Why did you not adopt your pet?

[ChallengingFigureANDUnrulyFlaps]

Hello all,

Our family has always had rescue cats as pets.

I can understand why families with young children would rather get a puppy than adopt a dog from a rescue which may have an unknown history/behaviour issues.

But when it comes to cats, why would anyone get a kitten from a private person rather than adopt a rescue cat?

I'm wondering if the reasons are:

• rescue deemed you not suitable for adoption, perhaps for an odd reason
• your friend's cats had kittens
• you wanted a kitten rather than an older cat (why?)
• something else?

Also interested in hearing though from people who ruled out rescue dogs and got a puppy instead.

Thanks

We bought a kitten rather than rescuing. We asked around at a few local shelters for cats but most didn't want to give us a cat because our children are young. The one that didn't mind that we had a young family only had cats that needed special care (specific diets/medical needs/needed a calm and quiet space) so although in theory they would re-home to us, they didn't have anyone suitable to give us, despite us waiting around a year. In the end we knew someone with kittens and got a pair from them.

We also bought a puppy around 2 years after the cats and didn't even try a rescue as we have young kids, one with special needs, live near a main road and our garden has a hedge so isn't counted as 'secure'. We knew we'd never be offered a rescue so we bought a puppy.

Good question. We have always had rescue cats from a fantastic local rescue centre which operates under great common sense principles.
Recently, we approached a rescue centre about a young dog we saw online. It was a nightmare. A few days after filling in their online form we received a phone call saying that we had been shortlisted along with other families. We then had a half-hour telephone interview but were told that they would also be interviewing the other families. After all this, they said that they are too busy to get back to everyone, so to wait a week and then assume that we hadn’t been successful if we didn’t hear. We didn’t hear. Even if we had, we would then have had to go through several more rounds of interviews and checks before getting the dog.
I have had dogs all my life, we live in a smallholding and my husband is a vet who takes our dogs to work, so they are never left alone.
The whole process was horrible and unnecessarily officious. We have since found ourselves a wonderful pup, bred by a friend of a friend and are going to give him a happy life. I certainly wouldn’t go back to that particular rescue centre. I really think that this is a big factor - so much easier to pay some cash than go through this rigmarole.

We tried lots of dog rescue places a few years ago, but because of our children they wouldn’t consider us. I can’t remember what age they do consider for rehoming a dog, your children might have to be older than 14 or something (can’t remember off the top of my head, sorry)

It’s a little more nuanced than that sometimes. My cats came to me as follows:

Older cat taken in off the street by work colleagues who couldn’t keep him, I adopted him - not through a charity

Kitten - given to me by vet as kitten needed a home because she had been given to an elderly lady and was then handed in to vet as lady couldn’t cope with kitten high jinx (cat love of my life)

Young cat, year old - from rescue centre when the older street cat died

then a long pause without cats when those two died at good old ages, until

Two kittens - given to me by neighbour because a friend of hers won’t neuter her cats and they keep having more. No shit, Sherlock! Neighbour despairs but does her best to rehome where she can. Sadly one of those was the runt, had cat flu when she arrived, never thrived and died of FiP aged 9 months. Her sister is delightful and now nearly 3 but we have decided to add…

… two kittens - coming next week from Cats Protection because we tried to adopt an older cat but 3 year old cat wouldn’t have it but she will accept kits - and because we have a dog and on the whole the charities won’t rehome older cats to homes with dogs, whereas kittens will learn to live with a kind dog as we already know, so they seem more likely to give a house kittens in that case.

So seven cats over the years but only three got from charities.

Our dog was bought as a puppy because we had never had a dog and I wanted to know his background rather than take on a rescue. If we got another dog, I now feel I know enough to take on a rescue next time around.

HTH

Most dogs at the rescue centre were also classed as unable to be homed with cats. Our new pup and the cats have got used to each other and developed a ‘mutually tolerant relationship’ within 36hrs.

Because you buy pets from rehoming centres, you don’f adopt them, they’re not children.

I wanted a well bred puppy of a particular breed.

Our cats came to us from a colleague at work, they were 4 months old, so not little kittens. I'd been thinking about getting some cats, but not seriously enough to start looking for any, so it was a spur of the moment decision really. We didn't pay anything for them.

Rescue dog 20 years ago.

Rescue cat 3 years ago.

The NCDL put us through all manner of hoops to get the dog.

The RSPCA were a lot more reasonable about the cat.

We did, eventually, but that was after trying a number of times over the years. Nobody would let us adopt a cat because we had kids, because we lived in a flat, because we lived near a road and finally because we'd never had a cat before.

It's a cat, not a minor royal.

Charities do seem to make it inordinately difficult to adopt. If you buy, you pay your money and walk away.

We are thinking of getting DD a kitten and suspect we'll have to buy although I'd rather not.

I wanted a puppy of a particular breed, to raise and train myself. And knew the breeder so knew he would be well bred.

I paid £10 for our cat from an advert for kittens in the local paper. She’s 19 now and it was the best £10 I’ve ever spent.

Couldn't find a rescue centre anywhere near us willing to rehome a dog to us as we had primary aged children and some of our fences are lower than 6ft (though high enough to keep most dogs in, we don't have a problem).

Bought a puppy as had heard from friends how difficult it is to adopt. Basically you need to be an unemployed millionaire!

Ds was 7 and was too young for us to get a rescue dog. But ds is 15 now and dog is 8, and dh and I both agree we will get a rescue as our next dog.

I didn't want my home being inspected and I wanted a baby, I thought it would bond with me better

What does this mean please? I gave a donation when I rehomed/adopted my cat from the rescue, I didn't "buy" her.

Are you saying "adoption" exclusively refers to humans and "rehome" exclusively to animals? Not sure I follow - one can "adopt" many things that aren't human eg I can "adopt" a new lifestyle.

We didn't technically rescue our kitten as we did pay for him, but the absolute state of the home he was in meant we couldn't leave him there.
We tried with rescues, but we did want a kitten but there were hardly any available. My husband found someone listing on a FB group and she said she wanted them gone asap. We went for a look and it was unbelievable. The stench of the house, stale food up the walls, a literal dead mouse just being played with in the middle of the living room. The kitten jumped on DH and wouldn't let go. Like hell could we leave him there.

Our cat is a rescue but I understand why people don't.

So many of the local rescues won't touch you if you have young children. Will insist the cats must be indoor only and you have to promise never to let them out and if you do then it is breaking contract. But even if you do promise to keep them in then you can't live near a road. And so on. I think you can only adopt if you live alone in a house with no doors or windows, in the middle of a field miles away from the nearest road,you don't work so you can entertain the cat at all times and you are a multimillionaire who can buy a large carry tree for every room, a cat wheel, all the toys and feed them a fresh, raw diet.

Thankfully we found a shelter who practically thrust our cat in to our arms and waved us away. Maybe they just wanted rid of him. Apparently his sister has been adopted and he missed her. He was extremely confident and loud and insistent. I can see him being extremely annoying. He is the BEST cat. A complete and utter twat but the absolute best.

@CatamaranViper I feel like that about one of my cats. He was filthy when I got him, fleas and worms, poor baby

Thanks to everyone who has shared their stories btw. It's good to see people do at least consider adoption rather than plumping straight for buying a kitten/puppy.

Can you tell I was at the rescue today dropping off stuff my cat doesn't want!

Here is Izzy, age 12, who I adopted 2.5 weeks ago. My last cat, Kenzo, I adopted at age 9 and she lived til 18. As the typical single, childfree cat lady in my 40s, this is the actual reason I live!

We had a rescue cat previously. She was so loved, but incredibly aggressive and made our life a misery. She had been in a bad cat fight as a stray before being brought into the rescue centre. As a result, she hated other cats and had terrible redirected aggression, so would attack us whenever she saw another cat. It had got so bad we actually had to cover up all our windows as if she saw a cat walking past, she would throw herself at the glass and then lash out. It felt like living in a prison at times. We were constantly walking on eggshells around her. I still have the scars from when she attacked me, more than once. When she was sadly put to sleep after a long term illness, we decided that the next pet had to be easier. We got two pedigree ragdolls (who are known for their temperament) from a breeder and they are a delight and so easy. I have zero guilt or regret about that.

@OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea that's interesting that your rescue insists on them being indoor only. Our local rescue insists all cats be at least given the choice/opportunity to go outdoors.

We had five rescue cats over the years but when we decided we wanted to add a dog to the family no rescue centres would rehome to us because we had two cats, a few ex battery hens and a DS who was 9 at the time. We ended up buying a puppy.

Ironic that you can’t rehome an unwanted dog because you’ve already rehomed other unwanted animals.,

Of course you can adopt a pet

We wanted a particular breed and gender of cat and dog