Psychological Warfare
You might as well challenge a centipede to an arse-kicking contest. You always start off ignoring the animal, and end up treating it with added kindness because it appears to be suffering from something.
Calling in the Mafia
Only in the worst case. It's beset with difficulties anyway, because:
1. They're not in the phone book.
2. It's expensive. Four small concrete boots still cost twice as much as two large ones, it's a bit like children's shoes.
3. It is almost impossible to get a horse's head into a cat basket.
Games cats play
No, this isn't all that stuff with the bells and catnip-filled calico mice. Cats only play with special cat toys for about two minutes, when you're around, in order that you don't get depressed and stop buying them food.
The thing to remember here is that cats only appear to be solitary animals, forever mooching around the place by themselves. In fact all cats are plugged into this sort of huge feline consciousness which transcends time and space and, in its own mind, a cat is constantly competing and measuring itself against all cats who have ever existed anywhere. It's as if Steve Davis wasn't simply competing against another man in a dicky bow, but against every snooker player throughout history, right back to the first proto-hominid who needed a really mindnumbing way of spending his evenings.
Cats have subtle, intellectual games.
Cat chess
This needs, as the playing area, something the size of a small village. Up to a dozen cats can take part. Each cat selects a vantage point—a roof, the coal house wall, a strategic corner or, in quiet villages, the middle of the road—and sits there.