Originally Posted by Wayne Smith

Interesting. Not many cars here but we do have coyotes howling at night as well as the occasional bobcat on the fence line. We've been woken up by a mountain lion a few times as well. A neighbor ten miles west of us posted a video of a visiting bear recently.

Yet the current set of neighborhood cats are old and surviving (as ours did as well). They just won't come into our yard with the dogs. But they all tend to be inside at dusk. Some nights when ours stayed out late we would hear them streaking up the stream to jump through the fence and down the deck to their pet door. They'd come in puffed up to twice their normal size so I figure something was after them.

Our realtor used to come across feral cats. I offered some to a friend to protect the 3200 square foot shop we built 30 miles north of here. They tended to run off quickly.

So ... Any idea how you keep a feral cat within a fenced area with dogs that would challenge them?

Years ago cats were constantly dropped off anonymously to populate an uncle's barn.

Another friend found a volunteer barn cat on his brother's ranch. That is miles from anywhere so we're not sure where that one came from.

There's a cat rescue place outside Laguna Beach (in the Canyon) that has hundreds of cats. All in screened buildings. If there was a practical way to rent them out you could make a fortune!!!

Meanwhile, my key FOB is still working 😀