I Don't Like Rehoming Cats

I don't like adopting out cats or relocating ferals. I don't like it at all. It's so hard to find good house cat owners, people who won't just leave a cat behind or barely notice the cat and kick it out the door, people without addiction issues or severe anger issues or honesty issues.

And as for ferals, they're far better off where they originally roamed, rather than trying to get people to contain them for two weeks at a new location, and hope they follow instructions and hope the cats won't try to find their way home.

I tell people feral relocation success is 99% psychological. You have to get the cats to believe they are better off in the new locale. This takes time and effort. Most people think you can just dump a cat in a barn and they'll stay. What a pile of baloney.

Taking a feral cat from everything familiar, from friends and family members, from favorite haunts and food sources, favorite places to sleep and drink and lounge in the sun, and planting them somewhere entirely different, somewhere where they don't know what's dangerous, where to find food, what to do, this is extremely hard on them.

It's like if you were kidnapped and plopped down in totally alien territory. You'd likely set off for home, even if you knew you'd likely die in the process of trying to make it home.

But try to get people to understand that, or to believe that. Most people assign animals no mental capacity or emotions, which of course is not the case. Just because some people can't read animal emotions, doesn't mean they don't have them. they do. Believe me, the cats go through so many feelings common to humans. We like to pretend that we are much different, so we can feel less guilt when we abuse, torture, eat and experiment on these living creatures.

But, if you want barn cats, for mousers, you must, as a matter of keeping them around, at least give credance to the advice of those who understand how the mind of a cat works. And the mind of a cat will say, if the barn home is not a much better environment than where that cat came from, "I'm going home."

I try to relocate at least three cats together, at least three cats who knew each other at their old location and preferably are family members. I try to get the new caretakers to understand the principles of relocation. Some try. Others turn them loose the moment my car leaves their driveway. Later they call to tell me the cats have disappeared. I try to urge them to go out and look for them, to call them, to leave out food, but usually they want to move on and forget them. But I can't, is the thing, and this behavior causes me great angst and sleepless nights.

I don't like relocating ferals. I don't like adopting out house cats. I just don't know people as well as I know cats. I can't read people like I can read cats. I have come to distrust humans more than I trust humans.