Views on whether it's become difficult to find a nice moggy

[Twixes]

I'm a fairly recent cat convert, of the evangelical kind and I've been so lucky to find a brother and sister kitten for adoption via a local free ads page. They are adorable, so friendly, purr like mad and so calm and accepting of my kids, particularly of my two year old who doesn't quite get the gentle-with-animals thing.

Anyway, to the point of my post; when I was at the vets he said it's almost impossible to get a nice moggy like you could years ago. (In our naice middle class area) people have become almost too sensible, neutering all their pets and now we're only left with ferals/semi-ferals and overbred pedigrees. I was a bit taken aback by his comments but I can see where he's coming from, in order to get my kitties i had to have an alert set up and move quickly, the list interested was insanely long!

Is there a possibility that the lovely handreared mog, born in someone's kitchen is becoming extinct?

I find it so odd that black cats are unpopular.

I once read (I think it was on MN actually) the depressing reason that they're seen as not so easy to photograph as lighter colours, so don't look good on social media.

Utter bollocks, of course. Not that I'm on social media but I've got some lovely pictures of my black cat, and his predecessor too, another black boy who lived to be over 18 years old.

This is my 17 year old ex feral, was very fierce when I got her. The owner at the time couldn't cope with the hissing and biting. Now soft as butter.

I find it so odd that black cats are unpopular.

I once read (I think it was on MN actually) the depressing reason that they're seen as not so easy to photograph as lighter colours, so don't look good on social media.

My vet told me this too. Black cats are hard to rehome as people want pets they can photos and put on Instagram / Facebook etc. Very sad. One of my cats is black, she is so lovely I wouldn't be without her.

Mine manages pretty well being black with his FB page
How could I not take him?

I love that more and more people are adopting cats, but they seem to only want the gorgeous breeds like Maine Coons and various oriental breeds. Several dozen of my colleagues were showing pictures of their cats on an intranet page and mine was the most basic mog!

We have 3 black and white rescue cats - the oldest came in with her kittens and then was there for 18 months as she is antisocial. The other two were much loved, but had basically lived in this ladies bedroom with her until she went into care so had ishoos. No one wanted an 18 month old pair who couldn't be handled. After a year, they will come and sit on your lap happily but can't be picked up.

The colour thing is the same for dogs - the rescue I foster with could rehome blue dogs over and over. Black or white dogs are much harder

Despite being a Naice area and all the local vets taking part in the CPLs neuter for a £5 from April to August every year since 2010 our local rescues are still stuffed full of nice moggies looking for home.

We've always gone for kittens because introducing them to existing cats is easier. Almost all Battesea adult cats (our local rescue, and source of all four of ours) are listed as 'prefer not to live with other cats'.
Slightly off topic but DumbledoresApprentice yours is lovely.

Both my boys were 7+ when they came to live with us. When they go, both are 16, I will rehome older cats, one of which has to be black. I adore black cats.

The rescue thought my tabby mog was about 2 when I got him. He was the youngest I was prepared to go because I wanted to know roughly what his personality was like. The kittens were gorgeous but we're all going quick and my boy was overlooked really. He'd been there a month and I can't believe it. So glad I found him because he is perfect. So cuddly and playful - feels like I have a kitten sometimes anyway without the toilet accidents

Wow! That was a resounding no then

I know my local SPCA gets busier in summer but I'm told it's nothing like how it used to be.

So many beautiful mogs here, we're all very lucky to have such wonderful pets.

On the black cat thing, I've always liked black cats, I've a bit of witch in me I think but the boy cat we got is black and he's a stunner, very difficult to photograph, even a bit of white would make him more photogenic but to me he's purrrrfect

My moggies

I adopted my first cat when he was two, and he was an absolute dream. Such a softie, more human than cat. Tragically he got FELV and passed away in August 2017. I still miss him every day, but I genuinely believe he was too good for this world.

I adopted my girls from Celia Hammond in December, when they were 18 months-ish. I'd have adopted older ones, and I wanted adult cats, because kittens are so much easier to home.

So many gorgeous cats on this thread, including yours OP
@YesQueen is that a before and after pic? Because they look like 2 different cats!

SW here. I wish there were far fewer cats and kittens in rescue.

What a babe Dumbledore 😍

I went to my animal feed supplier for my two kittens as I wanted them to be outdoors and good mousers/ratters like their parents, for my smallholding. One does all this, the other one is a determined house cat 😂 they always have a waiting list for kittens because of the nature of them, I would have considered homing feral cats if I hadn't had access to these but they've turned out to do a job AND be lovely pets. I did deliberately choose the two black toms though as I suspected they would be the hardest to home when the rest of the litter was grey and that really pretty light ginger.

There are loads of lovely moggies out there!
I think the neutering message has got through in so far as you're less likely to acquire a kitten from a neighbour whose cat got pregnant before they got around to getting her spayed when the recommended age was older or people believed in letting them have a litter or two.

@MoniqueTonique yes it is before and after

@YesQueen oh how lovely, lucky cat

@Lonecatwithkitten

That’s so good of you and the all the other vets though. Your under no obligation to do so.

I’m amazed at this post, I could if I wanted probably scour Facebook/ gumtree locally and bring home 20 kittens in a day! My kittens have been word of mouth ‘please take them’ free kittens, black lovely boys.

In my experience I have to agree with Twixes, in my area of the North West at least.
I approached the Cats Protection only to be turned down as I already had a cat and I lived near fields so a cat / kitten might be tempted to stray across the road there.
This is what drives the prices up on Gumtree that people are advertising their kittens for. Silly prices of between £150 - £200 and that is for ordinary kittens. Despite this they are being snapped up instantly by people who I assume are paying up before actually seeing the animals.

It would never have occurred to me to buy a kitten from gumtree or similar. Not least because of the costs of e.g. vaccinations/neutering etc which are part of the deal when you rescue.

The only thing I would say is that rescues are becoming far too prescriptive with regards to criteria meaning that a lot of cats must end up there for longer than they ordinarily would. My last rescue came from Battersea, and to get a cat who was considered to be suitable to be rehomed with dogs was virtually impossible. Even though my dog is highly trained, completely not bothered about cats in fact has grown up with them, and dog is not allowed upstairs so cat would have somewhere to go if need be.

I would always opt for rescue, and kittens can be bloody hard work anyway so adult cat would suit me far better, but if I were looking to rescue again I would resign myself to the fact that it was unlikely due to, in some instances, far too stringent criteria,even though I have owned rescue cats all my life.

Viccat My mum got a pair of "black & white bookends" - or "black & white London alleycats" as she called them. As you say, 10 a penny in London - but when she relocated to deepest, darkest Wales they were seen as quite exo'ic! Might be worth a phonecall to the provinces to see if that is still the case.

I got my older CPL a couple of years ago - the woman seemed very surprised I actually wanted an older cat. Sad times.