Indignant Adopters and Rescue Dilemmas

I guess I might as well start this off by saying that Buddy is up for adoption again. We thought he had a home but it was not a good fit. The woman, who is fostering him for the time being, had older cats and Buddy was too assertive and the older cats too intimidated and it didn’t work out. Buddy was incredibly good with other cats during the time we had him, and there were no violent fights reported, so I still think it’s best for Buddy to go to a home with another cat, just the cat should probably be young and playful and more willing to engage with Buddy.

We did get one adoption offer on Buddy, last Friday. It presented a terrible dilemma for Sean and me though. The potential adopter seemed excellent in many ways, she didn’t believe in declawing, she provided vet care to her current cat. However, in the email the fosterer sent to us, the potential adopter went on for several sentences about how she believed it’s best to allow cats outside and she even thinks it’s cruel to confine them in a house, but that if we insisted she would try to keep Buddy in.

We considered the possibility of talking to this woman about the many dangers outdoor cats face, even the most car-savvy cats can be startled into a road, they might not even hear a hybrid approaching, plus people sometimes hurt tame, friendly cats on purpose. But my father in law had to have emergency surgery and we went ahead with the feral cat trapping too. Getting back to this potential adopter, knowing the conversation was going to take up time, just didn’t happen.
Yesterday she told the fosterer that she no longer wanted Buddy because we hadn’t called her immediately. There was some element of outrage there, as if we were somehow slighting her or not doing the proper work for the cats. Sean and I both work long hours at other jobs, we were concerned about her statement on outdoor cats, we were spending most of our free time on a massive rescue effort, and we had a medical emergency in the family. If ever a little patience was in order.

Maybe it’s for the best anyway, though she said she’d be willing to keep Buddy in if we insisted, I don’t see someone who sincerely believes it’s cruel to keep a cat indoors really keeping that promise.

Anyway, there’s a lot of anger toward rescues lately, more than enough to go around. There’s the Ellen situation which spawned angry letters all over the US from people saying they’d been treated poorly by rescue groups. I can’t really comment on the Ellen conflict with the rescue because I know very little about it, but it did seem to tap some nerve with a segment of the population on the sense of entitlement they feel when it comes to animals. They think they should be able to do whatever they like, regardless of what they promise or sign, and they see anyone who objects to that as somehow deeply flawed.

I encountered similar anger at my work. My boss’s daughter wanted to adopt a puppy from a rescue group. She was fresh out of college and living at her father’s house, a place without a fence, and she wanted to adopt. The rescue group visited and said that for her home to be considered safe for the puppy they needed a fence. Her father said a fence was too expensive, so the adoption fell through. My boss was outraged: how dare this group say that HER daughter was not good enough to take in a “throw away” puppy. She said “I guess they’d rather kill the dog than let my daughter have her.” I tried to explain to her that while rescued animals often came from terrible backgrounds, they are often fostered in loving home. Animals in rescue are not facing immediate execution. When I’ve fostered a few animals at a time, and spent nights with them while they’re sick, and medicated and groomed them, and grown to love them, then I don’t want to just give them to any home, I want to find a good home for them.

The daughter immediately went out and bought a puppy from a pet store since she was turned down for adoption. Every morning she let the puppy out in the yard while she got ready for work. Only two weeks later the puppy was hit by a car and killed. And that’s why the rescue didn’t want to adopt to her without the fence. But my boss still speaks indignantly of snobby rescue organizations that ask for the impossible, like fences.

This story really characterizes how I feel about Buddy too. I nursed him through his URI. I took him in from outside. So I can’t imagine how I’d feel if I gave him to this woman and then a few days later he was hit by a car and killed. There would be so much regret there. But the potential adopter would no doubt see me as the villain, a snob who insists on indoor cats, and thus denies her a “throw away animal.”

In her long explanation of how outside is better she said a previous cat she’d allowed outside had lived to be 15. I know this happens, and I know some indoor cats die very young. But my neighborhood is full of cats that were born on the street and are used to cars, but they still get hit and killed right in front of my house and I’m left to scrape up their broken bodies. People speed. Dogs get loose and chase cats into the street. Construction projects can disorient cats and make them less careful. And as I said, cats can’t always hear hybrids coming or they don’t sound like cars to them, so they’re less careful around them.

I’m tired and cranky and sad today. If anyone has any leads on a placement for Buddy, please, please let me know.

My dilemma always comes down to this—if I pick a cat up off the street and bring him inside, I need to actually feel like I’m making things better for him. Things happen obviously that are beyond my control, freak accidents, illnesses. I can’t plan for or prevent everything. I would like to see Buddy not killed by a car though, so that’s where I’m coming from.