Anyone rehomed from Cats Protection?

[Lottie4]

If you've rehomed a cat or kitten from Cats Protection, how long did they take to come back to you after you first enquired. Also, how long did the process take? Any advice?

We've just enquired about two kittens. I'm guessing they'll be a lot of interest, so I guess they could take longer to decide who to start the process with as they'll have lots of possible applicants.

We went to see ours at their cat protection foster home and were utterly gobsmacked that we took them home there and then!

We rehomed an older cat, about 2-3 years old. We made an initial enquiry at the centre, spoke to them to check we would be suitable and then they came and did a home visit about 2 weeks later. They contacted us pretty quickly afterwards, to confirm that we needed to put in a cat flap and that as soon as that was done we would be able to come and view/collect a cat. They said no kittens as I had 3 kids, one 6 months, but they were able to find us a gentle, used-to-chaos and able to stick up for himself puss that was perfect. He is sitting purring beside me now, 7 years later . I think from start to finish was around a month.

Yes and I also volunteer for them.It varies between centres/branches. If it's a volunteer run branch it may take longer. An adoption centre will have staff who do all this side of things (I'm not involved with this side). The centre I'm at have some days where it's flat out busy dealing with a lot of behind the scenes stuff so emails may not get responded to as promptly as they would like. You will need to complete a homefinder form before you are considered for homing.
Good luck!

Reply Within a week?

I doubt they have lots of applicants!
Catneuterer on here runs a rescue & says this year is terrible for too many kittens & not enough adopters.

CPL did a housecheck b4 we could adopt. The big challenge was the cats were 1 hour drive away & when I went to finally pick them up, the fosterer was almost 1 hour late so I barely got back in time for school run.

It was a long time ago but I found them so unhelpful and obstructive that I went to an independent rescue - have had my lovely kitties for 14 years now.

My local CP has a waiting list for people who will only consider kittens.

Would you possibly please pretty please consider an older cat? They go unhomed for so much longer and are in as much need - arguably more - of a loving home again.

The thing that annoyed me so much when I contacted CPL was that I said I would take cats of any age (having previously rehomed older cats), yet they were still not interested. To be fair, it might have been just one unpleasant individual. It still rather grates, though.

We rehomed 2 kittens and had a fab experience. It was hard to leave with just the two!

I didn't want kittens. I firmly wanted middle-aged adults. But kittens were the only type cat CPL would let us have b/c we had young children. Oh well. They turned out to be nice cats. :)

Thanks for your replies. I'll just have to keep my fingers crossed.

If they decide we're the best possible kitty parents, hopefully we'll have a good experience with CP.

ShotsFired, I'd love to rehome a couple of older ones, but DH wants them from kittens if possible (he obviously can't remember our last two pulling down curtains and rails, hiding his socks etc!). I'm trying to look at it from the point of view that unless something terrible happens to both of us, they will at least be two kittens who have a good home, in a quiet area and we'll do our best to ensure they're so well cared for and look after.

I’ve had 2 at different times.

I had home visit within a week of enquiring first time then viewed several in foster. Brought them home a few days later.

Second time I called to say I was looking and was offered to see a cat next day, went to see her and decided to have her. Had home visit the same week then picked her up on a Friday as wanted the weekend at home. I only needed new visit as had been a long time in between and had moved house. The second one was in a big cattery not foster home.

Both of my CP rescues were older adults though and in the “challenging” to rehome category (but were amazing cats) so not likely to be snapped up!

I've never had success with our local CPL's. It could just be our local branches, but they are basically all old mad cat ladies. You have to do this, you have to do that, you can't do this, you can't do that. Despite having cats all my life, and the last two living until their 20's I was given various lectures.... I had young children, therefore was unsuitable, I already had another cat, I wasn't prepared to keep them in overnight, I needed to take my cat flap out, they have to have special food.... on and on and on. One lady even suggested I keep litter trays in my bedroom so the cats had company, ffs. In the house we are in now, we are on a road, but it is a rural road, well yes, but it does get busy sometimes, so that is even worse, and we have a field across the road, which apparently is a complete no, no, as the cat will want to go there..... and there was me thinking they would love to go play and hunt over there. Well, never mind, in the end I just got cats from friends and acquaintances instead. Shame, but you can't say I didn't try.....rant over.

I got a gorgeous two year old cat from cpl. I had seen his pic online. Phoned the branch which wasn't our local one and explained I had fallen in love with that particular cat. She asked a few questions then said as it was out of the area they couldn't do a home check but she thought I sounded like I would look after him well! I went and collected him the next day! Been with us four years and is the loveliest cat ever!

Our branch were excellent. I visited the (adult) cat I wanted in its current house, said I would have her, the home visit occurred within days and CP even delivered the cat to me themselves! They detoured via the vet as the cat’s immunisation wasn’t up to date, so saved me having to do it myself.
I was v impressed with them, although I realise it prob varies from branch to branch. And there were no potential problems as I live alone in a rural village with garden and fields available and a cat flap already in situ from my previous dear old cat ( who died at 21).

@lljkk I don't run a rescue - I volunteer at one. All rescues are different though. Some will be better organised/more efficient than others. But all are stressed and woefully understaffed/funded, so things don't always happen as quickly as everyone would like.

I'm sure all rescues are desperate for homes though so it shouldn't take too long. Things that hold up the process (in our case), apart from simple human error when things get lost or overlooked, is when people are very specific about what it is they want (for example it must be a single male, under one year, and must be ginger). Or must be a pair of very friendly kittens, under ten weeks, one female tabby and one male white). When we know we are unlikely to be able to find what they want then the home check will often be put on hold until we might have something suitable (and even then the fact that they are obviously so hung up on appearance and not on personality will still put them to the back of the queue).

I asked at CPL when I was looking around for mine. I did have sort of specific needs - 2, adult, indoor only. I was happy to take elderly cats, in fact that was a slight preference. The moment I said indoor only the whole tone changed, suddenly I wasn't suitable at all. I got this from a few rescues until I found one who specialised more in "difficult to home cats", who were delighted I wanted indoor cats & set up a number for me to see when I visited. Apparently adult cats, especially bonded pairs, and even more so indoor ones, are exceptionally difficult to home. I ended up with exactly what I wanted, apart from them not being elderly.

They got back to me within an hour, but the centre had only just opened, so didn't have many cats to deal with, so that might have skewed things. Went to visit the same day and agreed to take them, picked them up a few days later.

I enquired on the Wednesday, was told I could visit on the Saturday. Met my two on Saturday and tool them straight home with me!

I was a little surprised there was no home visit, but it was from a very small branch and it appeared nearly all their cats were hard to home. We took a brother and sister, two years old indoor only pair.

I thought dealing with CP was great. I've been in contact with the woman at the branch to share photos of them since moving in and she's always been happy to give advice. The process was smooth and hassle free and despite how swift it was both cats have turned out to be perfect for our family and I think they like us ok too!

Cats live so long... this is a reason I quite wanted some about age 6-7 yrs old, shorter commitment. I had to visit ours twice so 4 hours of driving in the end, to get them.

I saw mine on the website. Rang them and she had become available again. Sent some photos of my flat and that was it, i collected the same afternoon. Funnily CP nearest to me wouldnt consider me but a branch in a busier area didnt think twice. Im so pleased, shes a delight.

Yes! Agree with @EachandEveryone, try different branches in your area. Our local branch are very reluctant to rehome to indoor only, but we live on a very busy road. We we were clear that we were looking for older and extra needs cats who had to be indoors but they didn't seem to ever have any who were suitable and those that were we weren't eligible because we worked full time. The branch we went to was about an hour from home and while our cats have reasons for needing to be indoor only, the centre seemed a bit more relaxed generally. Though, as mentioned, I wonder if this is because they had an abundance of hard to home cats with extra needs? Our closest branch tends to get lots of young cats who are suitable to be homed with other pets/kids etc.

Just an update, the two kittens we were interested in have gone. However, I had an email from the rehoming lady so say that they'll have two other pairs soon and she'll let us have details. It sounds like she's really busy as she said she'd let us have more details when she had time. Fingers crossed!

Just about to contact our local CPL to try to find a pair of cats. Bit nervous about home visits though, what are they looking for exactly?

Our branch look for;

•no main roads on the doorstep for outdoor going cats, would be ok for an indoor cat.

•no open balcony if a flat.

•that if you’re at work all day you consider taking a pair/older cats

•no very young kittens with young children (only children aged 3 or above) generally but again this depends on the cat and the children, we would expect to see how your child behaved around the cat/s

But mainly we take each and every case on it’s merits, every case is different.

We ask that you consider how you’ll keep your new cat in for at least three weeks if it will be going out (harder than you think during hot spells).

Consider who would care for your cat if you were going away on holiday.

Consider how you would pay future vets fees. Either insurance or save an amount of money monthly.

It is a very personal thing, we obviously have set guidance which we must adhere to but many things come down to experience, for example if we’d had many cats rehomed to a so called ‘quiet road’ that have been injured we would not feel comfortable to re-home an outdoor going cat in that road in future.

Please don’t let the criteria put you off enquiring to a CP branch as even if they don’t have a cat that they think would suit you at that time it’s sods law that there would be the perfect cat for you a few days later.

Brilliant, thanks! I was afraid they'd be inspecting my housekeeping!

I think we have all that covered. We're at home most of the time as we work from home apart from a few hours here and there and we have a fenced garden and not on a busy road. Hopefully they'll approve us!