What Will Become of My Cats When I Pass?

The old man's death was expected.  Yet, in the months he was ill, he did not make a plan for his cats.  I am mad at him, because now it falls on me.  He left me no money to help care for them or to help find them homes as fees for shelter intake.  I got had again.

Shelters are currently overloaded in unwanted kittens. And now there are his three older cats.  None of his friends or relatives would even consider helping them or consider they are in trouble now, because he's dead and they are on their own.  This has produced despair in me, and anger, that runs deep.

But it makes me worry even more about what will happen to my cats when I die.  That would really create an issue because there are so many and because I don't want them to be killed and because I don't have any bargaining chips, like money, or people who care about me, that I know of, who could step in to make something happen and to make sure they are not killed.

I can ask readers to act, if someone would post, should I die, in comments and begin a discussion to help them.  I don't think I have very many readers however.  I don't think I have even a dozen readers.  So I don't think I can rely on this blog as salvation for my cats if I die before they all do.

Because there are so many, I hope a ruckus could be raised on their behalf, maybe with Best Friends, in Utah, probably the only sanctuary where all of them might be safe, because they also have a feral enclosure.  Would you do that, any or all of you, for me and my beloved kitties, should you discover I've died?  Ask Best Friends to take them, and get them there, as quickly as possible?

I know it is a lot to ask.  A lot.

My brother who owns the house made mention when I pressed him for what he thought, maybe free rent could be offered here if someone would care for the cats in exchange, someone I might know, but I don't know honest people around here.  The ones I know in need of free rent are drug addicts and criminals and manipulators, who would destroy the place and certainly would not take care of the cats.

Then I thought about the university's vet college, maybe a vet student would need free rent, while going to school, but then I thought no student wants to live in Albany, so far from the university.  So that probably is not an option either.

I don't want any of them going to a shelter.  I don't trust shelter placements.  They sell the cats to anybody with the money to pay, and most make no attempt to match a cat to a home, or make sure they'll be indoor only, or make sure friends are adopted with best friends, which is so important, I've learned, with cats especially.  The ferals would be killed, or badly relocated and die, eaten by predators.

I don't even believe in feral relocation anymore.  Outside of a tiny number of diligent adopters, who go that extra mile for a feral cat family, relocation of feral cats almost always means death to feral cats.  The only feral relocation I do now is if the cats are going to a completely contained habitat.

It is a very huge weight on my mind.

Jack was nice enough, but not nice enough to make a plan for his cats, or at least, since he probably figured, because I have a heart for animals, I'd help them, left me some money to do that.  He didn't do anything, but die and leave them to fate.  No use, really, getting mad at a dead man.  He's well on his way to dust by now.  But I can't do the same to my cats.  Or a neighbor.

But how do you make a plan for so many?   I have no money and no family.  But I want to do right by the cats in the event I die before they do.  Ideas?

It's not that easy to be alone in this world.  But even pets of those with lots of family and friends, end up in big trouble when their person passes.

That neighbor man didn't have really much of a family, but he had a lot of friends.  His cats got left to fend on their own.

It's a big issue, that people with animals worry about, and for the animals left to starve or who are killed when their people or person dies.  It's not right.  There must be some way to address this problem.