If you’ve made the difficult decision to rehome your cat, it’s not always easy to know where to start. While there can be genuine reasons for having to rehome a family pet, a lot of common reasons for rehoming can actually be resolved without having to give your cat away.
What’s the Reason for Rehoming?
If you’re thinking about rehoming your cat, it’s important to carefully consider and explore all other possibilities first – is rehoming really the only option you have? Don’t forget that out of the hundreds of thousands of unwanted cats in Australia every year, a proportion of them have to be euthanized.
If it’s a behavioural issue, such as inappropriate elimination or scratching the furniture, have you ruled out health issues, and then researched the behaviour to find a solution?
If your young children or other pets aren’t getting along with your cat, have you tried to resolve the situation? Children need to learn how to treat animals with care and respect, and pets can usually get on with a little bit of time and effort.
If someone in your home has developed allergies, have you investigated all the options there are to minimise symptoms around animals?
Tips for Successfully Rehoming Your Cat
Sadly there are people out there who won’t have your cat’s best intentions at heart, despite what they say when they offer to rehome her. If you want to ensure your cat ends up in a loving home, there are a number of things to consider.
You know your cat better than anyone, so think about what would be the best environment for her, taking into account her health and personality. The most successful way to ensure she goes to a loving home would be to rehome her through a cat rescue or no-kill shelter, because the staff there are knowledgeable and experienced in the whole process. Sadly, shelters are often full to overflowing with other unwanted cats, so if you have to do it yourself, here’s what you should do.
- Ensure your cat is neutered, microchipped, flea and worm treated and up to date with her vaccinations. Unneutered cats are often adopted by unscrupulous people looking to breed them, especially pedigree cats, so that’s the most important thing to have done.
- Decide where to advertise – perhaps at your vet clinic, pet shop, local newspaper or community groups.
- Use a good photo of your cat for the advert, and describe her personality and any special needs she has.
- Request an ‘adoption fee’. Some people don’t like the idea of ‘selling’ their cat, but an adoption fee helps to encourage only serious potential adopters.
- Screen potential adopters very carefully. You’ll definitely need to do a home visit to make sure that it’s suitable for your cat, but also ask questions to find out more about them, their experience with cats and their views on cat care.
- Offer a trial period for a week or two, to see how your cat gets on in her new home, and with her new family.
Have you ever needed to rehome your cat? Please share your experiences and advice for others in the comments below.
Image: greylock via Flickr.
Indeed, a very heart-breaking topic! Thank you for taking this up, because I think that most engaged cat owners (and big cat bloggers) won’t need to rehome their cats. I therefore assume that this topic is not as present on ‘serious blogs’ (in the meaning of blogs who really care about their pets).
It’s really sad when people really have to rehome their cats for good reasons. What a moving topic ! Purrs
The only reason I can accept re-homing is death of the owner or moving to a nursing home. I find all others reasons unacceptable, I think every pet deserves a forever home. Just the thought of people re-homing pets upsets me.
Very good tips on what to consider when rehoming your cat. I like that you started off w/ a discussion of whether or not the pet really needs to be rehomed. Many people don’t put in the time or effort, they just give up on their pet. There are also organizations that can help a family keep their pet if money is an issue or the real need is only temporary foster. I’m a bit wary of asking for an adoption fee because I think it might deter some really good people. I prefer the idea of surrendering the pet to a rescue or no kill shelter if they’ll take the pet. If you need to rehome your pet, give yourself plenty of time to do so; it can be a longer process than expected.
A few years ago I had to rehome my cat because I was moving away hundreds of miles and in the new apartment I wasn’t allowed to have pets. Fortunately the solution was quite easy, because I left my cat with my parents – so, she was still my cat and I got to see her on the weekends 🙂
But, unfortunately I know relatives can’t always adopt a cat and there are some heartbreaking situations.
These are all good considerations to take into account. It makes me so sad when people really need to rehome their kitties for good reasons. We get a lot of kitties whose owners have died or have had to go into nursing homes at the shelter. It is so stressful on everyone.
This is all good advice – as you probably know, my human is looking for a home for her father’s cat right now because he passed away. She’s here, but my human thinks she would be happier with a smaller cat family and an older couple or single.
This is such a heartbreaking topic. We understand that sometimes people MUST re-home their pets, but we see that many people do so out of convenience, or for lack of effort. 🙁