- Joined
- Aug 16, 2012
- Messages
- 103
- Purraise
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I apologize if this is the wrong forum for this question, but I couldn't find a better one. My organization mostly works with people managing feral colonies, but, of course, one big consequence of trapping, neutering, and dealing with ferals is domestic cats wandering into feral colonies and the offspring of ferals. For these cats, we have an adoption program and a policy of taking back any cat that is adopted. We have had cats returned after many years of adoption. These cats are always provided some kind of home, never euthanized unless terminally ill. Anyway, my question is what can be done to reduce the number of returned cats, especially those returned after a short time period. We want our adopters to have permanent homes and no immediate plans of moving, experience with cats and their problems, the finances to support pets, and so on, but people keep coming up with reasons for returning cats. I suspect that many of them are not honest with us (or probably themselves) and just don't want the cats anymore. No clue about what to do with those people, but I would like advice on other methods to reduce these returns. For example, when people adopt kittens, I make a big deal about the fact that they'll only be kittens for a short time and try to determine if the adopter will support an adult cat. Any ideas of other questions and methods?