Should rescues loosen their criteria?

[TheOGCCL]

I'm a cat lover and involved remotely with supporting a few rescues get their cats online. I also know how many cats are killed on the roads each year. And that if you've gone to the trouble of rescuing a cat, you don't want it coming to harm. Of course some cats are also not suitable for outdoors.

But there seem to be so many cats in care at the moment and more coming via the cost of living crisis and rescues are still so strict. My parents are open to having a cat and one rescue said 'we can see you live in a built up area' so not safe. My parents live in London, the whole place is built up and they have a big terraced house and leafy garden. People like that this are likely to get a cat privately, which perpetuates the idea that this is OK and there'll always be people to give kittens to.

Are there enough perfect homes?

Perhaps for some cats, better a new home, with some level of risk, than a shelter cell?

I agree. And young children who've been used to cats shouldn't be a barrier either.

Totally agree this is bonkers. I get the impression common sense levels vary from rescue to rescue, though..!

I agree. We got turned down because we live on a main road. We subsequently got 2 kittens from an acquaintance & they are now 14 years old…

It varies hugely by rescue, my current address (mainish rural road) was fine for the Blue Cross and RSPCA. I've found them fairly pragmatic.

I found our Blue Cross impossible to penetrate. It seemed nobody could adopt who wasn't childless, jobless, pet-less and living at least ten miles from the nearest road.

I ended up with a kitten too who is happy and healthy five years on. A few people have told me since that I should have gone directly to one of the local independent rescues.

I've lost a cat on the road, ironically a rescue.
I am very interested in what the rationale is behind the very stringent criteria some rescue centres apply to potential adopters. Our rescue cat lived a brilliant life with us for 5 years (including loving and being loved by our children, both conceived and born after she came to live with us). She'd been in the rescue for close to a year when we found her and was so desperate for a home but had some health problems which put people off. It remains one of my most tender memories, signing the papers and putting her into my car to drive her home.
There must be so many like her who would benefit from a home but with an element of considered risk, such as a nearby road.

I think it's insane that most rescues won't adopt to indoor-only homes unless the cat has certain medical conditions. There needs to be far more education in this country about indoor cats, more knowledge about how to entertain and exercise a cat that doesn't roam, and more options for cat-proof gardens and catios.

It does vary very much from rescue to rescue. Some of the things I hear about sound bonkers. Celia Hammonds certainly home to terraced houses in London. I would say that constitutes the majority of our homes.

I found the same about indoor only cats when I went to adopt. Even cats who had come into rescues from indoor homes were advertised as having to have access to gardens. When I got mine, the lady at the rescue was telling me stories about cats they had rehomed, when the prospective new owners had been turned down due to big roads despite having fully cat proofed gardens.

And a catio, however large and sumptuous, is never acceptable to many rescues!

I had the opposite experience. A very known local rescue place basically threw the cat at me. I picked him up, took him home, and never heard from them again. They were supposed to at least call me twice before forgetting about us…

I found CPL to be the worst. We’d had 5 cats, most of them with serious (and costly!) medical issues that we’d known about at point of adoption, and had 2 kids who had grown up around them. CPL were unbearably righteous - I think the phrase was ‘there are hundreds of families looking for the same cat as you.’ That was without any discussion of what kind of cat we were looking for 🤷‍♀️ we adopted a little old boy with a bladder tumour from a local rescue instead and gave him 2.5 very happy years.

We tried about 4 different rescue centres but were turned down as we have DC under 12. We did eventually get one from the Blue Cross though and neither DC or cat have suffered from being around each other.

It depends what you mean by "loosen their criteria".

I worked with a cat rescue for many years (local charity not national) and we did have strict criteria.
We didn't allow adoptions if the prospective owners lived on a main road. Certain areas of town were also a no-no because of the prevalence of dog-fighting and cats being used as "bait".
Some cats would only settle in a home that had no young children and no other pets.
We set our rules in the interests of the cats not to annoy prospective owners.

If people didn't like our rules they were free to go elsewhere. Sadly, there were always unwanted cats needing adoption.

I tend to agree based on my limited experience.

We tried CPL after our cat died on a road and were told quite rudely that 'You clearly live on a road'. It's the UK. Most people live on some sort of road and ours is a quiet residential.

They also said that we were 'complete non starters' because we had a dog. yes a dog that was very used to cats and at the time I was having the conversation on the phone was lying on our bed with his head resting against our surviving cat. I felt like taking a photo and sending it to them I was so irritated. It was also the complete dismissive attitude of the person I spoke to. Like they were annoyed with me for wasting their time.

We got a cat from the RSPCA a few weeks later. An older girl who had health needs and who is going strong 8 years later.

Ironically (not in the UK) my parents were turned down for getting a dog because they lived rurally on 9 acres and the rescue said they did not feel my parents could guarantee the dog would not wander. . Well, the internal yard was about 1 acre and fenced due to their previous dog but apparently that was not good enough.

I had the opposite when we adopted ours, and the local rescue was much more selective, but having been on the CPL website recently I can’t imagine adopting from them again. The large centre we got her from no longer permits visits and has a matching service in place so you don’t meet your cat in advance. The information about the new approach makes very clear they think seeing potential adoptees is unnecessary, but I don’t agree that it would work for me. Seems they’ve made Covid practices permanent.

Certain areas of town were also a no-no because of the prevalence of dog-fighting and cats being used as "bait".

So if a person interested in adopting a cat happened to live in these areas, it was an absolute no because of the actions of others who lived there?

I live in London and found it straightforward to get a rescue cat. Ours is from Cats Protection. We are in a small terraced house with a tiny garden. We already had a cat flap, had been previous cat owners, and there was someone at home all day - I think these were plus points. We were able to visit the centre a couple of times, having previously let them know which cat we were interested in, etc, and we were able to spend quite a lot of time with the cat before we went ahead. Really easy.

I tired looking for 2 kittens to adopt at the beginning of the year and was turned down everywhere I tired as they said I had too many dogs or lived too close to a busy road. In the end I spent a lot of money on pedigree registered Persian kittens. I had to answer a lot of questions from the breeder and meet her before she allowed me to buy her kittens but she was fab and gave me lots of advice. She still checks in every now and then to see how they are getting on. They are an absolute joy to have and incredibly spoilt. A part of me feels sad I wasn’t allowed to adopt but I have been donating lots of food and litter to my local cat rescue each month as they are drowning in unwanted cats and kittens.

@Whinge
"So if a person interested in adopting a cat happened to live in these areas, it was an absolute no because of the actions of others who lived there?"

Yes.

Our rescue wanted over £100 for a cat, I was living in a high rise and didn't have £100 spare. I was told if you can't afford that you can't afford a cat, which is silly really because insurance is £25 a month and food less. We COULD afford the cats and wanted them dearly. I love cats. We got two off gumtree, just went and picked them up from owners who were moving.

I still have those cats, moved them three times and now they have a big garden to enjoy. but we just didn't ever have £100 spare.

However if I had that money I would be happy to give it to a rescue, and now I'm more settled probably would, but I still think that making it cheaper and stopping the barriers is a good idea. Give them to homes where they will be loved above all else.

My mum has dogs from blue cross and although she's quite dysfunctional and lives in a high rise too, the dogs she has area always treated like royalty, which is the most important thing.

My main issue is with people who buy and sell animals like commodities when they are available to adopt.

It definitely varies by rescue in my experience. My husband and I were looking to rescue a dog a few years ago and we really liked the idea of an Akita (lol) but nowhere like RSPCA or Blue Cross would let anyone have an Akita unless they had prior experience with the breed or at the very least large difficult dogs.

So we gave up on that idea and wen to our local shelter and asked about another dog, but when we interviewed we said we don't want a dog that's bitten anyone and that dog had, so we didn't go for that... but they happened to have an Akita and they asked if there were any other dogs we liked. I said about the Akita, expecting them to say the same as the others, but they didn't.

They did a home inspection and decided the space was probably a bit small with only a communal garden but we told them that we were the only ones that use the garden and we were trying to move to a larger place within the next few months... then I did like 3 or 4 supervised visits to the dog in the shelter and it got to the point where she was trying to get away from the staff member to come and say hello to me, we were fast friends. So they decided that frankly she had chosen us and let us have her.

Ironically she bit my husband in the first week because he thought she was done with a bone he had given her as a treat and tried to pick it up 😂 but we figured that was just a boundaries thing, she didn't know him properly and we decided to keep her. Then I think at about 6 months (after we had moved) she accidentally bit me but didn't break the skin. I accidentally startled her from behind and she whipped around and grabbed my forearm but let go as soon as she even touched the skin really and went and got her teddy and brought it to me (an apology?). We haven't had any incidents since, she fully trusts us to do literally anything, she lets us mess around with her like a rag doll and we can lie down on the floor with her.

We did get pro trainers in because of her pulling on walks and we wanted to improve her food aggression/possessiveness. We still can't actively take food away from her when it's in her mouth but we can now touch her and be right next to her doing stuff (eg. filling water bowl) while she is eating and that's good enough for us. The only minor worry is if she gets something in her mouth she shouldn't have, we cannot remove it we just have to wait for her to drop it of her own accord (having treats in hand helps, like a trade) but so far nothing bad has happened on that front.

We've had her over 4 years now and now live in a large 3 bed with our own garden in a rural area. She's 9 so her energy levels are lower in terms of exercise etc. but she is really happy and a totally transformed dog (like I said we got professional trainers and everything).

But it's crazy to think that is our local shelter had been the same as RSPCA then she would've still been stuck in that shelter until someone who had owned Akitas before (not common) came around and wanted her. But because they let us have her and we actually worked hard with her, she gets to live our her days as a happy dog.

We had a relatively painless experience getting a rescue cat, although admittedly it was 4 years ago. They wanted to know if we had a garden, and weren't on a main road.

But we tried for years to get a rescue dog with no luck, despite having primary school aged children who were used to dogs, an enclosed garden, and an adult who was home most of the time who was an experienced dog owner.

One rescue refused us a small, short-legged, corgi sized dog on the grounds they were concerned he might jump our fence. As our fences are six feet high, I enquired if they planned to equip him with a trampoline.

We eventually went to a breeder and got a 5 month old puppy who came fully housetrained and who's very happy with us three months on. He has yet to jump the fence.

Although actually I remember the CPL wouldn't let us have a cat because we didn't have a spare bedroom to give the cat. Apparently it needed its own room....🤨

We found the same. The criteria were ridiculous. One wouldn't let us adopt because we have a child (one calm, pet loving girl). Another wouldn't because we lived on a busyish road. We said we would be happy with an indoor cat. They said it might escape🙄. At that point I concluded they had no interest in re homing their cats and bought two kittens from a registered breeder. We've had them for three years now. They are ridiculously pampered and have never escaped.

All animal rescues are the same. It no wonder people buy puppies and kittens from breeders.