Are rescue centres reluctant to rehome cats to families with young children?

[YourBoldPeer]

Grateful for any insight on whether rescue centres are reluctant to let families with young-ish children adopt cats.

Our previous cat passed away a few months ago and we've decided it's time to have a new cat in our home. Unfortunately we seem to be hitting a brick wall with all our local rescue centres. I presumed we tick the boxes - owner occupied home, direct access into the garden, no major roads nearby - but every enquiry gets a copy paste "not suitable" email straight back with no elaboration if any response comes at all.

The only problem I can think of is that we have a 7 year old and a 5 year old. Is this a red line for rescues? Would rather not have to buy if possible.

Our local rescue has no problem with that, and previously our local Cats Protection also had no problem. It maybe varies by area?

I know a centre that's fine with it but they're in Hounslow.

They do seem to prefer adult only homes, in my experience.

Rescues are ridiculously fussy in my experience. If they can find an issue they will. Such a shame for the animals.

Smaller rescues might be less restrictive.

The issue is that young children can be rougher than they or you realise, and kittens are very fragile. Are you asking about kittens, or adult cats?

If there's any space on the application then use that to emphasise things like if your garden is cat proofed or you have a catio, that the cat would have plenty of high up spaces out of the reach of young children to escape to etc.

My rescue does it on a case by case basis depending on the cat - they’ll specify over 5s, over 10s etc.

My rescue had lots of “not suitable to live with children” cats. And when I was looking there weren’t any which were okay with kids. Tbf, the rescues I got from there are fraidy cats so hide when anyone noisy (usually nieces) come over so I don’t think the rescue was being unreasonable.

I think it depends on the rescue. We went to Cats Protection where you can search on the website for cats or kittens suitable for living with primary aged kids. In our case, it helped that the foster home had young kids living in it and the cat was at ease with them (indeed was nice to anyone who might conceivably feed him).

Do emphasise that your children are experienced around cats. Our son had been at a childminder who had two cats and we mentioned that on our application.

I think it depends on the centre we have a couple near us that seem reluctant to rehome pets with anyone. I’d just give them a call and find out

Older cats are often advertised as needing older families/ adult only homes. If they are not used to young children and a busy home it’s probably not fair to place them in a busy family home which might cause them stress.

Kittens are usually ok to go to families. Cats Protection advertised our cat as being suitable for families with children 5+ years. But we still were able to adopt when our youngest was 4 (we were clear about ages). I’d emphasise you are an experienced cat owner and the children have experience around cats.

The rescue centre near me was so weird with their questions and multiple interview process - like do you want the cat to go to a home or not? 🙄🙄

I just bought my dcat in the end, no regrets at all.

I'm not.persuaded their priorities are always entirely correct.

As far as I know, they do tend to be unhappy about families with children under 5, but yours are 5 and 7 and have grown up with a cat in the family anyway.

Is it a kitten you are looking for? Most rescue shelters have loads of adult and more senior cats who have been there for some time and are always overlooked in favour of kittens and young cats.

We home to families with children of any age, but we won't home kittens to families with very young children. We suggest cats that are known to be calm, confident and generally "bomb proof". There are few homes that are completely unsuitable for cats as long as the adopters are happy to be guided towards cats that would be suitable.

We adopted ours as kittens from RSPCA. Younger DD was 5 at the time. They had no issue (though they did specify “primary school age” in their description of the cats.

When our elderly cat passed away age 20 (adopted from a neighbour who moved abroad) we tried to adopt another cat from a shelter.
To cut a long story short it seemed a total rigmarole. We have the perfect home for a cat, two adults, quiet lifestyle, no other pets, lots of spare room, a garden, live in a close etc. I hadn’t even found a cat, only to say I’d take an adult cat or a pair and would not rule out disabilities.
In the end I got fed up, thought how many times in the years I’d be asked to take on another cat so I just started asking around.
We ended up cutting out the ‘middle man’ and now have a lovely 5 year old Tabby. He wasn’t suited to his previous home and was living in a utility room! We are all happy now.
He is very much loved.

@TheNinjaWife Cat tax please.

Here he is. How anyone could want to get rid of him?

And here is his cute little face.

Look for a rescue that matches cats to homes based on personality. Some cats need a calm, patient environment, while others are confident and suit busy households or children.

In my experience (no kids), I had to try a few rescues before finding one willing to have that conversation, one actually rejected me over me saying I’d feed a cat supermarket branded food. It’s worth finding a rescue that takes the time to get the right match.

Ahh I have one that looks a lot like that from Battersea when my son was 4. He’s doing GCSE’s now and she’s on my knee purring.

Here she is

Or here

I think a lot of factors go into it, depending on age of the cat , what happened to it before it got into the rescue centre and what you are looking for.
I got two rescue cats last October, a 4/5 year old female and her remaining 4 month old male kitten.
She was picked up as a stray when pregnant. Age not certain, how long she had been a stray or how many litters she had before.
So neither of them used to a 'home' environment. Boy cat was terrified and wouldn't come out from under a bookcase for three weeks. Mum cat very aloof. After 6 months neither of will be picked up, they allow fussing on their terms. Both still very easily startled.
Id say neither of them would be good in homes with young children and the rescue centre was right in its assessment of the cat's needs. Which was someone without young children, at home a fair bit and could be very patient.

I have never been accepted by a rescue centre for cat adoption, because apparently we work too many hours!!
So i bought my cats from a gccf registered breeder.