Now that I am helping the local animal shelter...

DW still wants an Ocicat. I told her that if I worked at the shelter for 99 years, one might come in, after all, we had a pedigreed Maine Coon last week. My biggest challenge at the shelter is in not bringing home cats that I fall in love with. Mike, how do you handle this?

We only have two cats now and my wife has been in Cambodia and Vietnam the last 15 days. I am handicapped and it is hard for me to clean the litterboxes and brush the cats every day. This was supposed to be the job of my 4 SILs who live in the area but they never show up. So, here is the deal: I would love to have more cats but my wife travels a lot. And aparantly I cannot count on my SILs to take care of them. So, two cats is my honest limit.

But I could see living in a three story house having six cats. If they could only be properly cared for. Strangely, in Iran, dogs are considered very dirty animals and cats as clean animals, so why are not my SILs coming over and doing this? (They praise me with love all the time, they do not dislike me.)

DW has a thing for names. She only shops at Nieman-Marcus and we have a BMW and Porsche, and only wants expensive pedigreed cats, and at the same time I see three times a week cats that are in need of a home. Of course I cannot bring them all home. Well, I could but things might become a little messy...

Well, maybe Monday somebody will bring in an Ocicat they do not want. As the Eagles named their album "When Hell freezes over".

Well well well............ well well................... Do these SIL have a kid you might be able to pay a few bucks to come in every other day to clean the littler boxes and comb the kitties?
I gotta say you are a lucky dude - a three story house, 2 cats who use ALL these floors, and ONE BOX, and NEVER one accident!!
Your kitties deserve a prize!

.... seems that you´ll be busy my friend...

I have volunteered at a shelter for 4 years and fostered many cats, and kept the 3 girls. Why did I stop at 3? Because that was the limit in my city. Once I had it in my head that I could not adopt any more it was fine - I didn't get as attached to them.

Now with Stumpy gone, we have just the 2 cats and we will keep it at that because they are much happier now. I won't be tempted to bring any more home because I know it wouldn't be fair on them. Once you realise what your limits are, I find it easier to not bring them all home. I think it's easy to get tempted when you start at a shelter.

Like you said, you can't physically care for any more cats yourself, and your wife travels, and you have no other help. It would be unfair to adopt any more cats without help. If she travels, can you hire a pet sitter to come in each day to do the basics that you can't do? If so, then maybe you *could* adopt more?

But you should not adopt any cats in the first 6 months you volunteer there. That's when you are more emotional about the cats that come and go because it's all new. After a while you realise that they almost always find good homes (depends on the sort of shelter you're at, mine doesn't euthanise due to space issues, so they pretty much always find a home), and you don't feel as desperate to adopt them all.

Originally Posted by sarahp

I have volunteered at a shelter for 4 years and fostered many cats, and kept the 3 girls. Why did I stop at 3? Because that was the limit in my city. Once I had it in my head that I could not adopt any more it was fine - I didn't get as attached to them.

Now with Stumpy gone, we have just the 2 cats and we will keep it at that because they are much happier now. I won't be tempted to bring any more home because I know it wouldn't be fair on them. Once you realise what your limits are, I find it easier to not bring them all home. I think it's easy to get tempted when you start at a shelter.

Like you said, you can't physically care for any more cats yourself, and your wife travels, and you have no other help. It would be unfair to adopt any more cats without help. If she travels, can you hire a pet sitter to come in each day to do the basics that you can't do? If so, then maybe you *could* adopt more?

But you should not adopt any cats in the first 6 months you volunteer there. That's when you are more emotional about the cats that come and go because it's all new. After a while you realise that they almost always find good homes (depends on the sort of shelter you're at, mine doesn't euthanise due to space issues, so they pretty much always find a home), and you don't feel as desperate to adopt them all.

Click to expand...

Sarah, for some reason in in Dallas, or Texas in general, there seems to be much more kill shelters then no kill, in comparison to California, where the No kill program started in the first place. It is different for sure... So I kind of understand them... I don't really know about the statement of the majority of them finding homes - when 5 million dogs and cats are killed a year in shelters in the US alone... I think a high percentage of them don't get adopted... we just don't get to see them... it doesn't mean they don't exist though...

I have 8 cats of my own indoors, plus 2 long-term fosters - because of the fact that all of them would be dead otherwise. Most were slated to be euthanized at the shelter here where I volunteer - very small, very rural, always far too full. But I've hit my limit, there's just no way I can swing any more permanent cats - and I do have a lot of behavioral problems that people with fewer cats do not have. Our euthansia rate may be less than 10%, but so many of the candidates for euthanasia would be fairly adoptable if given the chance.

lol.. I love siamese cats , grew up with a purebreed seal point and a likely snoeshoe.. I have five cats : None are even pointed let alone purebreed ... I have two wonderful semi ferals ( I say a prayer for the folks that saved them daily), two were White cat lovers long term fosters( yeah they likely would not be here without me) and a Black cat with an attitude ( he was the only "safe" one as he was in a NO kill shelter) ..Ie NONE of my cats were highly adoptable yet they are in my eyes wonderful and nearly perfect. I had to tell multiple folks NO to long term fostering their cats cause my inn may have room for one more but the right one has not shown up... If your wife so wants one would she look at rescues? For me 5 cats is the same work as two when I learned the ropes

Sterling is an ocicat (more or less) and he came from the shelter, so it CAN happen.

Ask Carolinalima about Jordan, the big lynx point at the shelter, or Flambe (as we're currently calling him) who we are fostering.

We have had an ocicat looking cat (we dont put breeds down unless they come in as surrenders with papers) and a bengal in the time I have been at the shelter so it is possible. They will never be the show quality of a proper breeder but there are idiot BYBs everywhere that allow cats to go to less than ideal homes where they end up on the streets.

From what I've seen the US Oci breeders are really good at pulling any purebred oci's from shelters, luckily there are not many.

I've never seen an "Ocicat" on shelter sites that looks anything like one, but who knows you may get lucky.

Domestics also come in spotted or broken mackeral tabby, perhaps your wife would be happy with one of them.

Yes, the one we had we had a lot of breeders contact us about her

This is the bengal'ish cat we had this year, same quality as you would get from most of the local BYBs