Cat concerns... Not actually sure whether this is venting or advice-seeking, kids. So, the situation is that it's somewhere between 101-105F here; my neighbors are away, and I'm feeding their cats/watering their plants. I'm feeling guilty that I'm not bringing the cats into my house... but... →[More:]

The problem is that we have a dog. She's not unfriendly to cats and would probably prefer to make friends, but one cat is very aggressive towards her (I always put myself between him and dog when we happen to pass by him, so it's to that degree), and the other one seems less hostile, but I have seen the two of them gang up to attack other cats, and one dog (that a friend of my neighbor's brought over, that wasn't attacking them). The animals are pretty much okay with having worked out their territories, but I never let the cats into the house. (I'm also allergic, but not to an extreme degree.)

Also, if my dog is attacked, she will fight back hard, so it's not just her I'm worried about.

The cats are outdoor cats, though they used to be indoor/outdoor cats 'til the neighbors had a baby. They don't use a litterbox. At this point, the only way I could bring them in is to lock them in the bathroom, and I think they would go completely bonkers at that. I'm not going to lock the dog away in the bedroom or something, and let the cats have the rest of the house, because this would be really, really distressing for her.

Also, I don't know how much cooler it would be to be closed in the bathroom. We have only a room AC in the living room, and it makes the rest of the house just barely tolerable in this kind of heat.

The neighbor called to ask us to water the plants (which they hadn't explicitly requested, though I had already done it anyway), and didn't say anything about unlocking the cat door so the cats could go inside the flat, though she did worry that the cats might be "boiling." My husband spoke to her, not me; I would have asked her if she wanted me to do that. Though, you know, obviously she doesn't.

I've opened up a small gardening shed space in the courtyard for them (I think it was maybe once the laundry area for this old house); it has super-thick walls, is completely shady and the coolest place outside that I can find. I hung up wet towels in there, put a big bowl of fresh water (I also have water in other places for them), and also put a frozen water bottle in there. One cat seems to have taken up the invitation, and he seems fine — not panting or lethargic. I haven't seen the other cat since this morning, but this is not unusual. They go wherever they want to in the neighborhood.

Should I feel guilty? Should I feel kinda angry that the neighbor doesn't want her own cats in her flat? If I were her, I would have asked that the cat door be unlocked for them, and the AC turned on for a few hours in the afternoon, and that doors to whatever rooms are off-limits be closed.