification? Basically saying that it's the neighbors are in-actuallity careless guardians? Cats live in all kinds of environments. And don't under-estimate them, our Cindy - a pretty lardy cat she was too - used to swipe at one of our dogs and cats are pretty damn fast and fleety when they have to be. I don't know what type of fences you guys typically have an America but if there was a dog in the back garden of a house our cat would just walk along the edge and probably scarper the second the dog made a noise. Then again I've never understood the notion about leaving dogs outside all the time, why have them at all?

They can survive in urban environments well enough, we've had... eight cats and we only lost one of them to the street; she went out one day and never came back just after we moved.

I can't possibly believe that's true, if I killed one of the pigeons that sits on my roof on the justification that it keeps [censored]ting in my garden I'd be in trouble with the law. Either way, what I meant was... so what? Because it's legal in your country it's exempt from any kind of judgement?

No, hence the old saying, "Shoot, shovel, and shut up."

In all seriousness though, my family is not trigger happy. We are firearm enthusiasts, but as I said earlier, we understand that there are almost always better ways to go about dealing with troublesome pets than just shooting them outright. For the record, though, it's a perfectly viable option under most circumstances and we've used it before.

By the way:

If you live in America, I can't say that's likely.

Not at all. I've owned four cats for more than 10 years and three of the four aren't allowed to go outside. Why? Mainly because all three of them have always lived inside and if I were to let them outside they would not know the dangers, cars being the main one. It may seem "wrong" but almost every single time one of the cats got out they ran for a busy road, only to be put back inside by one of the members of my family.

I know. My tongue was firmly in cheek there.

Sure we do. Sort of. There are abuse/cruelty and abandonment stuff (varies state to state) but they're notoriously hard to actually prosecute - let alone discover in the first place - outside of very obvious cases...from what I've seen they're usually about abuse/neglect of the animal by the owners. Like those who can't afford/refuse to get medical care, or tossing a cat into a bag and then into a lake.

Yeah I know what you mean, this women was caught putting a cat in a wheelie bin on CCTV and all the gutter-press ran in on the front page; got the crone within a day I think. Then that nasty case where some youths doused a cat in fuel and set it on fire, can't remember what happened but given that they weren't beaten and shot as human refuse I wouldn't be satisfied either way.

That's a part of America I hope to never live in then, because that's totally not normal here.

Our cats are 100% inside cats, but one of them sometimes dashes out the front door when someone walks in/out. You can be a responsible pet owner and still have instances where the animal is out of your control.

Most suburban homes in Calif. have approx. 6 foot tall slat wooden fences on backyard property lines, largely because they're cheap, I'd guess. Height varies from state to state, city to city on what is actually legal to have/how high. Like where we live, 6 foot of fence and then another 1 or 2 feet of "trellis" are allowed, on non-corner lots. Front yards are not supposed to be fenced in via tall fences. Maybe 3-4 feet max.

Edit: so yeah, cats use fences as "highways" here, too.

Ah I see, we have a similar deal but I wasn't sure. Here in the UK it's more common than not for people's front gardens to have short brick walls and back gardens the same high fences; I didn't think that the short brick wall was common in America and by that token any other assumptions.

Mine does. Try to keep her inside. I dare you.

I don't have any Neighbors :/

Most people don't use any fences in the front yard, altho you do see it here and there as you drive around. The white picket lawn fence of cliched lore. Most of the time people will use tall shrubs/bushes along front property lines instead...if they use anything at all.

Brick isn't commonly used here as home fencing, probably because of earthquakes and other concerns. You will see a lot of the cinder block fences in industrial areas or sometimes in older neighborhoods (especially rich ones with fancy stone wall gating). I think stone/brick is definitely used more in other areas/states. And many communities opt for no fences at all. Just depends.

This. Living on a farm has its upside's.

Hang on, I'll be right there. I'm small, I don't take up much room, I promise.
...I'm definitely retiring to something like that. I would love it.

Maybe but we won't be discussing the shooting of dogs and cats here.

Meh. The popular media likes to make us out as barbaric rednecks, but very rarely is that actually the case. Everyone I know who's into firearms have been reserved, intelligent people with a respect for the real danger that they can pose. We don't kill for the sake of killing. In fact, we rarely kill in the first place.

EDIT: Didn't see this until I wrote this post, but...
I wasn't aware of this, but considering its a rather controversial subject I'll refrain from speaking any more about it.