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

The last 3 cats we had were abandoned older cats and they had lovely temperaments and so happy to have a loving home again.

I tried to adopt my dogs but rescues wouldn't allow as inhad children under 14. Then when it came to my cat I didn't want people coming to my house to do home inspections as I have anxiety and my dogs yap alot ay strangers.

Getting a new kitten tomorrow as neighbours cat had them and they want them to go to good home, free.

The first cat I bought privately, from some dodgey breeder in wales who claimed they were ragdolls.. they were not but I was 20, just brought my own home and was desperate for a cat. I was impulsive and had absolutely no patience to look and wait for kittens to come up on adoptions websites and I wasn’t keen on the house inspection side of things (nothing wrong with my house I think I just had anxiety about being judged for the tiniest speck of dust so didn’t want strangers coming to my house😂)

a couple years ago we sold our house and brought a new build which happened to get delayed for 9
months so we had to move out and rent a place short term, wouldn’t allow pets so my parents looked after our cat. We don’t expect to be renting so long and by the time our house was ready our cat had settled and bonded with my step-dad so much that it felt unfair to uproot her again and get her used to another area/house (and second baby which we had while renting😂 so she still lives with them which is nice as we still get to see her.

the beginning of this year we decided we miss having a family pet and decided to rescue. Spent months looking at cats/kittens in nearby rescues and eventually fell in love with a kitten who had come in from the street from a rescue 1.5hours away. He’s been with us since the beginning of July now and I’m so glad we rescued. It just feels incredibly rewarding and my daughter loves to tell everyone that we saved him and love him when he had no one to love him 🥰

I wouldn’t ever buy privately again. I was young and dumb. It contributes to the unspayed, kittem cat-astrophe happening and why so many are in shelters (and left in bags and cardboard boxes on the street)

We tried. The rescue centre is at least 45mins from home and they wanted all the family to go and do a meet and greet, all good. Except they close at 4pm during the week and I have 2 kids in school, there was no way we could physically get there without pulling the kids out of school which isn't reasonable.

We got a puppy from a breeder in the end, much less hassle.

I did get rescue cats, but from abroad as I fell in love with the breed and also let my cats outside,which some rescues don't allow.

Our first cat was a Gumtree cat. We had been contacting the local rescue and were always too late, and I found her by searching “cat-place name” after a few glasses of wine one Saturday night - I said to DP here she is, this is our cat. I’ve never been on Gumtree before or since. Her previous family had had her since she was a kitten but had since had little boy who was pretty boisterous and she was becoming stressed, and they had another baby on the way too.

She was three, and we had her for seven lovely years until this year she was diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma. We had her pts and my heart broke into a million pieces. A few days later I looked on the CP website and there was our next cat - an 18 month old ginger boy. He’s a little thug but we love him.

You have to be mad to go through a rescue centre.

With second hand pet websites, eg pets4homes.co.uk, you can find a pet and it's yours in 5 minutes. Who wants to go through the rigmarole of a rescue centre, where you have to prove yourself worthy, and maybe then will they deign to let you adopt a dog?

Eff it, you hop on a second hand website and sort yourself out.