To think animal shelter charities push potential pet adopters towards breeders with their absurdly stringent adoption criteria?

[Thepeopleversuswork]

OK so I’m probably being grumpy about this because I have had bad experiences and maybe unfair.

But I have just been turned down for a third time in five years trying the adopt a cat, apparently (as far as I can tell) because I have a job and live in a city.

I’m a middle aged woman living in a quiet street on the outskirts of SE London with my own home and a teenager and partner. I have sufficient income to support a cat. I have a large back garden. I am an animal lover who has had cats before.

The last two charities I have applied to had ridiculously detailed diligence procedures including several home visits and a dodgy quasi isometric test. Another agency which imports stray cats from overseas required me to send videos of the traffic on every street within a half mile radius and character references.

After weeks of consideration I was told in each case that I couldn’t adopt due to traffic risk.

I get that the volunteers at these places become very attached to their animals and of course it’s only right that people are vetted before taking an animal, especially one that has been mistreated. But the rigmarole in the application process is ludicrously over the top and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they basically don’t want you to adopt a cat unless you live in a huge rural stately home and don’t have a job. As soon as they hear the word “London“ or any indication that you work outside the home they basically rule you out in my experience.

I’ve now gone down the route of getting a cat via Gumtree but it makes me sad and it seems so self defeating; these charities are putting well meaning and committed animal lovers off applying and making it far easier for unscrupulous people to breed and sell animals.

Can anyone who works for one of these charities try to explain why it’s so difficult?

We also had this problem trying to find a dog/puppy. Ended up going with Balkan Underdogs - who were brilliant.

Our 2 cats we picked up 'free' from a farm nearby, as their mother had been killed on a road. That was 10 years ago.

Friends of ours adopted a cat, despite a home visit from the charity. They had two dogs, a FlatCoat Retriever, who was soppy and fine with the cat, and a little white Westie with innate terrier instincts, who had to be permanently separated from the cat or he’d have killed it.

How on earth they were allowed that cat, I will never understand. But thanks to the vigilance of the new owners, it survived. I always felt sorry for it, though - it must always have known there was a potential murderer on the premises, waiting its chance.

@Thepeopleversuswork not sure where you live but London Inner City Kitties has a young cat Dale who is advertised as able to be left for the day. Sounds like a sweetie

I'd not have any dog with a child under 9, or until the child can be ''sensible'' around a dog.

And if the dog is there before the child?

I’m a vet and used to work in first opinion ambulatory equine practice. I wanted to rehome a gorgeous middle-aged border terrier from Battersea and they wouldn’t allow it on the grounds it would have spent a lot of the day in the car (with me) driving round the countryside visiting yards. I do understand rehoming charities have to be really careful to avoid animals being brought back but they do sometimes take it to the extreme.

Ma’am, I have to ask, exactly what kind of cats do you have in the UK that requires experience to handle? I mean, we’re talking about regular house cats, right? You guys aren’t keeping pumas or tigers or something, right?

All cats can be left for a day.

Personally not disputing that. I have 2 myself.

People were saying that rescues won't adopt to people who aren't around during the day. I was mentioning a cat that a rescue is advertising as can be left for a day.

Going by some of the posts I've seen in MN recently, I think you're meant to rehome the child.

OP please have a look at Wisteria Cat Rescue in Kent. They have pages on Instagram and FB. They are a fairly new charity, started during lockdown and the man who runs it is lovely! I would have gone there if we hadn’t got our cat through our local Cats Protection branch.

https://www.instagram.com/wisteriacatrescue?igsh=MTZvNDk2Nnkzb2U5Zw==

Oh they have a website. Here it is Wisteria Cat Rescue

https://www.wisteriacatrescue.org/

Seconding the lady with a friend in Dubai. I'm in the UAE and have eight rescue cats myself, rescue groups are inundated with stray cats and dogs all needing homes. The more organised ones will fly cats to the UK for a donation towards the flight. My Mau's are the loveliest characters but all sorts of pedigrees get dumped daily as well. It is impossible to keep up the need so please do consider the middle east...

@ChubbyMorticia Yes, I've had ordinary moggies since I was five, with maybe five years in total during that time without a cat. Whilst I don't think any experience is necessary to love and live with a cat, I think at 66, I might be described as experienced 😆😆. I've done well enough with all
My cats for them to have reached a ripe old age, so I've clearly been doing something right!

I was asked by one rescue for the square footage of our flat to see what size cat will fit in!

Cats that have been abused, or not fully socialised may need someone with more knowledge of cats.
I’m On a few Reddit cat groups and the amount of stupid questions about the most basic thing is shocking.
Although I do think the rescue have messed up, or are rather stupid in the example you’ve responded to.

So do you agree that buying from 'breeders' or people selling animals on the likes of Gumtree is the wrong thing to do?

@WhatWhereWho

So do you agree that buying from 'breeders' or people selling animals on the likes of Gumtree is the wrong thing to do?

I don't think its universally bad, there are good and bad breeders out there. I don't think it's ideal, certainly, and in a perfect world it shouldn't happen. It should certainly be regulated more closely than it is.

Managing this is probably best with a mixture of carrot and stick. I think there should be tighter controls on breeding, although I doubt that would eliminate the problem as people will always want animals.

But again, if it were less burdensome for people to go through the process of adopting from rescues and the vast majority of people weren't excluded on completely arbitrary grounds, it would be much easier for people to choose not to use breeders and websites.

That doesn't mean it needs to be a free for all, with everyone allowed to adopt, no questions asked. But there are enough people on this thread and elsewhere demonstrating that they've been asked to jump through pretty crazy and unattainable hoops to obtain animals ethically, despite obviously being committed and loving. It's pretty clear to me that if the shelters were prepared to be a bit more pragmatic, more people would adopt.

They also deem all their cats to be indoor cats, even very young ones, which I personally think is cruel. Not a great charity to direct poster to given all the comments on this thread, I wouldn’t have thought.

London Inner City cats .... generally you'd expect their catchment area to be people in flats without gardens etc. So not sure why that's a surprise.
I get that you think it's cruel but there are a lot of rescues (and views) that indoors is perfectly fine for cats. It's not exactly a minority view.
And I'm really not sure why you are so annoyed with me !

I’m not annoyed with you but I don’t agree cats should be kept in. There are plenty of gardens in inner London, believe me. When I lived in a flat without access to a garden I didn’t get a cat as I thought it was cruel.

Oh and I’ve just done a bit of checking and am amused at east and north London being inner city, though I suppose you could count The City. I’m in one of those locations and can tell you there are gardens everywhere. Ridiculous policy.

I’m in inner London and didn’t have any problem getting a cat through Cats Protection. I have a small garden, terraced house directly onto the pavement, cat flap onto garden.

I don't think the, erm, 'unrealistic' PP realise the impact of their statements either.
Animal rescues rely on donations from the public (although I have no doubt they get various grants etc). All these ridiculous rules are just putting people off and questioning where their money goes.

I wonder whether these rescue places are staffed by over-zealous dragons who are seeking to impose their imperfect and flawed knowledge on those wishing to adopt- a little bit of power, probably for the first time in their closed and limited lives, can go to the heads of the mediocre.

I’ve worked in animal rescue for about 7 years.

I used to think rescues were too strict having known people struggle to adopt, but I changed my mind after working in a well known rescue VERY quickly.

When you see what some of these animals have gone through at the hands of humans and how much goes into getting the animals ready for rehoming, we want to make sure that their next home is as good as possible.

Obviously there’s the abused and very neglected animals that we take in, but the majority are owners who don’t want their animal anymore hand them to us due to reasons like:

having children and not having time
work commitments and not having time
child being allergic
the animal making mess in the house
lack of space.

When those reasons are so common, it’s necessary for the rescues to be concerned about hours of work, young children, space, gardens and such like when finding the animal a new home.

I’ve worked in a handful of rescues now and the ones with less strict rules have far more animals returned to them. The animals are then harder to rehome. It’s hard for cats as they’re territorial so too many moves is really detrimental and with dogs it can mean months of very slowly getting them to trust again which takes a lot of time and money.

Rescues are just trying to get a good outcome, I wish more people knew what it was like. I had no clue before working there, I had worked with animals for years but rescue work really opens your eyes.