cat adoption – Page 7 – Pain In The Bud

Buddy Wants YOU To Adopt A Kitty: Adopt A Cat Month 2023

Ever year, 3.2 million little buddies enter shelters across the US, hoping for forever homes and humans to love them.

A message from Buddy, Purrsident of the Americats:

June is national Adopt A Cat Month here in our great country, and it’s no coincidence that it coincides with kitten season when hundreds of thousands of little buddies are born.

Those babies will need forever homes and attentive human servants to see to their needs, but don’t forget the adult buddies in your local shelter! They need homes too, and if you like to keep things low key, they’re the buddies for you. Bonus: They come pre-installed with purrsonalities, so there’s less guesswork involved if you’re adding a new living room lion to your existing pride.

Just remember, June is ADOPT a cat month, not “buy a cat from a breeder” month! When you adopt a cat, you’re making a friend for life who will be forever grateful to you…although kitty will still expect you to be a good servant, because that is the natural order of things!

Do you patriotic duty and adopt an Americat!

Purrsident Buddy

americats_adopts2 — A patriotic message from Purrsident Buddy! Feel free to share it or print it out. Credit: PITB

americats_adopt — A patriotic message from Purrsident Buddy! Feel free to share it or print it out. Credit: PITB

What It’s Like Adopting An Internet Famous Cat, Plus: The Argumentative Cat

Kylo Ren, named after actor Adam Driver’s most notable role, changed the lives of a woman and her young son.

Remember the Adam Driver Cat?

The little guy made a big splash for a while back in 2016 when images of his unusual mug went viral and the internet decided he looked like the 39-year-old actor.

In an essay, Emily McCombs describes feeling “something deep in my soul” when she saw photos of the cat she’d name Kylo, in honor of Driver’s best-known role as the conflicted Sith lord in the third Star Wars trilogy. Against all odds, and despite intense interest in the Oriental Shorthair, McCombs was able to adopt Kylo after begging a friend for a ride from Brooklyn to the Monmouth County SPCA in New Jersey.

McCombs with Kylo Ren. Credit: Emily McCombs

Adam Driver, top left, Kylo at the bottom, and Kylo with McCombs at right. Credit: Monmouth County SPCA

But it’s what happened after that impacted McCombs and her young son the most. Kylo was gentle with McCombs’ son, had a habit of staring adoringly at her and “wasn’t truly happy if he wasn’t smooshed against my face.” Aside from the shoulder bit, Kylo sounds a lot like Bud:

“Rather than just being a lap cat, Kylo was more likely to perch on my shoulder, or plop down directly on my face,” McCombs wrote. “He preferred positions that made it impossible to do anything but pay attention to to him, and would regularly headbutt my phone when he wanted my undivided attention.”

Actually, he’s more polite than Bud, who has no qualms about slapping my smartphone out of my hands and loves to send it flying if I make the mistake of leaving it unattended on a flat surface. “Stoopid little glowing rectangle!” I imagine him yelling in the meowenese language.

Kylo became part of McCombs’ family, helping her tuck her son in every night after story time, and while McCombs said a few love interests came and went, Kylo endured.

McCombs got to spend seven wonderful years with Kylo before she made the difficult decision to euthanize him after he was diagnosed with kidney failure and his struggle became more desperate. The story’s worth reading for her take on grief, Kylo’s sweet relationship with her son, and her insistence that no amount of internet fame compared to the love Kylo gave the family.

It’s also validation of the way people feel when they lose their four-legged companions, and a reminder that grief doesn’t need to be justified, regardless of whether some people insist “it’s just a cat.”

The microchip company called to ask her to confirm a change of ownership for her missing cat

A British woman was thrilled when the microchip company contacted her to say her missing cat had been found, but was confused and dismayed when the representative on the line asked her to confirm a change of ownership.

Now she’s trying to get her kitty back, but her efforts have been frustrated by the other person who wants to keep him, as well as data protection laws that prevent the microchip company from identifying the person.

Beryl Edwards of Shropshire, a rural area bordering Wales, adopted her cat Fred and his brother Geno in 2021. Fred went missing over the summer in 2022, and Edwards said she was initially ecstatic when she was told he’d been found.

“And then out of the blue last week I get an email saying we’ve had a request – somebody wants a transfer of ownership,” Edwards told the BBC. “Can you imagine the range of emotions from, ‘Fred! He’s alive, he’s OK’ to ‘transfer of ownership? What’s this all about?’”

The company, Identibase, told Edwards that while they could not give her the person’s information, they would ask the person to contact Edwards and return the cat.

Edwards never heard back, and now it’s a criminal matter.

“We are following up on a number of enquiries and at this stage are treating the matter as a potential theft,” the West Mercia Police said, per the BBC.

It’s not clear if police believe the person who has Fred stole him from Edwards, or whether they found him and want to keep him, but we hope Edwards and Fred are reunited, and Fred gets to live with his bonded littermate Geno again.

I can understand why the company would hesitate to provide the other person’s information, even if no law existed. You don’t want people physically confronting each other and potentially taking pets by force in disagreements over ownership. It’s also possible that the person who wants to keep Fred never intended to “trip” the microchip, and Edwards’ information may have been discovered by a veterinarian during a routine exam. But perhaps the unusual case can inform a future change to the law so it’s easier for people to retrieve their pets in cases like this, and for law enforcement to return pets when there’s clear documentation showing one party is indeed the caretaker.

This is not funny

A woman opens her front door to find a distressed cat crying for her help. Instead of taking him in, feeding him, checking on his welfare or even calling a local shelter, the woman proceeds to film herself performatively yelling at the stray and telling him to “get on off my porch!”

The TikTok video went viral this past week and people think it’s hilarious.

File this under “Social Media Is A Sign Of Humanity’s Decline.” Maybe the woman would have been cold-hearted even if she wasn’t hamming it up for an internet audience, but the prospect of clicks and likes almost certainly played a part in the way she dismissively yelled at an animal who was obviously in distress. Even if she didn’t want another pet and couldn’t adopt the cat, it costs nothing to show kindness and make sure he gets to people who will do right by him.

I won’t link to the woman’s TikTok, but if you want to read Newsweek’s take about how her performance “delighted the internet,” click here. I hope the cat found a more sympathetic person and has either been returned home if he was lost, or found his way into a forever home if he was a stray.

Woman And Her Boyfriend Drive 440 Miles To Adopt Her Late Grandma’s Cat

Felix now lives the life of a city cat in Paris.

If you’re a house cat, your human’s death is just about the worst thing that could happen to you.

Cats are often left to grieve on their own, without any consideration from surviving relatives who may not like animals or cats in particular.

Treated as an afterthought, with no one to comfort or reassure them, those scared cats then endure another trauma when they’re taken from their homes and placed in tiny shelter cages. Depressed and shocked, they’re easily overlooked in shelters.

That’s why it’s heartening to hear about a French woman who drove with her boyfriend from Paris to Cavaillon in southern France to adopt her late grandmother’s beloved cat, Felix. That’s a drive of 708 kilometers — or about 440 miles in the proper ‘Merican measurement of distance — and almost the length of the country.

Adding to the challenge was the fact that Felix had never travelled before, the woman — who posts as @felixthegoateecat — noted.

“My grandmother was the nicest person,” she wrote. “She always fed Felix because she was always afraid he was hungry.”

It’s pretty clear the late grandmother and Felix had a special bond, and her granddaughter understands that.

She wrote about the process of allowing him to adjust to his new people and surroundings, and documented milestones like the first time he made biscuits in his new home.

So far, it looks like Felix is settling in just fine in his new life as a city cat.

Family Returns Cat After A Day To ‘Swap Her For A Kitten’

PJ is a shy cat, and her adopters were reminded that she would need time to adjust to her new home.

A family adopted a shy, anxious cat who has been waiting months for a forever home, then brought her back within 24 hours, explaining that they decided they wanted to “swap” her for a kitten.

I’ll pause for a second here to let PITB readers yell a few choice words about the family.

Okay, now that’s out of the way, hear me out: I think the cat, PJ, dodged a bullet.

The staff at the Melbourne, Australia shelter say they went above and beyond to screen for people who insisted they would be patient with the two-year-old Calico, made sure the adopters met her several times, and sent them home with a list of resources for dealing with a shy cat.

It sounds like they did a pretty thorough job, and the whole situation illustrates how difficult it is for people who run shelters to be sure they’re sending their animals to good homes.

But PJ wasn’t going to a good home. The kind of people who would return a cat after a day to “swap her for a kitten” are extremely unlikely to be good caretakers, and to treat PJ like the thinking, feeling feline she is.

PJ’s back at the shelter after her “forever home” didn’t work out.

I’ve seen cats like that, and they live miserable, bored, unloved lives. Once their novelty wears off or they’re no longer cute kittens, they become background noise, ignored as if they’re basically house plants. They have no way out of those situations, sadly, and no way to express their feelings, which is why it’s so important for us to learn to listen to our cats. But that’s a subject for a different post.

And no, the shelter did not honor the request to “swap” PJ with a kitten, as if the adopters were in Target, bringing back a 44 inch flat screen for a 50 inch 8K model.

Let’s hope a kind soul hears about PJ’s situation and has a home for her. If any of our Australian readers are interested, PJ’s with the Australian Animal Protection Society (AAPS) in Victoria, and you can find her adoption profile here.

White Sox Photog Saves Scruffy Stadium Stray, PLUS: Super Rare Male Calico Born in Colorado

A young ginger tabby made himself at home at the former Comiskey Park in Chicago, feasting off of ballpark food shared with him by fans.

The Chicago White Sox opened the baseball season on the road, then headed home where they hosted the San Francisco Giants — and a scrappy, hungry stray who helped himself to heaps of stadium food.

The cat appeared in the park for three consecutive nights of the homestand, emerging from a hiding spot in the bowels of the stadium to sidle up to fans eating ballpark grub and meow for them to share. And share they did, according to Block Club Chicago, with fans holding the little guy and feeding him “shredded chicken off the top of their ballpark nachos.”

“He was just super chill and very comfortable roaming the park, like it’s his territory,” White Sox fan Alexis Lopez told Block Club.

Beef the Cat — The stray, now named Beef, is enjoying his forever home and his doting human servant. Credit: Darren Georgia

The cat, who was “a little scruffy and thin” according to Lopez, took an overly enthusiastic bite of some stadium food and accidentally punctured the skin on her cousin Antonia Denofrio’s finger. Stadium staff treated Denofrio at the park and thought they were in for a thorough search for the kitty, but the night after the White Sox finished their home series against the Giants, the orange tabby “jumped right up onto a security golf cart and was super friendly,” White Sox team photographer Darren Georgia said.

Georgia brought the cat home, got him fixed and examined by a vet and named him Beef. Now they’re best buds.

“He’s outgoing, loves to play and snuggle,” Georgia told The Block. “Just everything you’d hope for in a cat.”

The unicorn of cats

When Alli Magish, a foster for NoCo Kitties in Colorado, took home a mom cat and her five kittens, she realized one of them was incredibly rare: a male calico.

calicomale — Charlie the male calico kitten is now 11 weeks old. Credit: NoCo Kitties

Magish brought the little guy, now named Charlie, to two veterinarians to confirm, and for all of them Charlie is their first male calico. Only about one in 3,000 calicos are male, the Coloradoan reported, citing statistics from the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

“We will probably get huge adoption fee offers for him, but we want him to go to the best home, and that’s not necessarily the one that could be the highest bidder,” Davida Dupont, founder of NoCo Kitties, told the Coloradoan.

Typical adoption fees for kittens at the rescue are $195, but Dupont says she wants to organize a fundraiser around the little guy before settling on the best place for his forever home. (Shhhh, no one tell Chloe Mitchell.) Since she spoke to the Coloradoan on April 1, NoCo Kitties has received a flood of adoption applications, and in a follow-up Facebook post Dupont says she hopes some of them will consider adopting the many other lovable cats at NoCo who are looking for homes.