My wife and I moved from Baltimore to Las Vegas last year, and left our cat, Giovanni, in the Baltimore house in the care of the tenants. He is about 16 years old now, has always been an indoor-outdoor cat, and is getting a little slow these days. But he is in generally good health.
The Baltimore house is now on the market, and within a month, possibly sooner, the tenants will be moving out. So we have to figure out what to do with Gio.
For various reasons, bringing him to Las Vegas is not an option.
We are looking into whether a family member or friend will agree to take him, but at the moment it is not looking good. Another problem is that, since we are not there now, we can’t just advertise and have people come over to see him. It is not something we can let the tenants take care of for us.
We will, if necessary, reluctantly euthanize him. He has had a long life, and we weren’t sure that he’d even live out the year that we have been away.
But if any one has any ideas, or any Dopers in the Balto-Wash area would like a nice elderly cat, please let me know.
There are probably cat rescues and no-kill shelters in the area. If not, I’m sure you can find one somewhere else and transport him accompanied by a hefty cash donation. Explain to them that you are one of those people who gets a pet without really thinking through what a lifetime commitment means and that the cat has outlived its convenience. Hopefully someone will take pity on the poor creature and provide it with somewhere comfortable to live out its final days.
AnaMen: Your snark is noted and disregarded, since you are completely ignorant of the circumstances that make your implication entirely invalid and inappropriate.
Well, to be honest I also don’t think very highly of someone who is ready to euthanise a pet simply because you can’t ask the tenants (who are already putting in the effort of taking care of the cat) to also put in some effort to rehome the cat.
I can understand giving your pet to another loving family to take care of it when you can’t. I can’t understand “Eh, it’s too difficult to handle now…just kill it.”
The best option is to put in the legwork to find the cat a new home. Find an active local shelter on Facebook and ask them to put up a little piece about your cat. People are very willing to help when the other choice is “kill it”, and will share and relink away. Considering that cats have lifespans that go into the 20’s for a healthy cat, I’m not sure 16 is really all that old.
Everyone that makes these types of decisions has “reasons” and “circumstances.” You’re talking about potentially ending a happy and healthy cat’s life because you are not able to keep up the commitment you made to take care of it. Due to your circumstances, the cat’s life has become disposable and you are willing, albeit reluctantly, to throw it away.
I don’t even particularly like cats, but the cat is clearly blameless in this situation and should not have to pay for your poor planning with its life. Cat shelters hear from people in these “situations” all the time, and I’m sure you can engender sympathy for the creature at your own expense if you try.
Everyone is assuming that we made a lifetime commitment to the cat. We didn’t. Someone else did, and now we have him, for reasons I’m not going to explain here. If we were as callous as everyone here seems to think, he would be dead already. We are asking because we are desperately looking for options other than euthanasia!
And I don’t care to explain why asking the tenants to help is not an option. Please accept that it isn’t.
Now if everyone would please let go of their recreational outrage against us and help us with more constructive suggestions for finding a good place for him, I’d be grateful.
Count Blucher: unfortunately, I don’t think we have any pictures. He’s a tuxedo cat: black overall, with a white chest and paws.
pudytat72: Just saw your post before submitting this one. Thanks for the support and the useful information.
So you don’t have any photos of the cat and you can’t ask the tenant to help in any way – honestly it sounds like there is nothing you can do. I very much doubt anybody is going to take the cat if they can’t see it first in some shape or form. I certainly wouldn’t. It may have behavioral problems and I’d want to meet it to see, and I wouldn’t bother going if they couldn’t show me a picture first. Get a picture or SOMEthing. Otherwise all you can do is call a no-kill shelter and ask them to come pick up a cat nobody wants anymore.
I read the posts with all the "I don’t care to explain"s and I still reserve the right to think less of commasense because I darn well feel like it I also reserve the right to think less of someone if they can’t do a simple google search exactly as laid out in pudytat72’s post. (Really, all this makes me think, “Are you even trying?”)
If you’re confident that you’re making the right decision then it shouldn’t make a darn lick of difference what I think. If my thinking bothers you, perhaps look at your conscience a bit deeper.
So the fact that you have not yet killed this healthy cat (sorry, but “euthanasia” is not the correct term here–it refers to death to alleviate suffering of the ill, not to get the inconvenient out of the way of the living) is supposed to be indicative of your great compassion? And the fact that someone else already pawned the cat off onto you lets you off the hook for taking responsibility? You call the cat yours. That’s your commitment, and shelters are full of similarly discarded pets. I’m sure many of their previous owners also felt that they had not made lifetime commitments either, but these animals are not on death row because they failed to take care of themselves.
If you are so “desperately” looking for options, it’s a wonder you did not try a google search for yourself. Let me guess, you have reasons why you could not and they are none of anyone else’s business…
Sorry if l am misunderstanding, but your posts seem to indicate that you want US to figure this out for you. Not even a google search before posting? And now a scolding and demand for more assistance.
Please let us know what YOU have done so far, so we can let go of our recreational outrage and bust our asses coming up with more solutions for you.
If these excellent ideas don’t work for you, then PM me. I have a dear friend in the rescue community in Baltimore. I will be glad to ask her for any suggestions she may have if the obvious avails nothing.
How does the cat do outdoors? You mention he’s indoor-outdoor. How do you think he’d do outdoor only?
I have no idea if that possibility is better or worse than euthanasia.
Also, the current tenants used to take care of the cat but they’re moving out. What will happen to the place? If there are new tenants, can they not get a kitty on top?
I also reserve the right to think less of someone if they can’t do a simple google search exactly as laid out in pudytat72’s post. (Really, all this makes me think, “Are you even trying?”)