When presented with the choice of owning either an adult cat or kitten the sad fact is that adult cats are often over looked. This is a major problem for shelters because, even though you are saving the life of a kitten, you are effectively allowing the death of an adult. - Kittens hold onto their cuteness and have an easier chance of being adopted, but shelters can only hold onto adults for so long. This causes a bottle-neck for shelters and they hit capacity. Fisher Valley Felines saves as many cats as possible but even we have our limitations on the number we can can take. Once we hit our limit we can't pull cats and kittens from the kill shelters.
The majority of the adult cats we have in the rescue are retired mothers. These adults were either pregnant, just had thier babies, or were still nursing when we pulled them. - Usually hours before being put down. (Most shelters and rescues just pull the kittens... We don't think that is right.)
We would love to help more adult cats, but the truth is that people (looking to adopt a kitty) just don't want them.Keep that in mind when looking for a kitty. Adopting an adult not only saves its life, but allows us to save another.
FACTS:
Approximately 6-8 million adoptable pets enter shelters each year? 3-4 million of those adoptable pets, of which, are euthanized (60 percent of dogs and 70 percent of cats). This translates to 16,438 to 21,917 pets euthanized each DAY. NOTE: Some annual estimates are as high as 12 million.
Please don't let a cats age be its downfall. Just because a kitten is cute, doesn't mean it is the right pet for you.
Remember that it isn't their failure, but rather our own for not being educated enough.
