Are you considering adopting a cat or kitten from the shelter?

There are many benefits by adopting a cat from the shelter. My two favorite benefits are: cats are up to date with shots and (usually) neutered/spayed. If you have never owned a cat…trust me, you want the cat neutered/spayed. If not neutered/spayed, the cat will spray everywhere and it will stink for days! A neighborhood cat sprayed my car years ago. Yes, it sprayed my car!!! On the front driver tire or near it. I will never forget. My car stank for days!!!

Anyway, back to the topic of adopting from the shelter! Our cat, Jo, passed in December. We adopted a kitten and cat from the shelter at the end of January. These are the only cats we have ever adopted from a shelter. All of our other cats either came from someone or were street cats.

Cost: Adopting a cat can be from $50 to $200. At least this is the range I have seen. Sometimes you can get a reduced fee when the shelter has specials. Sometimes they will have adopt 2 for 1 special. Or they may waive the fee all together or have a sale where they lower the adoption fee.

The only problem in waiting for these specials is that everyone else is waiting for these specials too. If you don’t get there early. I mean right when they open the doors kind of early, then your pickings will be slim.

When searching, you might find the purfect cat at the first shelter or you might have to check 10 other shelters. Don’t get discouraged if your search takes a little while. It can happen, just be patient.

What happens when you finally find that purfect cat? Shelters don’t do everything 100% the same but usually the processes are very similar. You will have play time with the kitty. Snuggle, pet, play, etc.

Some places will put you and your family through an interview process. They collect your personal information (name and address), ask if you have any other pets. The staff go over owning a pet and the responsibilities. This includes mainly cost. People some times don’t think of all the responsibilities and cost that are associated with owning an animal.

The shelter’s aim is for the pet to go to a forever home and to never ever come back to the shelter.

Some places are a little more relaxed. For example when we adopted our cats. We searched several shelters and found one shelter with a kitten. We were really hoping to get two kittens or a cat and kitten that had bonded. We wanted to adopt BFFs or mom and baby. Didn’t happen.

We petted the kitten and played with her a little bit then we left. There was another cat at the shelter that caught our eye but she wasn’t up for adoption yet. We didn’t adopt the kitten that day, we were trying to find pair.

We did go back a week later and adopted her and the other cat. The other cat we didn’t take out and play with but we did pet her through the bars.

We had to fill out some forms, pay for the fees. At this place none of the cats were neutered/spayed yet. We paid for the adoption fee and the vet bill to get them spayed and neutered, have their shots up to date. It was a little over $200 for both of them. We didn’t take them home until several days later.

Long story short, we didn’t go through an interview process. They never asked if we had any other pets. It was really laxed. I think it may have been that we came back a second time and spent time with the kitten that they felt comfortable in releasing the kitten to our care. Or maybe it was because we had two young boys with us? The other cat we didn’t hold or play with. The cat is truly nice but has some quirks that I will get into in another post. Haha. Nothing too bad I promise.

Have you adopted or considering adopting!? Comment below. I would love to read what you think or how your adoption process went. 🙂