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The litter tray

Join our community of cat lovers on the Mumsnet Cat forum for kitten advice and help with cat behaviour.

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Original poster

I want to adopt a cat from RSPCA but every cat I clicked on says no kids in household

83 replies

Elwyn · 25/06/2023 08:47

I spent ages yesterday evening on our local RSPCA and cats Protection League websites clicking on individual cats' profiles and I haven't found a single one where they say the cat can go to a home with children. We had a cat from the RSPCA who died earlier this year aged 19 years old but we got her before we had kids. Her old paperwork from RSPCA specified no kids but she loved our boys when they came along. I always understood that ethically the best thing is to adopt from a cat rescue centre but I can see now why people might break this rule! Does anyone have any advice please for how we can adopt a cat from a rescue centre whilst having kids in the household without having to resort to looking for local breeders? I imagine I could ring up the RSPCA and they might say oh we have this one cat you could have but I was hoping to have more choice so we get the right fit for our family.

OP posts:

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Delilah1234 · 25/06/2023 08:51

Have you looked at Blue Cross? We have had our last 3 rescues from them.

bibbityboppityboo · 25/06/2023 08:54

Do you have any more localised rescues? I had a similar issue but about the location of our house - I used a local rescue who did a home check and were perfectly happy with it. The RSPCA just gave a blanket no.

INeedAnotherName · 25/06/2023 08:57

Call them. Most do a blanket exclusion based on the possibility of kids being rough on the cat/pickng them up all the time and the cats react badly and scratch, or kids shout/run about excitedly and makes the cat scared. Both scenarios end up with the cat being returned or dumped.

If yours are older, and know how to act with a cat properly, then explain to the rescue especially since you've had an elderly cat already. The worst they can say is no 😉

Perry13579 · 25/06/2023 08:59

Refine your search! There are loads near me; it showed me the "closest 150". Sounds like plenty of choice to me.

I want to adopt a cat from RSPCA but every cat I clicked on says no kids in household

Fallenangelofthenorth · 25/06/2023 08:59

I got my cat from a local rescue for the same reason. He was 4 when we got him and my children would have been 5/12/12. He's 14 now and adores my youngest - sleeps on her bed every night!

Weveforgottenwhoweare · 25/06/2023 09:02

Can understand this with dogs but cats I don't get it

Tartanpantss · 25/06/2023 09:04

Same with the Cats Protection. All of them in our county follow these rules:-

No kids
No more than a 2 person household
Must have cat flap (our cat doesn't use the cat flap!)
Must have a large garden of a certain SQM
Must have an outdoor shelter in case it rains (shed / garage)
No other cats in the house or next door!!

Basically they want lonely old people with massive gardens to adopt all the cats. Then they complain when the same cat returns in a few years after the lonely old person has passed away.

No joined up thinking...

MrsCat1 · 25/06/2023 09:04

Try a local rescue. Our two lovely cats come from a wonderful rescue. They currently have 70 cats/kittens available. South/South West if any good.

TheSeaDoesntKnowMyName · 25/06/2023 09:06

Tartanpantss · 25/06/2023 09:04

Same with the Cats Protection. All of them in our county follow these rules:-

Basically they want lonely old people with massive gardens to adopt all the cats. Then they complain when the same cat returns in a few years after the lonely old person has passed away.

No joined up thinking...

Yes - my in laws were not allowed to adopt a cat from them, because they had a cat flap and wouldnt keep them in

Local cat rescues are the way forward

GodspeedJune · 25/06/2023 09:06

Smaller independent rescues are often more flexible on this. They’ll likely just want reassurance that your children have lived with a cat before and won’t hassle a new one.

greysockmissing · 25/06/2023 09:13

Our cats protection places with children but usually says 5+, sometimes 8+.
However I applied and said my youngest was 4 and it wasn't a problem - we successfully adopted. So if they say it's a young, confident cat with no known issues I'd apply anyway and see if you get lucky.

Whenwillglorioussummercome · 25/06/2023 09:13

We’re just adopting a cat from a local rescue and I was pleasantly surprised to find they took a very common sense approach to kids. As someone has said upthread, sensible kids used to cats are fine. A very small number of their cats aren’t suitable for living with kids owing to previous trauma (they sound, poor things, like they are likely to take a long time of careful care to recover) but most are fine.

Many rescues will place kittens more easily with kids given the inherent bounciness of kittens. But not everyone wants them!

EmeraldFox · 25/06/2023 09:13

It's because some kids do not know how to behave around animals. DS knew to be gentle with cats when we got one when he was 4. He was active in a normal child way that could startle a nervous cat until about 7/8. Some children are absolute terrors until much older and some cats have learnt to be afraid of children in general because of this. If course it wouldn't be fair to get a cat that was actually afraid of children but it is difficult when there are blanket bans and your children are able to act like adults around cats.

Whenwillglorioussummercome · 25/06/2023 09:17

Just to add that when we visited our new cat in its foster home it sat happily licking my kids, and then sat on a lap, so clearly isn’t remotely fussed by them.

RedCrestedDragon · 25/06/2023 09:18

The Blue Cross were by far the most helpful when I wanted a rescue, without stupid rules.

I lived in a farmhouse when I got my current cat, land, barns, outbuildings. A local rescue wouldn’t let me have a cat because I didn’t have a cat flap and refused to put one in my ancient listed doors (wouldn’t get permission anyway even if I went through the process).

My cat comes and goes through a window.

cardboard33 · 25/06/2023 09:20

Our friends have just adopted a cat from a local cat rescue centre and they've got a 4 year old daughter with lots of cats on their road too. If we were getting a pet (which we aren't, much to my son's disgust!) then we'd try local ones as that's where most people we know adopt theirs from.

Nannyfannybanny · 25/06/2023 09:22

The RSPCA are ridiculous,worst of all. We had quarter acre garden, backing onto fields,on the very outskirts of a nice Surrey village. DH dog was 17,a bitch. Home inspector, checked all our animals and chicken,so far so good, can't have a bitch, can't have 2 bitches together! Medium garden, excuse me!!! Told her most people have 30 feet. We bought a border collie puppy, another was free,BOTH bitches,BOTH puppies of 8 weeks,and 6 months apart in age. Local rescues were as bad, ended up buying the next puppy....she's 8!

WestOfWestminster · 25/06/2023 09:28

Unintentionally they might be creating a problem down the line. If rescue centres have such strict criteria then more people will buy from breeders and the cycle repeats. Its daft.

redglobox · 25/06/2023 09:29

Yes, I had this problem too. I looked all over the place including local rescues for months and months. Gave up in the end and bought. It's such a bizarre policy. I have had so many cats (almost all rescues) over the years and they've had great lives living with children who can be great companions.

Whenwillglorioussummercome · 25/06/2023 09:36

We did get kittens from the RSPCA with both children AND an existing cat so they can be sensible.

Okshacky · 25/06/2023 09:41

I found rescue centres ridiculous near us so we ended up buying ours. We have too many children and disability in the mix. Our animals live to late teens and are happy.

CornedBeef451 · 25/06/2023 09:56

Smaller rescues are usually much more sensible in their rules.

I have a cat dealer (tiny local rescue) who will give almost anyone a cat.

tattychicken · 25/06/2023 10:00

We've adopted 3 in the last 6 months, 2 from a local rescue and 1 from CP. we have 4 children and 2 dogs. Just keep trying, we had to go a bit further afield as our local CP was a bit more choosy, we applied to one about an hour away and they were much more sensible.

Mysa74 · 25/06/2023 10:02

Tartanpantss · 25/06/2023 09:04

Same with the Cats Protection. All of them in our county follow these rules:-

Basically they want lonely old people with massive gardens to adopt all the cats. Then they complain when the same cat returns in a few years after the lonely old person has passed away.

No joined up thinking...

Not even that is good enough for them. We lost our 19 year old RSPCA cat that we adopted as a kitten back in the days when a family with 4 children could.
The passed the form check, passed the home check and we're invited back to choose their new pet. Picked out two they liked and sounded perfect from the page on the cage, a 4 year old tabby and a 6 year old black with a white blob on its front and were turned down for both. Apparently they had to have a cat that was 8 or older. There were about 30 cats at the center none of them older than 7 and that one needed an indoor home only. They went back 3 more times and were turned down every time. my brother even went with them to explain it would be a family cat and if ever my parents were unable to look after it there were 4 other homes waiting for it, the cat would never go back to rescue. What made it worse was that the original 2 cats the looked at 4 months before (and 3 others they picked out) were still there... They gave up and bought a kitten in the end.

SourDoughToast · 25/06/2023 10:10

Can you try a different branch of the RSPCA or whatever rescues are being picky?

Our local RSPCA branch seems quite sensible and currently has cats on there where the profile says it can live with either primary or secondary age kids.

We got our cat from there and they were fine with us having a 4 year old, smallish garden and living in a town (horror- near roads!!)

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