I adopted my Felv+ Bubba from the Friends of Montgomery County Animals via PetsMart. I discovered him and FMCA at a Cat Fanciers cat show in DC, where they had an "exhibit" of several of their rescued cats and a picture of Bubba. (I have a soft spot in my heart for these positive cats since one of our sweetest yellow tabbies, a stray whom we rescued, died of the disease at about one year of age.) I was a goner when I saw the photo of this beautiful big gray tabby. After exchanging phone calls and e-mails with the woman who was fostering him, we arranged that she would bring him to the PetsMart in Germantown with her next group of cats needing homes. So that is where we actually met and adopted him, but we had not gone to the store "cold" looking for a cat. In fact, we weren't looking to adopt a cat at all when we went to the cat show; I think that God wanted me to take my son to this cat show specifically to bring Bubba to us.
This was two years ago now. He is a fabulous cat, as healthy as anyone could want. We have adopted two more of these special cats since, both from rescue groups. Mikey was a very sick kitten and died within a year. We adopted Buddy (originally named King Tut by the rescue group), a black and white Maine Coon three months ago. He also is healthy and gets along very well with Bubba. Leah [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----- Original Message ----- From: Susan Hoffman To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, May 14, 2006 12:20 AM Subject: Re: Adoptions (was OT: heartbroken) Thanks. Adoptions are hard work. I call in-home adoptions cocktails parties without the cocktails. I feel like I'm constantly receiving visitors at a time when I would like to curl up with a good book and maybe take a nap. And I am picky, do a lot of screening. The process requires daily effort. There are a lot of times when I think it would just be easier to stop dealing with adoptions and just keep the ones who are here. But I know there are a lot of cats I could not take in if I did that. (Could not do it with dogs. One week with one puppy last year cured me of any thought of having a dog. And started me on the way to ripping up carpets and innstalling laminate flooring.) Nina <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Thanks for the tips Susan! What you say about our little refugees lives being better in the right forever home makes perfect sense. I've had nightmare placements that haven't worked out, (even though I work very hard and drive people crazy with my persistence to make the right matches), and I've had dream placements that I'm forever grateful for. It used to be that I felt like no one was going to give them as good a home as I could. That's changed. My home isn't the safe haven it once was. Dogs come to me as well as cats and the numbers become overwhelming very fast when you're dealing with canines! Anyway, I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to share some practical ways to look for homes. Keep up the good work, the world needs you. Nina Susan Hoffman wrote: NOT the shelter. You have to be committed to finding good forever homes. Adoptions are hard work. I understand the temptation to just close up shop and keep the ones you have but if you do that there comes a point when you have to stop taking in anyone new. And there are too many out there whose lives depend on getting into a foster/rescue situation. I don't do caged petstore adoptions. The cats do not show well unnder those conditions and it just isn't an efficient use of time. Here's what I do: 1. Craigslist.org -- Everyone -- kittens, seniors, special needs -- gets listed on craigslist. There are craigslist boards across the country. Some are more active than others. I'm in the San Francisco area with a very active craigslist and I do most of my adoptions through craigslist. (Also recruit foster homes via craigslist.) Listing is free. Take great photos. 2. Pennysaver and other newspapers -- I'm looking at the Pennysaver newspaper for cats in foster homes in the Sacramento area. That craigslist is less active. A friend in the Los Angeles area has great success with adoptions via the Pennysaver so I'm thinking about using it in Sacramento too. 3. Network -- This is especially helpful with harder-to-place cats. (a) A friend who works at a medical university is posting my epileptic kitten there for adoption. I figure the right home for Connie will be someone who is epileptic or who has an epileptic family member or perhaps has had a dog that is of a breed prone to epilepsy. It will be someone who understands how easily controllable this is. (b) This same friend has an FIV+ foster cat and we are looking for a home together for that cat and an FIV+ Siamese mix who is coming my way. (c) Another friend helped me place a senior 12+ year old Himi last year with a retired couple that she knew. 4. Get creative -- Senior cats are a good fit for seniors and retirees, a population less likely to be online. Find the pet-friendly retirement communities in your area and see if they have a bulletin board where you can list senior cats. Again, take great photos. 5. Online resources -- My FeLV+ girl is now listed online at a couple of places that feature special needs cats. (http://tinyurl.com/o553l) And I'm networking....and getting creative. She's going to be one of the harder to adopt simply because of the stigma still attached to FeLV. 6. Foster homes -- I've cultivated a few foster homes because that way (a) I can take more cats and (b) I can separate out populations. Tiny kittens have no business in my house -- I've seen too much uri and ringwork over the past couple of years -- so they go elsewhere. The FeLV+ girl is in an only-cat foster home. I have another foster home that gets one or two adults who donn't do well in multi-cat situations. I take the ones who have health or socialization issues at my house. Foster homes allow me to take in more animals and to take certain risks that I could not take if all the cats had to come to my house. The cats are better cared for and get more individualized attention this way. I have to do adoptions. If I don't do adoptions I can't do rescue. I spend my weeks screening potential adopters, clean the house on Saturday, and have approved adopters come primarily on Sunday, though sometimes I can have someone come in the evening during the week if the house is clean enough. (And, yes, I do have a fulltime job and a social/romantic life. I also have a long-suffering roommate who is a bigger softie than me and he helps with these guys.) So, please, reconsider on keeping them all yourself. There are people who will adopt many of those cats. You just have to rethink your approach to adoptions so you can find those people. As you get cats adopted out you make room to take in others. And a good adoptive home with one or two or three cats in residence and with financial and other resources not stretched so thin is really a better lifetime environment for an animal. They get over me awfully fast when I find them the right forever home. And that is as it should be.
