I'm sure there are people everywhere who don't like cats and are somewhat upset by having a feline prowler cross their yard or do their business in the garden. What would you do? Some ingenious person in Japan came up with the theory that cats are startled by light so if one filled a large plastic bottle with water and set it in the garden then neighboring cats would be frightened off by the reflected light. I have never seen a cat run away from a water bottle so I have my doubts about the theory. Nevertheless, this was a boom that took over Japan a few years ago and everyone was trying to keep cats away by "decorating" their yards with plastic bottles! Bottles by the cars, bottles in the bushes and whole borders of bottles around the flower beds. This does not seem smart to me because I would think that reflected light could cause a fire but what does a cat-loving American know. I also would much rather have a couple cats decorating my garden than a bunch of old plastic bottles. Frankly speaking it looks like someone has dumped their trash in the yard.
Another recent invention is a plastic black cat with glass marbles for eyes. This is hung in the garden (the wind makes it move) and supposedly the gleaming eyes will keep cats away. My picture off the Internet says "Garden Cat". I'd chose this over the plastic bottles any day but I'd still rather have the cats.Of course, it seems that the obvious answer "get a dog!" is being overlooked. Choco's barking makes all cats think twice about crossing our yard.
9 comments:
Here, where I live in Oregon, we have incredible bird populations attacking farming fields and our own gardens. We put fake plastic owls and inflatable snakes in the trees to scare the birds off from the growing fruit and vegetables. At the same time, we have bird seed feeders, suet block holders and hummingbird stations. I'd show a photo of the owl and the snake, but they disappeared. I think the birds flew off with them. Either that, or the cats had their fill of bottled water and drug them off for a little play ;)
In the UK people tend to be cat lovers or cat haters and you often see both plastic bottles and those black metal cats in gardens around and about. Lions are supposed to be frightened of elephants and one UK zoo started selling dried elephant dung to sprinkle round the garden to ward off the cats - no idea if it worked or not!
Dh said I would be laughing when I heard the reasoning. Here I thought they were being sensitive to give the cats or spirit cats water! lol
People are using CD's to scare the birds away too, they look just aweful!
Dh says cats tend to be much larger in Japan than in the States, what do you think?
I'm with you, WOOF!
I too have some doubts about cats and bottles........
ciao ciao
I've had a cat leave deposits in my garden and it smelled horrible for a week. Also a dog or two. I haven't found a solution, so mostly I just go inside and ignore it and hope they find someplace else to go.
I'm with you -- I'd rather have the cats! We're lucky in our area that there is a wonderful shelter that does not euthanize. This is even more fortunate as they recently rescued over 200 dogs and cats from a woman who had been hoarding animals in her home -- the photos were enough to break your heart!
I never know what I'm going to find on your blog. I'm always delighted.
My daughter-in-law has plastic bags filled with water tacked up over her outside doors. She told me that flies are put off when they see their reflections in the water bags. She swears it keeps flies out of her house.
Since you are answering cat questions...
Do Japanese still tie a knot in a cats tail? Why?
I knew a gal who had one of those cats (in the late 1990's early 2000's so it wasn't just "Something they did in the old days.")
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