AIBU about “adopt don’t shop”?

[totallybonafido]

Yes I know it’s better to adopt rather than to buy a kitten from some random person online - but rescue places make it so difficult! I’m trying to get a new friend for my cat and I’m not getting anywhere.

I've contacted all local rescues, big and small, who claim to be inundated with cats and kittens, and been told:
• they only re home kittens in pairs
• you can’t adopt if you’re out at work during the day
• you can’t adopt if you don’t have a cat flap
• if uk you adopt, you have to agree that the cat will be indoor only
• we won’t give give you a cat if you have children
• we don’t have any single kittens at the moment

These are just the ones that have responded, many don’t.

If they really are inundated and struggling to rehome cats, you’d think they’d be a bit less picky? I got my current cat from a random lady online whose 2 cats had litters at the same time, so she had about 10 kittens at once. I’ve just seen on pets4homes that she has another 12 kittens to re home now, it’s beyond irresponsible and she has no idea who she’s giving them to. I want to do the responsible thing here, but I probably am going to end up buying a kitten off some random again as the alternative has too many obstacles.

I agree @totallybonafido and we did similar - though when looking for kittens for sale we did not buy from people like the seller you mentioned who irresponsibly owns more than one unneutered female and is basically running a small kitten farm at home as an income stream. This is why it's important to visit the kitte s at home before committing to buy. Having politely left the flat of the irresponsible kitten-farming woman once we realised her setup, we bought from someone else who clearly hadn't intended to allow her cat to get pg, was uncomfortable and distressed by the chaos that kittens were bringing to her well-ordered home, and had already booked up an appointment for neutering the mum as soon as the kittens were weaned and rehomed.

The criteria for whether one can adopt a from a rescue centre and whether one can own a pet at all ought to be the same. The current situation is ridiculous. If there are genuine and justifiable reasons for 90% of the population to be barred from pet ownership as per rescue organisation criteria then that should be the law for everyone. I wouldn't object to some restrictions on pet ownership as some people are clearly too irresponsible (including a lot of the sellers supplying pets for sale ro those who can't adopt) but having established some reasonable criteria to define a baseline of an appropriate environment for a pet, there should be a default alignment of rescue centres using those same criteria for the bulk of their rehoming (with reasonable variations for narrower criteria if rehoming an animal with specific additional needs, health issues or personality issues)

I think one reason it can be hard to adopt from rescues is not that you aren't good enough, but that they get so many expressions of interest from their featured animals that they ignore the applications that don't succeed. I'd have been open to a suggested alternative that needed a home.

Similar experience. Got nowhere with any of the rescues despite having had cats all our lives. But I really didn’t want to support irresponsible backroom breeders. We eventually bought our kittens from a local woman whose cat had a litter. Saw their house, the kitten’s mum and older brother, checked how they’d been socialised, all good. They’re lovely and good natured

Could you let us know what area you are in & maybe someone could recommend a rescue shelter near you.
Ive adopted cats all my life and never encountered any issues but everyone's circumstances are different. My current two were adopted just over 12 months ago and the process couldn't have been easier.

It must be region dependent, my local Cats Protection practically chucked my last girl at me - the criteria was basically "do you have a place of abode and a pulse? Please take some cats". Mind you she's wasn't a baby she was a teen mum, so maybe its different criteria. I do remember that when I got the cat before her, over a decade ago, it was much stricter.

It’s completely ridiculous

My first cats came from a very well known animal rescue. 17 years later, after they’d both died, I went back for another and was told they had no suitable cats for me. There were about 50 cats waiting to be adopted. I suspect the real reason was that I had a holiday planned for five months ahead but they wouldn’t tell me why. The cat I’ve got now belonged to a friend of a friend.

She said ‘Berkshire’.

I'm a home visitor for an animal rescue and an animal welfare professional. I would look for a road that's not busy (because we need to consider the cat:s safety) and that you've considered costs of cat long term and where you will put the resources within the house so that the cat feels secure and happy (and I'd help you by talking this through).

If you have kids, another cat or a dog then it is dependant on the individual cat you want to adopt. Many cats would hate to live with an unrelated cat. Some cats aren't suitable for kids because they've come from an abusive or unsettling previous home and are nervous - and our priority is the cat settling in the new home so that they are happy and also so that you don't feel you have to return the cat because it's not working out.

Dog again would be cat specific, some are fine, some would hate it. We do try to make sure a car used to outdoor access isn't adopted to an indoor only home, because they are unlikely to settle and may get stressed, but kittens are usually fine indoors only as they just get used to it.

Post adoption support is so important to help keep cats in the home but not all rescues have the capacity to do this as they are run on a volunteer or shoe string basis and are full to the brim. It may be that your nearest rescue doesn't have the capacity to do this so are taking the safe route.

Please do try another rescue, unless you live on a very busy road or your house is totally unsuitable there should be a cat to suit.

Also just to say that adult cats are generally not keen on living with another unrelated cat in a typical sized house. They might tolerate it but there will be signs of stress. They are solitary animals by nature (exception is colonies of ferals because they can come and go as they please). Most cats are happy on their own and don't actually need a friend. We see it a lot where people get another to keep a cat company but they don't then get on. Stressful for both the owner and the animals.

No cat flap, that’s ridiculous 🤣

We leave a window ajar the vast majority of the time which leads to a sloping roof which leads to a wall which leads to the ground. Then they have acres and acres of farmland and moors to explore.

When they can’t be bothered to use that, they stand by the French doors and I’m constantly up and down letting them in and out. I work from home so I can always see when they want in or out.

Yet I wouldn’t be allowed a cat on that basis?

Rescues don’t help themselves, tbh.

I know a lot of people say this but its very very cat dependant. My rescue one is flighty and highly strung and my extremely stable senior has been the best thing in the world for her. Granted, my senior is an absolute gem of a cat, her temperament is solid gold and her health is amazing. At a superficial level you'd think the little one was the dominant cat in the house because she acts big, but its fake. The senior is. The little one will lick her head in a way that shows she's really eager to please her, when its not too hot she wants to lie near her with her head touching her, and she looks to her to know what's safe. When I got a new carrier I left it on the living room floor for ages and the little one would not go in until the senior did. Only after senior had been in, she copied her and went inside. Also senior teaches her boundaries in a cat way - if she gets pesty, she either does one short hiss and a no-claw slap, or totally blanks her and calmly turns her head away. This has taught the little one respect, and she knows that if senior goes in her den, she must leave her be. She's made her a more balanced cat.

I had two boy rabbits - brothers - who fought like mad once they got to adolescence. They did get neutered and calmed down. They had the run of the garden and the house, and would follow me around.
I was advised by the vet that rabbits should have a diet of only grass and whatever they forage from the grass, supplemented with some hay in the winter. They shouldn’t be fed vegetables except in very small quantities, like a 1cm cube once a week.

That doesn’t sound like much space.

I’ve no idea what rescues you’re trying as it’s not true! My cat is a rescue, from a well known charity. There’s no requirement that he must stay inside or adopt another one to go with him! You’ve actually contradicted yourself, if they’re saying they have to be house cats why are they saying you need a catflap 🤦‍♀️ cats with feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV), which pose a risk of infecting other cats should be house cats!

When I adopted a rescue puppy they sent someone round to do the home visit who looked as though they had never seen a bar of soap or a washing machine, and clearly had MH issues this was to see if my home was clean and suitable and I was suitable I suppose. She then said my 5 foot fence should be 6 foot, the puppy was a chihuahua. She also kept asking about things I had in the house and at one point I thought she was going to ask me out on a date. The woman also wanted to come back 4 weeks later to see how it was going, I refused and we never heard from the rescue again.

We successfully adopted a 16 month old cat from the RSPCA. We had 3 and 5 year olds at the time.

We visited him at the place and a volunteer visited us before we got him. I think they were particularly happy that we were looking for a young cat, but not necessarily a kitten, that we asked to receive him in the New Year rather than Xmas and that I had a lot of experience of cats. Paid £70 I think.

We live in a suburb of a major city on a not particularly busy road. We have a small garden. He's an outdoor cat. He's still with us 8 years on.

In my childhood home, we lived about 50m from a very busy road and were refused. TBF, we subsequently lost 2 male cats to the road. A female cat died of old age as she never wandered that far. All neutered.

Have you tried any agencies on the south coast who get cats in from France?

I wanted to adopt an adult cat when my boy passed away. I looked around dozens of rescues in the 100 mile radius, I went meticulously through the ads. I admit I only looked at the particular colors (tabby or ginger) but it was still hundreds of cats checked out.

Every single as said "no dogs" or "no other cats". We have a small dog who is extremely friendly towards cats and we have another cat.

So what am I to do, if not buy a cat? With the best intentions, adoption is apparently not for me and none of those hundreds of available cats are coming to my home.

I think the charities have the correct stance. There are too many pets owner who are not suitable to have pets.

Your local vet route may be the best way. They will know how well you look after your existing cat and whether you're a good candidate for another.

I remember having the home check and all for our first rescue dog. For the second, third and fourth they just did a vet check. For the fifth they just told us to take them away and bring them back if we had any issues!

Apologies for going off-thread, but what is the problem with rescuing only a single cat please? Is it that the kitty gets lonely?

Hahahaha. Love this. So accurate.

I don’t understand this either. Cats are solitary, territorial animals. Adopting in pairs doesn’t make sense. We adopted from Cats Protection League when I was about 12…we had to take minimum two kittens (they tried to make my mum take a third but my dad put his foot down 😂). The kittens grew up to hate each other and one had the back garden as territory, the other had the house. When one of them died early the other one couldn’t have been less bothered