I'll proudly say that I have taken out plenty of feral cats with my high power pellet rifle when they mess with the dogs. Cats are ok but being left outside for hours at a time and running around the streets, I have no sympathy when I see one that got ran over. Any cat that can mess with my dogs, is fair game. I can sufficiently defend my dogs correct? Yes. If there was a dog out trying to attack or even bother my dogs when they are fenced in the yard, I would do the same thing. Shoot it. Chances are 1 shot and it won't be coming back around.