I’ve just been surfing the Internet and bumped into a story about the RSPCA in Barrow, UK. This is Barrow-in-Furness which is just south of the Lake District National Park. It’s in the north of England and there is a slightly different culture in the north compared to the south in general and it might have an effect on the human-to-cat relationship.
In the Barrow branch of the RSPCA, they have two paid staff and the remainder are volunteers.
One volunteer, Michele, said that she spends 90 minutes a day to go around the cattery but she also adds that she can’t spend two hours cleaning and feeding cats because she hasn’t got the time. It’s not clear what she means except that they are pressed in their work. They may have to take shortcuts.
One reason for this is that they’ve seen an increase in the number of relinquished cats to their shelter. And one given reason for this is that landlords don’t take pets. This is quite a common occurrence which occurs when people move home into rented accommodation.
However, a volunteer, Michele, said that she doesn’t always believe this reason for relinquishing cats to their shelter. It can be a convenient excuse. An excuse made by a person or persons who have discovered that they really don’t want to look after a domestic cat for the lifetime of their cat.
And this naturally feeds back to that moment when they were thinking about adopting a cat. It is the most critical moment for an aspiring cat caregiver. It is my distinct impression that many people at this critical stage do not thoroughly investigate the costs of cat caregiving. They are almost invariably higher than one foresaw.
Budgeting is important. I think that a person wishing to adopt a cat needs to write down all the potential costs and ask themselves whether they can afford them. You can’t look after a domestic cat adequately if you can’t afford to do it. It’s not cheap and a lot of people spend all their disposable income every month.
If your outgoings are the same as your income before adopting a cat then you shouldn’t adopt a cat. It’ll be unfair on the cat because to adopt a cat and then return that animal to a shelter a year or two later is very stressful for the cat. And in some shelters it could be the end of the life of the cat because nobody wants him or her and they are euthanised.
It’s about responsibility and taking the full burden of it, the moment you sign the papers to adopt. It’s a big moment. A moment that will change your life actually although you might not realise it.
Incidentally, some landlords do allow pets both dogs and cats and it’s worth at least discussing the matter with the landlord because amateur (small scale and casual) landlords who don’t allow pets might change their mind if you can provide them with a deposit to cover potential damage by a companion cat.
There is another issue here which needs to be touched on briefly. Often times when people rent from a landlord it concerns an apartment or flat. Living with a cat in an apartment means that the cat is a full-time indoor cat. This presents added responsibilities to the caregiver. It means that the apartment needs to contain facilities which meet the cat’s natural desires and instincts such as tall places and other areas where they can be entertained. It means that the caregiver needs to play with their cat far more frequently to mentally stimulate them.
Regrettably, and I don’t wish to be harsh here, very few people foresee the need to modify the interior of their home when their cats are inside it full-time. The home becomes a shared environment for both human and cat. Because it is the cat’s whole world, it needs to be more than a world fit for humans. He needs also to be fit for cats. You can’t just leave a cat inside an apartment all day while you go to work. You will end up with health problems exacerbated by stress unless you are very lucky. And in any case it will be a miserable life for your cat.
My honest opinion is that if you are working full-time away from the home and living in an apartment you should not adopt a cat. That might sound harsh but I am thinking about cat welfare.
To return to the RSPCA at Barrow-in-Furness. They provide a service in which they used to donate £100 in assistance monies to people who were unable to pay, for instance, large veterinary bills. They had to reduce it the £50 because they’ve been inundated with requests and they haven’t got the money to be so generous.
Michele said that people should take out pet insurance. The advice is pretty sound but pet health insurance isn’t cheap and it can be expensive for purebred cats. That’s because many purebred cats suffer from inherited health problems which demands that you take out a pet health insurance policy. This means more added expense, sometimes to the point where looking after a cat becomes financially untenable.
Michele also adds that at her branch they receive many cats that have been abandoned by their owners because they are no longer interested in keeping them. In her words “They are dumping the animals they just don’t want any more”. This can and does happen more often than one imagines I’d suggest. It feeds again back to the begining. Are you committed to a lifetime of cat caregiving?
Michele stresses the point I made above about checking whether you can afford looking after a companion animal before adopting. You’ve got to budget in potential health problems which is particularly important regarding purebred cats and the fancy purebred dogs such as French Bulldogs. A breed of dog which was very popular during Covid but which is, my research, the most unhealthy dog breed in Britain with a lifespan of 7.2 years on average. For this animal you would have to take out health insurance in my view.
More: The most expensive cat breeds to insure in the UK 2024 infographic. Source: Which?
Veterinary bills have climbed recently across the UK because independent veterinarians have sold up to large chains which are run by men in gray suits i.e. accountants who saw the opportunity to increase profits from veterinary clinics. Veterinary bills have become prohibitive for some people. This prevents them taking their companion animal to a veterinarian which probably means that there are more cats and dogs suffering from health problems in the UK than they were before. It goes back to the expense again.
A lot of people look for answers about pet health problems on the Internet. They go to social media such as Reddit.com and ask for advice about how to resolve a health problem. This is simply inadequate. You can’t resolve pet health problems through social media in a self-help kind of way. You’ve got to go to a veterinarian and bite the bullet.
I’m back to the expense of looking after a companion animal again. If on some occasions the relationship between human-and-cat is broken in the north of England the problem starts before adoption.
