Day 72: Refused by pet adoption agency

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 72: Refused by pet adoption agency

Approximately eight years ago I started this blog, primarily to vent. A number of things angered me and a friend suggested I start a blog to blow off steam. Over the years I’ve started quite a few posts with “I’m ticked off”, “I’m angry” or even “I’m furious”. Apparently not much has changed because while I’m not exactly furious, or even angry, I am ticked off.

Where it comes to adopting a pet, I’m the first one to declare loud and clear that pets are not toys and should not be given as presents at Christmas, Easter, or a birthday.

However, I’m sure that during this Christmas season there were people with the best of intentions. People who wanted to adopt a cat, a dog, or another animal and were willing to give it a loving home for years to come. I should know because I was one of those people. All my cats are rescues, which is why I’m so ticked off that I was refused by an adoption agency.

After Mickey passed away, I subscribed to a website that notifies cat lovers whenever a cat or kitten becomes available for adoption. I didn’t have to wait long. Just three days later I received an automated message from the Toronto Cat Rescue that a kitten named Millie was looking for a home. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending which way you look at it, Millie generated quite a bit of interest and was adopted before I even had the chance to properly apply. Naturally, I wished Millie and her newly adopted parents all the best.

A few days later I received another notification. This time from Team Cat Rescue that three kittens were looking for a home. I applied for each of the kittens, hoping to get lucky with one of them. As it turned out, I didn’t get lucky with any of them and I stand no chance of ever getting a kitten or a cat from Team Cat Rescue.

In response to my application, one of the representatives stated that no cat or kitten is released to a home where there is a cat or cats older than five years. This made absolutely no sense to me. I’ve always had cats, over the years I’ve introduced plenty of kittens and never had any problems. What’s more, when I adopted Gabriel, Mickey immediately took him under his wing.

The representative further stated (rather cheekily I might add) that kittens have no problem being adopted, but that older cats are being ignored. This I’m afraid is true, and it breaks my heart that older cats are being abandoned, but I can’t adopt an older cat. I once tried introducing an older cat to my lot and it didn’t go well.

I don’t know where the older cat came from, but I found him in the garden of our condo building. I took him in and introduced him to my cats, but there was a lot of growling and hissing. To cut a long story short, the cat met George, a paraplegic who was waiting in his wheelchair for his transportation. The cat jumped on George’s lap, George started petting him, and the two became inseparable. George named the cat Lucky, which indeed he was.

So, keeping this experience in mind I preferred to look for a kitten or a young cat, rather than an older cat because the chances of getting accepted were much better. The representative of Team Cat Rescue wouldn’t be persuaded though … no kitten to a household with cats older than five years. So that was that.

Not only was this disappointing to me, but I can well imagine that there are other people out there who have experienced or will experience the same problem. They want to rescue a cat or a kitten, but because they already have a cat who is older than five years, they will be refused.

If Team Cat Rescue wants to make a difference, they should place greater emphasis on pets being spayed/neutered and discourage people from getting rid of their pets when it no longer suits them. All too often people get rid of their cat(s) when a baby comes into the house. Little do they know that a cat will never harm a baby. On the contrary, a cat will cuddle up with a baby, keep it warm and sooth it to sleep. 

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