These Are The Cat Requests That Break Your Heart

“I am inquiring about finding a new home for our cat. She is 10 years old and loves being indoors and outdoors. We have a house guest coming for the summer that is highly allergic to cats. If I could find her a new home for her by June 6th it would allow me over a week to de-cat our home.”

To someone who loves cats as much as I do, an e-mail like this is devastating. How could anyone give up their 10-year old cat to accommodate a house guest? There must be some other alternative that would allow the cat to stay in the home during a visit from a friend or relative – even one with allergies.

The fact that she’s not looking for an alternative probably means she’s no longer bonded to the cat and this is as good excuse as any to give her up. By age ten, most cats are pretty sedentary – not as playful as they were as kittens – and they start costing more to keep – with middle-aged illnesses just around the corner.   But, if you've bonded to your cat, this is the time of life that they are the best company -- wanting more lap time and cuddling than when they were young and frisky.

A 10-year old cat on the adoption market is standing at the end of a very long line to find a new home – most adoptions are of kittens or very young and friendly adult cats. Many shelters and rescues won’t take them on because they know it takes a long time to place them – tying up a cage or foster home that could place several kittens during the same time period. Animal control shelters often accept them, but usually they go into the back room to be euthanized on arrival without even being given a chance for adoption. They flunk the “adoptable” litmus test – simply because of their age.

So what do you do if you have a mature cat that you can’t or won’t keep? The only reasonable solution is to network with everyone you know to find a permanent home for her bypassing shelters and rescues altogether. There are people who will adopt a 10-year old cat but it may take months to find them. Wanting them out of the house by June 6th is simply not realistic. Our TLC Older Cat Program -- during its brief shelter phase -- placed about 3 dozen teenaged cats. Most of the people who adopted them were middle-aged women living alone who had recently lost a cat to old age illnesses -- like cancer or kidney failure. Targeting this group takes some creativity but as a rule they make great homes for older cats as they’ve gone through the process before and understand the benefits and challenges of seeing a cat through life to the Rainbow Bridge.