Cat's Protection League is dropping the ball - now what?

My old cat is lonely and pining. She is not happy since her favourite person passed away. Sadly my lifestyle isn't much to her liking. She wants someone home several hours a night preferably sitting still so she can sit on their lap.



I've had some recent unfortunate events that have led to major changes in my life. One of these changes will mean more travel for work, which means me being even less of a companion to the cat.



It's clear to me the cat would be happier at a new home with a more dedicated human looking after her. So I emailed the local CPL. Didn't get an answer. I then called the local number on their website and left a message. No response. So I then travel over to the local CPL charity shop and have a chat their. They gave me a different number to call. I call that number and leave a message. Someone then calls me to say they are not the person to call and for me call a different number. I call that number and leave a message. finally someone calls me up and starts telling me about the large number of pregnant cats and kittens they are now dealing with. I sympathise and re-iterate my cats situation and ask for advice on what to do. The person I'm talking to says she'll talk to others and then get back to me. Its' been two weeks and no one has contacted me.



Now what? I respect the CPL as thats where my cat was originally adopted from. They do a good job screening applicants and matching cats with humans. But it appears they are inundated now. I don;t want to just give the cat to someone from a newspaper ad (if anyone even wants to adopt a 13 year old cat).



So now what do I do? Just pay for pet sitters to come over and feed the cat while I'm off for days at a time? Give the cat to the RSPCA where she will no doubt be 'dispatched' within a week? Or? And before you jump all over me, I did not want to adopt the cat for just the reasons above but my wife insisted. Now what?

Holy cow, thanks for the great link but the CPL in the neighbouring county hasn't even bothered to return my email or voicemail!



I've put word out to everyone and nobody is interested. I won't do it myself but its becoming clear to me why people abandon their pets. These so-called charities may be good at generating revenue and working charity shops but when it comes to dealing with cats are just not up to the task. I'm shocked that I really have no other choice but to take my cat down to the RSPCA.

What I take issue with is the CPL gets tax-exempt status for their charity shops, accept donations and other income on the basis that they are actually protecting and rehoming cats. If they are not actually doing this then shouldn't they be guilty of fraud?



Or are we supposed to be happy that a only a few cats have 'slipped through the net' and fork out more donations for an organisation that is dropping the ball?

Read my first post again, please.



If the CPL pick and choose which cats they rehome then maybe they should be upfront about that? They make a big fuss about how they never destroy unwanted cats but the reality is they don't do the destroying, they just 'drop the ball' and let the RSPCA destroy them for them. At least the RSPCA is truthful in their dealings with the public.

No, the CPL advertises a no destroy policy and thats a lie. They only rehome a few cats when they can manage it, the rest are on their own.



Yes, the cat in questions life is now not pleasant because her owner (my wife) died of cancer in May. She didn't know she was going to die or even contract cancer when she adopted the cat in 5 years ago. She should have gazed into that crystal ball and seen cancer in the future and not have adopted the cat. Whoops! Now the cat sits and looks out of the window and pines. She's lost weight. Shes becoming less socialized. I do my best but the cat bonded to my wife, not me.



And isn't this what the CPL is supposed to be here for? For just this sort of unforseen circumstance? Why else are they around for then? To handle the easy cases?



You can bet my telephone calls would be returned if I was making a donation. But put them to work to actually rehome a cat in trying circumstances? Oh thats a bit of a bother, isn't it? Better to let the RSPCA do their dirty work for them.

I did not adopt this cat. The person that has adopted this cat has died. The cat is currently very unhappy. The cat is currently living in an unsuitable home. The cat needs to be rehomed.

Unbelievable.

I really don't see how they can be saving 55,000 cats a year when the can't even be bothered to answer the telephone or return calls. Just think of how many more they could save if they worked out that whole telephone issue?



I just called them again yesterday and they said 'Oh, the lady that does that isn't available today. Can you call back tomorrow?'. So the evasion and runaround continues.



How many telephone calls have I made so far? A dozen? I've even tried to contact the CPL in the next county with no luck.



I'm determined to find a good home for the cat so I'm kicking up a fuss and making multiple phone calls. But how many other people have called the local CPL and have gotten teh runaround and then simply got fed up and then dropped the cats off at an RSPCA or worse? This is the thing that really bothers me.



Perhaps its just the CPL chapters in my area are all poorly run. Maybe a call into the central CPL would be a good thing to at least alert them that whomever is running things in my area isn't up to the task.

Thanks for that. I have put the word out to the community (small town jungle drums travel very far and are very effective) and have approached a few people with this sort of thing in mind but the homes that think this is a good idea already have cats. I've offered everyone food and vet bills and everything else but to no avail.



My last hope (I'm continuing to try the CPL but am not hopeful of any results) is to put an ad in the local paper. But I am apprehensive about this as there is no screening involved. Somebody could call me up posing as a kindly family only to take the cat and neglect it. Thats what the CPL are supposed to be good at: screening potential owners.

I finally had a good talk with the local director of the CPL. And yes, they are overwhelmed with cats right now. She told me some horror stories of recently abandoned pets. But what was frustrating is that she spend 2 seconds looking me up and sure enough I was on file and my emails were all recorded. Its just that no one had gotten back to me at all even though they told me they would. I did not press this point as she muttered some words about being frustrated with some of her local volunteer staff. Fine.



She passed along some advice but I am essentially on my own. This is compounded further by the fact that I have just started a job that has me out of town monday through friday and will soon include international travel. I've put ads up in vets, and other places around town but haven't heard a peep.



But we have a happy respite: my neice is more than happy to live at my house during the week as its close to her college. She now brings her mates along to watch DVDs and spend the night feeling like a grown up in her own flat Mon-Friday. The cat has new friends and more laps to sit on than ever before.

The cat is all black...just like Darth Vader