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

[Elwyn]

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.

Yes but it was due to the cat having an allergy. They have blanket rules and no common sense is applied.

Look at this example in my local rescue. Kittens they have had since 4-5 weeks old and now 10 months old and not rehomed when kittens are snapped up quickly usually! They even admit that the mother rejected the kittens because they separated them!

I would assume they had to separate for mum to have medical treatment. I doubt it was done for shits and giggles. Plus, if the cats were part of a legal case they can't release them until it's concluded, or the owner surrenders, which can result in long term stays before re-homing. Which takes me back to my point that inspector cases tend to be trickier than former pets. And IME the RSPCA tend to focus more on inspector cases these days, not surrendered pets.

It says unfortunately they were separated so that suggests it wasn’t intentional for a reason. It’s also suggests when they reunited mum she rejected them. So that suggests it wasn’t long before they reunited them as they were 4-5 weeks old and only a few weeks away from being weaned when there would be no reason to reunite mum.

The fact is 4-5 week old kittens are now almost a year old and have been in rescue all that time rather than being rehomed when they are more adoptable. They are of course now asking for a home to take all 3 kittens and they must have no children and no other pets. So they will sit there for even longer not in a home as what are the chances of them finding that.

Too many good homes are turned down for the animal to simply stay in rescue instead. Look how many people on this post say they gave up and went and bought kittens instead. They are quite literally sending business to the backyard breeders by having such strict rules.

Not at all true about kittens. Kittens are small and vulnerable and can be injured or killed by children. Adult cats can defend themselves. Our rescue will home calm, confident adult cats to homes with children (unless the children are completely feral), but will only home kittens to homes with older, sensible children.

Cats subject to legal proceedings or who have not been surrendered can't be released for adoption.

And where you read the 'unfortunate' as signifying intent, I read it as being unfortunate for the kittens, which it was, of course.

Plenty here have adopted from all sorts of rescues multiple times so clearly plenty of us pass the 'tests'.

Would you be prepared to collect cats from Canning Town, or is that too far OP?

Yet another cat that will sit in RSPCA care forever.

FIV positive cats not going outdoors is outdated advice. Latest veterinary research shows neutered cats have very little chance of spreading the virus.

Why no other cats in the home? What if someone has an FIV positive cat already and wants to adopt a friend?

Why adult only? Children can’t catch FIV.

I’m not disagreeing that some cats / kittens can’t live with children or other pets but while independent smaller rescues apply these restrictions on a case by case basis and are sensible about it the RSPCA puts blanket rules on almost all their animals.

Totally agree that FIV cats should be allowed outdoor access (unless other factors make it unwise). I imagine it says adult only home as he's a bit of a nervous cat.

Is he nervous because he’s semi feral and being restricted to an indoor only foster home?

I don’t disagree with finding the right homes for rescue cats and I think many smaller rescues do this really well. The RSPCA in my opinion don’t do this and the rules they impose is at the detriment of the cats in their care.

@Madwife123 well all semi ferals are by definition nervous of people and therefore don't make great family pets. He really needs outdoor access though. It's madness to confine cats because of FIV when, firstly, neutered cats are unlikely to transmit it and, secondly, it's endemic in the urban cat population anyway.

@Madwife123 and the no other cats in the home thing could be because he really dislikes other cats. Some cats do. If that's not the reason then it's bonkers.

It’s says further up that it’s because he’s FIV positive.

The RSPCA says the same about every FIV positive cat. Indoor home with no other cats. Sadly very outdated and leaves the cats sat in rescue unnecessarily.

Our cat hates kids, she gets scared if she hears them outside the house. Luckily we didn’t have kids.

She was waiting for a new home for a year until we saw her.

Find a list of the small, independent rescues near you here:

www.catchat.org/index.php/cats/adopt-rescue-cat

I'd just ring them up and ask. We have adopted an older girl from the RSPCA just a few weeks ago. It said no kids and no other cats in the household, But it also said she had a chronic illness which we knew would make her hard to adopt. So we rang and asked.

She's settled in brilliantly. She does have a little hissing match with our other cat but it's nothing significant. And she sleeps on DS1's bed which is brilliant because cats are his 'thing'. He's 13. When we asked why they had specified this they just said that they did not know her history so she was untested with cats and kids. Not a problem.

And her chronic health issue? A simple change of medication (and ongoing monitoring of course) and she's fine.

When we took her home the receptionist was in tears with joy because they truly thought she would never find her forever home.

Would you consider adopting from abroad? I have six rescue kittens (Arabian maus) myself and there are thousands more needing homes. There are local groups that send the cats back to the UK once passported etc. They go with flight buddies and the cost is split between rescuer and adopter...

When we lost our elderly cats, had this exact issue. Bigger rescues wouldn’t even consider us, but the smaller ones did after I emailed to explain that I have had cats since a young age, and that my children had grown up alongside our cats, so knew how to treat them.

The issue is same for other animals, as have some relatives who used to run a small dog rescue for a specific breed and they used to be really fussy too.

We used to joked that they would only rehome their dogs to little old grannies or vicars as they would usually discount anyone with children or didn’t have anyone at home throughout the day.

Thought it was a shame they wouldn’t rehome to these people as it meant these people would then go and buy these dogs from iffy breeders which they would always bang on about, but couldn’t see how they were part of the issue why people went elsewhere when they had rigid rules in place.

Hope you manage to find a rescue who will work to match your family with a cat that is just right for your home.

Waves at @Namechangenora52 - mine's an Arabian Mau too!

There are so many mistreated cats there and the woman was v sensible on realising we were experienced cat owners. We asked for 1. a cat that can live with other cats and 2. not a black cat as DH can't see well.

Got a lovely white cat who is the village thug but an absolute gentleman to our nervous girl cat.

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Posted to soon. I booked an appointment to see the cats at a SSPCA and took my then 4.5 year old to see them the next day. The cats that liked kids made it very obvious and those that didn't hid away. One cat ran straight to the cage entrance, cried to get out and then ran and sat on my 4 year olds lap and cuddled in. We reserved him there and then. He lived with us till he died at 14 and was adored by most of the local kids. I would suggest booking an appointment and asking yo take your kids.

Yep this completely. It's what we did. We went and sat on the floor in the cat pod area and the girl we got stalked out of her unit walked straight over to DS1 and crawled into his lap, up through his tshirt, poked her head out the neck and started licking his chin. The RSPCA lady said 'Well, I won;t ask if you have chosen her, because she;s chosen you'.

This is the cat that they said 'no kids' to.

That was poorly phrased on my part. I meant emotional bounciness rather than physical strength. Often older cats are nervous of humans in a way that most kittens are, which obviously makes them harder to place with kids who are less predictable than adults to be around.

None of the various rescues I’ve had experience of has had problems rehoming kittens with school aged children.

I guess they have to be wary with advertising but I think they would be better stating unsure please visit the centre as the cats will let you know Lol

@Elwyn - It's just on the RSPCA website