Rescue centres refusing to let us adopt

[kirinm]

I have had cats for the last 20 or so years. Unfortunately my last cat died - about 3 years ago - from an aggressive cancer and because we had a very small baby at that time we didn't want to get another cat because we thought it would probably be unfair.

Anyway, fast forward 3 years and we are interested in adopting. We have a large garden, had french doors installed with a cat flap in them and I wfh 3 times a week.

We've contacted Celia Hammond (who haven't even responded to either phone calls or emails), Croydon animal samaritans and another South East London rescue centre along with Battersea. Only CAS has responded and said we live too close to a main road presumably to ever adopt from them.

I really do not want to buy a cat but what are we meant to do? Most of the centres won't even respond to us and if they're going to complain that we live too close to a main road, that is going to be the case for a vast amount of inner city London.

Our neighbours have cats, we had cats, I see lots of cats in and around our garden. Does anyone have any tips on how to get through to these rescue centres or make them see sense in letting a family adopt a cat because it is vastly better than living in a cage??

@arisuhimawari I suppose you could, if you could find a rescue happy to take them. There is just less of a safety net than rescuing from a UK rescue, where you know there is a safe place guaranteed if it's needed

I've recently been talking to a Dubai based rescuer about adoption and her group works with a UK based charity. If the adoption doesn't work out for any reason they will take the cat to one of their UK fosterers. Apparently this has only happened a handful of times and I can understand why as the interview was very in depth. We'd both thought the cat we were discussing was perfect for us but during the call both sides realised it wouldn't work. I was very impressed - it was very thorough but not over the top like many UK rescues.

That sounds good @PinkSparklyPussyCat . My interview was slightly more haphazard hence the fact I've now got the sickliest cat in the West 😊

I couldn’t adopt either they either never got back to me or told me I couldn’t adopt because I had ‘young children’ a 5 and 7 years old.
I lived on a quiet cup de sac with a large garden. The only traffic on my road was from the people who lived there.

I ended up rehoming an older cat a saw on a pets website.

The same shelters that ignored me or told me I couldn’t adopt because I had children are constantly crying out for donations online because they’re ‘overwhelmed’ with cats that don’t get adopted.

I get that they can’t let anyone take a cat but I tried at least 5-10 shelters and got nowhere.

The penny has just dropped - I didn't realise Elton is from Dubai. Is he a Mau?

We had to complete an application form and send a video of the house and garden and introduce ourselves before they would arrange a call. The zoom call lasted an hour and we got to 'meet' the cat and his fosterer and find out the entire process. If felt a bit like being interviewed by a cat!

@PinkSparklyPussyCat Elton is indeed a Mau - with all that entails! We also did the video call and all the paperwork, but we didn't get to meet Elton or his foster parents . They were very thorough about our circumstances, but a little vague about Elton's. To be fair, I now realise that he wasn't part of their foster network, but had been rescued by a couple independently who were now surrendering him, so I'm not sure how much they really knew about him. Also, the situation for cats is so dire in Dubai, that they are pretty keen to get as many as they can out of the country to safe homes, so may be slightly economical with the full story about the cat .certainly I'm pretty sure that Elton was not as healthy even then as they made out. But he's beautiful and affectionate and the best boy ever so all's well that ends well!