Well, this is a remarkable cat charity rehoming program from America provided by Forgotten Felines of Corbin, Kentucky. It is a program designed to encourage the adoption of elderly cats and the shelter believes that ‘vintage felines’ are a good match with ‘vintage humans’! Elderly men and women are the target and because a lot of retired, elderly people have relatively low and fixed incomes their budget is tight.
For this reason, Forgotten Felines provide support to the adopter in terms of free food, free veterinary care and free cat litter. The lady in the video says that the support is comprehensive. All the new caregiver has to do it pick up the phone and discuss and ask.
You have to admit that it is an amazing program. Very generous. The charity is run on donations. Their coffers are not bottomless. I hope they can manage to maintain this program.
It has caught the eye of the news media as you might expect. Here is a video from Fox56.
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The lady in the video is thrilled with her ginger tabby adoption as she explains that she does not have to worry about the bills. Surely this is going to be enormously popular?
I think it is a smart policy as the charity can limit how many elderly felines are adopted to elderly people. This will help to ensure that it is not overly financially burdened. That’s what would concern me if I was running the charity. Could a time come when the program was unaffordable?
They started the program because they were struggling to find adopters for their senior cats.
Forgotten Felines’ founder and owner is Ashley Osborne was inspired to start the charity when she took it upon herself to rehome a colony of unowned cats at an apartment complex. She found, as expected, that the kittens and younger cats were relatively easy to rehome but the senior cats were left unwanted.
She devised a plan: to place vintage cats with vintage humans. And she understands that a lot of elderly people are emotionally down, some might even be depressed, because as you get older you lose friends and acquaintances as it becomes harder to network and socialise.
So elderly people can become isolated so what better way to help break that feeling of isolation than by adopting an easy-going elderly cat who has been around the block and who knows the ropes?
Because the charity is rehoming elderly cats, they have a good preparation programme in which the cats are veterinary checked to ensure that when they are rehomed, they are as healthy as possible.
They are on Facebook. Click this link to read about them some more.
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