Adopting a cat, possibly from abroad - advice needed.

[BellaMoo]

Looking for some advice. We’d love to adopt a young cat to join our family. We’ve been looking and locally there just don’t seem to be very many cats at all, especially ones that seem to be ok to live with children (we’ve got school age children).

I joined a couple of Facebook groups and there seem to be dozens of cats available from other countries. It seems expensive, but then so are kittens!

Has anyone done it and can talk me through the process. Or are there good reasons why I shouldn’t even consider it?
Is it worth contacting shelters locally?

Any help or advice would be really appreciated.

There are so many unwanted cats in this country - why a young cat? Please consider rehoming an older cat.

Lots of cats to be rehomed privately in the U.K -some free. I know people adopt pets from abroad, and it’s great for any animal to be given a loving home, it just sounds a logistical nightmare.
www.pets4homes.co.uk/search/?type_id=2&advert_type=2

Hadn’t thought about private rehoming - we’ll definitely look into it.

We adopted our cats when living abroad but then brought them back to the UK. It cost about £700 to bring two of them back by animal transport plus they had to be microchipped and have a rabies jab and of course they needed passports. This was about 6 years ago.

If you were doing it from the UK you would need to get in touch with animal shelters in the country you were looking to adopt from and they would be able to let you know if this is something they would do. We used a UK based animal transport company which was properly registered. They dealt with all the paperwork.

If you did adopt a cat from abroad via Facebook then I would check out the poster thoroughly before doing so. When we adopted one of ours we found him through the local vets. We paid for the neutering but there was no other payment. If they are asking for large sums of money I would expect that to include the cost of transport back to the UK.

I would contact shelters locally before doing this or speak to local vets. You might find someone wanting to re-home an older cat or wanting to find homes for kittens.

It's well worth it though although I maybe wasn't thinking this yesterday when I had to pay the vet's bill for our boy who got into a fight with a local bruiser!

Have you messaged or emailed any local rescues? We were in the same position, all the cats listed on the rescue sites either needed to be only cats, indoor cats or not to be homed with primary school aged children. I emailed two rescues to say we were looking and told them all about us and we did rehome a one year old and six month old. Sadly the six month old developed an incurable illness which was just bad, bad luck for us but my point is that the rescue volunteers are really busy and it's worth messaging. We are now looking for a kitten, we've two rescue cats already but I want a young one for my son to enjoy and to make the integration a big easer. I'm bargaining on the upcoming kitten season diluting the demand (and silly prices) for moggies - especially when the parents are unvaccinated etc....

Do you not have a Cats Protection branch reasonably near, OP? Or other rescue? Most of them don’t update their websites with the cats they have, and want to meet you anyway. Give them a ring. In my experience, much easier to rehome a cat than a dog, and no need to go abroad.

Check Facebook - we rehomed a cat from a local cat page. A farm had sold up and he'd been left behind. Always lots of cats needing a home locally. I wouldn't get one from abroad, it sounds expensive and complicated.

Contact rescues. Don’t just look online. Private “rescues” are people selling their pets to strangers. Avoid.

Also, just put the word out to anyone you know that you’re looking for a cat. I know of a cat waiting to be rehomed - if someone mentioned to me they were looking I’d put them in touch. I bet someone in your friends and family is in the same position.

Also - kitten ‘season’ is basically late April thru late August. So you’ll find a lot more options in a month or so...

I adopted from an international rescue. They were fab. All vaccinations, heath checks etc. Lots of support before and after.

I had called loads of Cat rescues, and they either didn't have a cat to fit our requirements ( ie could live with a dog), or said that I could only deal with a local branch.

I'm not sure why people say that we should adopt from UK only? Surely it's a Good Thing giving any animal a home, no matter where they are from?
🤔

Thank you all. I’ll be more proactive and contact the shelters directly - we’ve got several close by. And I’ll spread the word locally.
We’re not in any particular rush so happy to wait for kitten season to kick in if needs be! I’d much rather rehome a cat though than pay the £££ that people are asking for moggies on local selling sites.

@Wolfiefan

Contact rescues. Don’t just look online. Private “rescues” are people selling their pets to strangers. Avoid.

I rescued my delightful puss from a horrible home because they didn’t want her any more after several months. There’s no need to avoid getting a pet from a private home. As a responsible pet owner I had no objection to paying in full for her vet check, neutering & vaccinations.

I also did a private rehome from someone who had lost their accomodation and had to go into a pet free house share. No money paid (though to be fair this was through FB and not Pets4homes). That being said I believe Pets4homes does have an adoption tab.

There are so many unwanted cats in this country - why a young cat? Please consider rehoming an older cat

But here they're not being poisoned , stoned, tortured and killed commonly , like those abroad are. Comments like yours are never helpful. I agree with older but it doesn't matter where it's from.

Well you're a delight aren't you - how rude.

I think this mad practice of adopting cats and dogs from other countries should be stopped. It's madness. Please don't be a party to it.

I'm waiting to take on 2 kittens through a private rehoming, organised via one of the nurses at my local vet - they knew I was looking for kittens after my boy cat died recently. It's definitely worth spreading your net as wide as possible right now.

@Viviennemary

I think this mad practice of adopting cats and dogs from other countries should be stopped. It's madness. Please don't be a party to it.

But....why ?

Honestly, I'm flummoxed here.

The worrying thing about adopting from abroad is if the cats don’t have the immune systems to cope with the bugs we commonly get over here. Where I volunteer we have taken in cats that formerly were adopted abroad, and they tend to get floored more by the bugs that the natives seem to brush off.
I know why people want to adopt from abroad, but if people donated the money to the charities on the ground (what they spend getting an animal over to the uk etc) then maybe the charities abroad would stand a chance of starting to make things better over there.

I think this mad practice of adopting cats and dogs from other countries should be stopped. It's madness. Please don't be a party to it.

But....why ? Honestly, I'm flummoxed here

Because there are so many in this country already.
Although admittedly the shelter rules can be way too strict at times.

If there were no homeless pets in this country there could be a case for this. But there are plenty.

I was in the same situation last year. I live in Germany and the shelters up to 150km from where I live didn‘t have an indoors cat available. The rescues in Greece, Romania and so on couldn’t offer transportation at that time because of the lockdown then.

I then looked at websites like Ebay where there were many cats available; some costing over 1000€. I then spotted an ad for a 5 year old cat that was sold for 70€. The cat was unspayed. For around 100€ you can get a cat from a rescue in Germany that is chipped, vaccinated and spayed. I figured that the cat was likely to end up with someone who wanted a cheap cat and wouldn‘t want to spend much on it.

So I contacted the then owner who told me that she had only had the cat for 6 months (the previous owners were the mother and brother of her boyfriend) and that the cat was overgrooming. The overgrooming was mostly due to the cat living with 2 humans, a Labrador dog and 2other cats in a tiny flat though she had been doing it at her previous home as well.

I decided to buy the cat but had to travel halfway across Germany by train to pick her up which I did a couple of days later.

When Micky moved in, she stopped overgrooming herself immediately and hasn‘t done it since then. I had her spayed, chipped and vaccinated soon after she moved in. She is a wonderful cat and as the previous owner told me a while after I had picked her up (we are still in occasional contact), she was treated horribly by the first owners. They locked her in a tiny cage regularly for a couple of weeks where she had to sit in her poop and pee - I have seen a video of Micky in her first home and believe this story. She was also subjected to lots of physical abuse from the brother who found it fun.

You may be able to help a cat without having to adopt one from a rescue abroad. I never thought that I would buy a cat like that but I‘m glad that I did.

Just thought I’d share a quick update. We contacted 5 local rescues - 1 said they’d keep our details in case a suitable cat came in but the rest said that we just have to keep looking on their website. A couple said they they have 2-3 applicants for every cat and prioritise child-free adopters.

We’ve put the word out locally in case a friend or friend-of-a-friend wants to rehome a kitty.

I’m really reluctant to rehome a cat (or a kitten) via an online ad put up by a stranger. We’d much prefer to go through a rescue who assess the suitability of an adopter for a cat (and vice-versa).

The whole experience is quickly sapping any excitement we had about the whole thing

Look at rescues further away?