I need advice- re-homed a cat!

Hi Everyone,

well as some of you may know we are moving back to the Uk next month Paul's being in the uk this week looking for a house to rent and he's found one, but it comes with a cat

It's a sad story the elderly couple who used to live there well the man died and the lady has alziemers and cant look after herself and has gone into a home, but they have left a cat behind, it keeps coming back to the house they have a cat-flap on the garage door and a neighbour has been feeding it i've no idea whether its a boy or girl how old it is all i know is its black and white

The agent has asked if we will take it on as the family have asked her to re-home it..

I have no experience of looking after a cat so dont know where to start. We have said we will have it i cant bear the thought of it homeless or worse!

I just hope Max doesn't try to eat it but i guess the house is the cats terriotory we may be ok..

I could do with some advice with regards to looking after the cat and also getting max introduced

The boys and I move over in three weeks but Max isn't joining us until a month later any thoughts would be good

It's all a bit scarey!

If you can look after a dog, you'll easily be able to look after a cat, they're sooo much easier

I must admit I didn't have a clue when I first took my two on (as adults) but they were the easiest pets I have ever had. I'm sure you'll be fine

Introducing them to Max might be a bit more difficult if he isn't used to cats and the cat isn't used to dogs. I think the main secret is trying to get the cat to realise she doesn't have to run when she sees the dog - its the chase that gets most dogs excited, so if the cat doesn't run, usually the dog won't chase.

If the cat is to be in the house, I would set aside certain areas where the cat is allowed but Max isn't. A baby gate would be good for this. With us, until Kip and Halibut got used to each other, Kip wasn't allowed upstairs or on the furniture - this meant that Halibut had some completely dog free places both in the same room as us and as a safe place to sleep.

Well done for agreeing to take her on (and best wishes for your new home)

Thanks for that, getting max not to chase may be hard where we live at the moment two cats live over the road and they sit in the road and watch him

He stands at the gate wagging his tail and wimpering i get the feeling he wants to play and when we go out for his walks he makes a beeline straight to their gardendragging whoever is at the other end of the lead with him.

Apperently my hubby tells me that the cat as a catflap fitted to the porch door and also to the garage but the inner door to the house is closed so at the moment it can't get into the house only the garage.

Will be able to tell better when we move over its only 2.5 weeks now i can't wait

If you don't want to keep the cat, or it doesn't enjoy sharing it's home with dogs it would be worth while getting in touch with the cats protection league. They would be able to advise you and rehome the cat if neccesary.

Even if it would be nice for the cat to stay in its home, try not to feel pressurized to keep it if you don't want to. It isn't your responsibility and their may well be an elderly couple somewhere who would love to rehome a cat.

Good luck

Thanks for that, my mum knows someone who does volunteer work for the locla cats protection league so we do have a back up plan if things dont work out. But the kids are really looking forward to having a cat they have been after one for a long time but hubbies always said no! i just dont want max to feel pushed out he's still my little boy he's not two till the end of this month... will keep everyone updated to how we get on.

Well our cat soon got the hang of bullying the dog, Dougal now knows who's really in charge of the house!

Seriously, just make sure the cat has somewhere it can hide and they will get used to each other, as the cat gets used to the dog it will become more confident and you will see it going for that constantly tempting waggy thing on the end of the dog before you know it!