These People Surrendered Their Healthy Cats For Ridiculous Reasons

When we open our homes to furry overlords, we make a promise to give them good homes and care for them for life. Unfortunately not everyone sees it that way.

Stories about people abandoning perfectly healthy cats for inane reasons abound, but this week two particularly egregious cases from the same shelter caught my eye.

In the first case, Biscuit the cat was living comfortably in a home with “her cat best friend” when the latter feline died. Instead of realizing his surviving cat was distraught and taking special care of her, Biscuit’s former “owner” brought her to a shelter, saying he was surrendering her for euthanasia because his family “wanted a kitten” instead.

At 12 years old, Biscuit is “as sweet as a 12-week-old kitten,” staff at the Chesapeake Feline Association in Maryland wrote in a caption accompanying a video explaining her situation.

@chesapeakefeline

Biscuit lived her whole life with her best cat friend and what she thought was her forever family…until her companion cat passed away and her owner decided he wanted a kitten instead….so he brought Biscuit in to be put down. We quickly scooped her up and gave her so much love, but she is ready for a new family to call her own. Biscuit is about 12 years old but is just as sweet as a 12 week old kitten, please don’t let her age scare you ♥️ #catrescue #sheltercats #adoptdontshop #fyp #catsoftiktok #adoptablecats #adoptme #adoptablecatsoftiktok #maryland #delaware #pennsylvania #ownersurrender #seniorcat #sheltercat

♬ the winner takes it all – november ultra

Thankfully the shelter did not honor the man’s wishes for Biscuit to be put down, and the video is starting to accumulate views and comments. Let’s hope Biscuit’s future loving human is among them, and I’d like to think the CFA told her former human to beat it and sent him home without the kitten he wanted.

If they give in, that poor kitten’s going to come back to them a few years down the line as the guy keeps trading ’em in for younger ones like Leonardo DiCaprio.

Ignoramus Surrenders Cat For Scratching A Carpet

Cats have claws. Cats scratch. They don’t do it to piss us off and they don’t do it to ruin furniture. They do it because they’re genetically hardwired to, because it served multiple functions when their ancestors were in the wild — including marking territory — and because it still has practical purposes, like wearing down claws that have grown too long.

Anyone who knows the most basic facts about cats knows this. Anyone who has done at least minimal research before bringing a feline home knows you need to provide kitty with scratchers and redirect him to them when he goes for another object.

And if you have furniture you really want to protect, you make arrangements before bringing your new friend home, whether that means up-armoring a couch with scratch guards, putting soft nail caps on kitty’s claws, keeping her out of a certain room or one of many other potential solutions.

What you don’t do is adopt a cat, give him a home for six months, then take him back because he scratched your carpet.

Doing that makes you a jerk.

I’m not sure if general ignorance is the problem here, or if people see cute felines on Instagram et al, imagine unicorns and rainbows and bright-eyed kittens poking out of baskets, and never even think about the fact that felis catus is an animal, not a Pokemon or a stuffed toy.

In any case, surrender for acting like a cat is exactly what happened to Finnegan, a gray and white tabby who “melt[s] in your arm and give[s] you all the love,” shelter staff wrote.

The little guy’s offense? Scratching a carpet. Shelter staff really tried to make it work: They offered to put nail caps on Finnegan every month at no charge and his humans still said no.

His ordeal has not soured him on people, thankfully. A video from the shelter shows him loving massages from volunteers at the shelter, and he looks like an incredibly chill little dude. He deserves a home where people love him.

You can find Biscuit, Finnegan and lots of other adoptable cats on the shelter’s Petfinder page and website.

Finnegan the cat
Finnegan, seen here in stills from a video, was surrendered by his people for the crime of behaving like a cat.

17 thoughts on “These People Surrendered Their Healthy Cats For Ridiculous Reasons”

  1. We adopted our boy, Cesare, in 2013. They estimated his age at around 2 or 3 years at the time. He was so despondent acting, just lying there in his cage. When I approached him and spoke to him, I felt a real connection. He rolled onto his back and listened intently to me. He is my best friend, and I love him so much. I can’t imagine what his life was like before he came to live with us. I only know he is the bestest, most sweetest boy ever and I’m lucky we found each other.

    I cry when I think of all the cats and dogs out there with no one to love them. Wish I could help them all. xo

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  3. Because we are a “throw away society” pets – and animals in general – are considered “throw away things” by too many hoo-mans. No matter. These individuals will get what they deserve down the line. Karma, baby. Karma. 🌒🌕🌘

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  4. Cats scratch.
    In addition to your other excellent suggestions, you can learn how to clip cats’ claws so that they don’t injure your possessions.
    Speaking as one who had cats before nail caps were invented.

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    1. I have to admit failure here. His Grace will not tolerate having his nails clipped. I’ve tried everything, from bribing him with treats to waiting until he’s super calm, and I’m extremely careful to avoid the quick. He just won’t have it. That’s on him…he does use his scratcher a lot. I’ve stepped in a few times when his claws got too long, but otherwise he keeps them worn down himself.

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      1. But that is almost every cat. The ONLY cat i could clip nails is my dumped cat Furmina. And almost 15 years of cat rescue? I COULD NOT CLIP NAILS ON NOT ONE OF THOSE CATS. And i am talking about countless numbers of cats i fostered who went up for adoption.

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      2. Yeah but I look at those YouTube videos that show how to trim a cat’s claws and they have these inexplicably calm, sweet cats who are happy and purring while they’re having their nails trimmed…

        And then I try every step and Bud’s like “I WILL KILL YOU, HUMAN! UNHAND ME OR I SWEAR I WILL END YOU! You think you can bribe me with treats? Hah! I will eat them and then MURDER YOU.”

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      3. That works. You have the option of nail caps, which I didn’t have. And his scratcher works, too.
        I wrap cats in towels or sheets like a mummy to keep them immobilized. And I resign myself to “cat-decorated” furniture, all of which comes from the thrift store, anyway.

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  5. That’s cold. Older kitties are the sweetest and you see them through to the end. There are easy answers in both cases. First: 1. Keep your older cat. 2. Adopt a kitten. Chances are the older cat will mentor the kitten. I sure hope their older cat who died was given a chance for treatment of any medical conditions, not just euthed. Second, lots of solutions. I myself don’t care about furniture appearances. My late Mom did care. But she put her cats first. Maybe we need adult ed classes in pet care. Or in basic empathy.

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    1. I think you’re right about the classes, especially for people who haven’t adopted before, and adopting the kitten to keep the older cat company would have been a great solution.

      Before I adopted Bud I went to a bunch of shelters in Manhattan looking for cats, and I thought it was insane that one of them wanted people to commit to two sessions of cat care training before they’d adopt out. Now I understand and I realize I was ignorant despite reading a lot of material on cat and kitten care before bringing His Grace home.

      I’m also totally honest about the sheer number of things Buddy has destroyed first because they’re funny stories, but also because people should know cats can be like destructive toddlers and like anything else, adopting them isn’t perfect.

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      1. Not blaming the shelter but sometimes people miss the red flags before adopting out cats. There are no questions on applications about carpets,furniture, etc. I remember years ago i fostered a white cat and person came to visit. She complained about white fur on her black skirt. And not in a joking manner. Me and rescuer looked at each other and read each others minds.RED FLAG.This woman was not going to adopt a cat from this rescue group.

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      2. These stoopid hoomans don’t stop to think! A kitten will quickly grow up into an adult cat. Morons. MORONS. Then what? You keep trading them in on a new model? These idiots should be vaporized.

        Me? I cannot wait for Brandon to reach one year of age. 6 more months to go. Because I LOVE ADULT CATS.

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      3. That’s why I wrote that people who do that are like Leonardo DiCaprio with his models…every year Leo gets older, and every year the models on his yacht are 19 or 20!

        If people are bringing cats back to get kittens they don’t love the cats, they love having cute kittens.

        Baby Bud was funny AF, lots of good memories, but I don’t miss getting woken up 10 times a night, having my feet attacked constantly and all that stuff.

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    2. I don’ t care about the couch but i do put a blanket on each arm of couch. That is where most cats scratch. My clients and friends did the same. Problem solved.

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  6. Like Gilda – I don’t care about “objects” like furniture or anything really – it can be replaced or repaired or ignored. My cats are irreplaceable and precious ( as are all of our fellow earthlings). Human beings defy belief tbh. these particular people are worthy of being immediately removed from the DNA pool. Unfortunately, there are a lot of them.

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