kittens?

[bratling.livejournal.com]

does anyone have or know of a pregnant cat? my fiance and i are moving into a new place next month, where we can have cats! we'd like to adopt a pair of littermates.

(while there will be three people living in the house, with varying schedules, we can't be there *all* the time and we'd like two littermates so they can keep each other company when we're all out.)

we have a lead on a kitten, but not a guaranteed pair, so we're still searching. we are both cat people and miss living with cats!

thanks for any leads!


(speaking of this, we're moving from somerville to medford. we'll now be about a mile from davis square, instead of half a mile. i'm glad we'll still be close enough to walk on over. :-)

Comments

[syntheticnature.livejournal.com]

I think it's fairly common for shelters to have pregnant cats and littermates for adoption :(

I looked at petfinder.com and found this shelter:
Safe Harbor for Animals (http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/MA35.html)
which has a pair of littermates listed as available for adoption.

You can use petfinder.com to search around for other cat shelters in the area that have litters of kittens available, too.

Good luck!

Safe Harbor

[hvanaels.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend and I recently adopted a cat from Safe Harbor, also found them through petfinder.org. They (and all of the other shelters in the area) will have a steady stream of kittens available all summer and will probably have more available than just those on petfinder.

The first day we went in, we were totally overwhelmed by cute kittens and couldn't make up our minds. The second, we were able to spend some more time with the slightly older and shyer ones and ended up taking home a 3 month old semi-feral little boy. It took him about two days to decide that people and attention were for him and he's been a great companion for us and for my 3 year old female cat ever since. (In our case, we mostly looked at young males, b/c that's what we thought would do best with her.) Good luck!

[fanw.livejournal.com]

I got my kittens from MSPCA and the Animal Rescue League. In both places I saw kitten siblings available. If you don't hear about a pregnant cat, and especially if you want one soon (since it's not good to take away a kitten for the first couple months) please think of going to the shelters. They're just as cute and need a home. Oh, and get there early. Kittens go fast and don't usually last more than a day in the shelter.

[bratling.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[chaggalagirl.livejournal.com]

kittens are great and wonderful, but i feel the need to play devil's advocate and offer up two other possibilites:

*take one kitten and its momma from a shelter (it's not uncommon for momma cats to go unadopted for months)
*take a pair of older cats. you'd be surprised how many people give up their 2 year old cats if they have to move.

whatever course you take, good luck.

[bratling.livejournal.com]

we've been discussing the options. we'd prefer a pair of kittens, as we think we're not up to dealing with a cat that has been emotionally abused in the past, and we have no way of knowing the true history of any adult in a shelter. about the best we can do there is see how it interacts with us -- as complete strangers to it, in a probably scary environment. not a very good way to judge. :-/ (i've lived with cats that had been abused in the past, and they were very challenging housemates.)

ideas and suggestions are, of course, welcome!

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i got one of my cats from www.siameserescue.org -- they are a wonderful organization, really make an effort to place the right cats in the right home. they do often have litters of kittens, but they *know* *all* their cats -- not b/c of "history" but b/c they get to know them in rescue before they put them up for adoption. they know a lot more about their adult cats than they do about their kittens, too, since adult cats have fully-developed personalities and kittens obviously just don't. so if the eventual temperment is important to you i would strongly suggest an adult cat with a suitable personality.

(btw i went through the "virginia center" -- i live in davis sq but that is the center that serves our area.)

i got another of my cats (the little guy in the icon) through petfinder (www.petfinder.org, which led me to some relatively-nearby rescue organization that doesn't have a centralized shelter). several of his littermates were available as well, they had the whole litter (former ferals) and i think about half had been adopted out by the time i got there. i only wanted to take the one at that point though :)

my siamese is THE SWEETEST cat ever. we call her the bodhicattva, here to show us all the true meaning of LOVE as the guiding principle of life. my former feral is, well, he's a darling little guy -- not a problem cat in any way; the only way you'd know he was born feral is that he has the ear-clip to show he was trapped and neutered. but he's never going to be the CAT OF LUUUUUV like my siamese. he's more the CAT OF PLUSH (bestest pettable coat ever :)

happy cat-getting!

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

If you pick them up from a no-kill shelter, they'll have a sense of the cat's personality.

Cats don't have to be kittens to come in pairs, and they don't even have to come in pairs to end up with two living together all right. The key is not to add a cat to a cat who's spent all of its adulthood alone.

So when you visit shelters, I suggest not staying married to the idea of kittens. But if you do, I suggest not staying married to the idea of littermates; adding a nonlittermate should work just fine with almost every cat under about 12 months.

[yangelina.livejournal.com]

If you do decide to pair an adult cat with a kitten, I think it will be fine. We had an adult cat who spent all of its life alone before we added a kitten. The first day had much hissing, but by the end of the week they'd go hunting together (we lived in the boonies) and snuggle a lot. Once the kitten was stuck in a tree and the older cat wouldn't leave the tree until he convinced (encouraged?) the kitten to climb down.
Since the adult cat was people-friendly and affectionate, kitten picked up on that and it actually made it easy for us to raise the kitten.
Have a wonderful time with your new kitties!

[bratling.livejournal.com]

thanks for the tips! :-)

[julishka.livejournal.com]

my friend volunteers at safe harbor & about a month ago she calls me squealing with glee because they had about 10 kittens to play with! hehe.

so yeah, safe harbor is awesome. iirc, it's located in an artist studio building over near pearl st/medford st.

they definitely don't update the petfinder site w/the kitten inventory - they leave the adult cats there for people to fall in love with.