How do you screen for good placements for your kittens?
We have an application in that we send to adopters. If there are red flags that adopters are not willing or able to change, we have let them know we don’t think our kittens are a good fit with them. A big one is feeding a non-holistic diet. We simply can’t send our babies to a home where a bad diet can give them a preventable disease and cause them to die by 8 years old instead of 15-20 years old.
We have an indoor only cat policy. The average age of an outdoor cat is 8 years old and an indoor is 15-20 years old. There are too many ways for a cat to die a preventable death outdoors from cars, animals, and diseases from other outdoor cats.
If we have teenagers, college, or elderly adopters, we do like to know if they have a backup plan on who will take care of the cat if they become unable to care for them. And we do hope it is with a person who absolutely loves that cat, not someone who hates cats but will turn it into an outdoor cat and leave some food out.
The application itself is also a very small test. It’s not difficult, but so many people do not fill it out or repeatedly ask questions that were answered on it. If someone can’t fill out a one page application or read one paragraph, how are we to know that they will be able to feed and water a cat and change its litter box?
We also by 8 weeks have personality down and can let you know if certain kittens would be a better fit, either a laid back, snugglier one, or a more playful, wild one. Although, if you want the best kitten in the litter, it will probably be reserved first. Everyone wants the ham kitten, but only the first family will get it.