How can I find a good home for my kitten? (kittens, breeders)
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I was just wondering if anyone has any brillliant ideas that I have not tried. Precious is up on Craig's List (yes, I do use it - you can screen out the crazies and nasties) and on 2 Petfinder websites, but I have no other venues.
She is my foster darling kitten, aged 5 months, all spayed and shots and dewormed and loved <g>.
We have 7 other cats inside and a colony - cannot keep her. Will keep her if no one good shows up, of course!
Does anyone here have better ideas than me how to find her a good home?
You can often put up a picture and description at your vet's office. This helps in the screening process too, since you would have a vet reference. Other than that, ask everyone you know and ask them to spread the word. It's hard to find a home, even for a kitten. And harder still not to fall in love in the meantime and decide, I guess we have room for one more!
Good luck!
I was just wondering if anyone has any brillliant ideas that I have not tried. Precious is up on Craig's List (yes, I do use it - you can screen out the crazies and nasties) and on 2 Petfinder websites, but I have no other venues.
She is my foster darling kitten, aged 5 months, all spayed and shots and dewormed and loved <g>.
We have 7 other cats inside and a colony - cannot keep her. Will keep her if no one good shows up, of course!
Does anyone here have better ideas than me how to find her a good home?
Thanks.
I have heard that some people used Facebook to advertise their cats and dogs along with a few pictures of the animal. I'm not sure how that's done but there are shelter pages there for all areas of the country. I personally would fear handing over a precious pet to a total stranger from the internet after all the horror stores started coming to light.
You can often put up a picture and description at your vet's office. This helps in the screening process too, since you would have a vet reference. Other than that, ask everyone you know and ask them to spread the word. It's hard to find a home, even for a kitten. And harder still not to fall in love in the meantime and decide, I guess we have room for one more!
Good luck!
I have fallen in love with many cats we took off the street and now we have seven inside and 2 outside and this kitten, and we had another one who found a home with a neighbor who is great, and at one point we had a foster dog, our "regular" dog and 8 cats, and also our outside ferals that we feed in the driveway.
I cannot take on more, easily. We are an older couple and we would be in our 80's still caring for cats. (I know others do that, but I don't want to be in the position of having to give up a cat due to old age and health issues.) We are going to stop adopting animals and let our number of cats go down by natural attrition. We just have to.
Re: the vet office, I have done that for other rescues with no luck. They have, at my vet's, an entire room with glass doors with cats and kittens needing homes, too.
(Also, I forgot to mention: I am the tamer of kittens from a colony we are TNR'ing. I tame them, get them all vet care and find them homes. That's my part in the colony work.)
I have heard that some people used Facebook to advertise their cats and dogs along with a few pictures of the animal. I'm not sure how that's done but there are shelter pages there for all areas of the country. I personally would fear handing over a precious pet to a total stranger from the internet after all the horror stores started coming to light.
I have her on Facebook and on two Petfinder pages with rescue groups.
We don't hand them over to total strangers. Well, we do: But they have to pass the following (just like a shelter, maybe more stringent): An application form which is produced by the NYC Feral Cat Initiative, an adoption contract, a great veterinary reference or similar kind of reference, such as from employers, if they never had pets, a home visit and an interview with ALL household members.
(We don't tell them about all the checks and balances till they meet the kitten. Then we have them fill out the application, check the vet out, sometimes employers, do home visits and meet all family, etc.)
The application, actually, I have started to do first. It gets the applicant thinking and I can really see what they are about.
We use Craig's List because it is not worse than a shelter method and we do the above as described. Many of my extremely well regarded and active rescue colleagues swear by CL for certain situations. These are people who are very fussy and will not let an animal go to a home unless it is truly checked out and desirable.
Have you tried contacting the TNR organization for possible adoption venues? I rescued some kittens a couple years ago and the TNR organization also held/sponsored adoption events at PetCo, etc, every weekend, and they also had other foster helpers who may have been able to take cats/kittens awaiting adoption. The organization make the adoption fee, so it helps their efforts, and they also help with good/best placements. For me it was a win/win.
Have you tried contacting the TNR organization for possible adoption venues? I rescued some kittens a couple years ago and the TNR organization also held/sponsored adoption events at PetCo, etc, every weekend, and they also had other foster helpers who may have been able to take cats/kittens awaiting adoption. The organization make the adoption fee, so it helps their efforts, and they also help with good/best placements. For me it was a win/win.
I was found by adopters via Pet Finder as well.
Yes, our kitten is already on an "exclusive" short list of rescues who must come only from colonies that we are working on. She is on both the NYC Feral Cat Initiative Petfinder list of adoptable cats, and the Neighborhoodcats.org list in Petfinder.com of NYC colony rescues who need homes. (With photos)
Now, as far as what you are writing about re: going to Petco and all of that: Here in NYC we have literally hundreds of thousands of feral cats and kittens and so what I do is, like so many TNR Certified Rescuers in NYC, work on a colony that the TNR organizations cannot do simply due to a shortage of volunteers.
In other words, a large number of us TNR Certified Rescuers in NYC must work, by dint of lack of funds, on our own if we are to help colonies in need of TNR. The TNR organizations are also short on funds themselves and cannot help us. The one organization that is a formal registered non-profit animal charity in my section of NYC already has 150 cats in volunteers' homes looking for adoption and many will never be adopted. And they currently feed 450 ferals in colonies. I should add that my local non-TNR all volunteer shelter is overcrowded with kittens and will not help me out when they go to Petco (they are going this weekend) because they have to pick a limited number of their own kitties to show! I understand their problem.
I am in close contact with the TNR formal rescues and organizations, as are most of us who work on our own. They cannot help us: They need help themselves! It is like that here.
Last edited by Martha Anne; 10-20-2012 at 07:26 PM..
I am in close contact with the TNR formal rescues and organizations, as are most of us who work on our own. They cannot help us: They need help themselves! It is like that here.
That is so sad. When I lived in NYC I had contacts all over the borough and Manhattan. Most rescued kittens went to regular pet shops where they would be quickly adopted. Older cats had more of a problem as the stores only took cute kittens. But plenty of kittens were saved. Through my contacts with breeders, veterinarians, other techs, pet store owners etc. the adults would find homes but it took longer as you already know. We owned our own home there so had the space and freedom to keep cats and dogs as long as it took to find them new homes.
That is so sad. When I lived in NYC I had contacts all over the borough and Manhattan. Most rescued kittens went to regular pet shops where they would be quickly adopted. Older cats had more of a problem as the stores only took cute kittens. But plenty of kittens were saved. Through my contacts with breeders, veterinarians, other techs, pet store owners etc. the adults would find homes but it took longer as you already know. We owned our own home there so had the space and freedom to keep cats and dogs as long as it took to find them new homes.
I live in Queens and I think that there are less options here. Also, I do own a house so I can keep this little girl for as long as is necessary. My rescue friend, who adopts out dozens of rescued cats (she is amazing, but also she has a large family network of cousins who help her, I have no one local), saw my CL ad yesterday. She said it is very good, very appropriate but now that Precious is almost 6 months and looks like it, I cannot call her a kitten. (When we rescued her, we all thought she was 3 to 4 months - she is on the small side. The vet surprised me and said she is 5 months!)
So, now, I have to expect it to be longer to find a home. Thank goodness, we can wait it out. Even keep her forever if needed, but hopefully not.
You learn by doing, don't you? It's amazing. No book or class can teach you this stuff. Although I also believe in rescue related classes. I have taken a couple and they were so helpful.
That is so sad. When I lived in NYC I had contacts all over the borough and Manhattan. Most rescued kittens went to regular pet shops where they would be quickly adopted. Older cats had more of a problem as the stores only took cute kittens. But plenty of kittens were saved. Through my contacts with breeders, veterinarians, other techs, pet store owners etc. the adults would find homes but it took longer as you already know. We owned our own home there so had the space and freedom to keep cats and dogs as long as it took to find them new homes.
OK, get ready for this: This is how desperate it is in NYC now: The city shelter (The Animal Care and Control) is euthanizing kittens. Many. They get so many that they cannot find homes quickly, the kittens get URI and the shelter as you know does not provide even antibiotics for that and they euthanize them. This is the reality here. It is horrific.
I have to give you an update of how it is in Queens even with kittens. Our local rescue, which has a little shelter, is bulging with kittens, oodles and oodles of them. Too many. Get this: One rescuer in Brooklyn wrote a desperate message to us fellow certified tnr people: "I have 34 kittens! My trainees took too many! They don't understand what this means!" She drove all over metro NY delivering kittens to new homes but I got the impression that they were not screened as well as they might have been due to the crisis.
The North Shore Animal League America will let me put kittens on the wait list: but only to age 12 weeks (it used to be 8 to 10 weeks only because they too are overloaded) and they cannot take all black or black and white kittens because people don't adopt them enough and they grow up in the shelter.
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Through my contacts with breeders, veterinarians, other techs, pet store owners etc. the adults would find homes but it took longer as you already know. We owned our own home there so had the space and freedom to keep cats and dogs as long as it took to find them new homes. 
