The adoption process
How does the adoption process work?
What is your association's adoption process like?
The adoption process starts when we post a cat looking for a home on our various channels. We'll take down the home search ad once we get a good number of inquiries and prospective adopters to interview for the cat in question. We always try to schedule all interviews for a cat within a week or so of each other so that the wait time for completing the interview process is not too long.
Before scheduling an interview, we carefully go through all of the messages we've been sent. We use the messages to try to get a rough idea of the kind of home the cat would get if it moved into the prospective home. If we are unclear about something very basic (e.g. whether the cat will have a friend, whether the cat is allowed to go outdoors freely, etc.), we will ask further questions until we are sure that the basic conditions for adopting a cat are met. We will then arrange a time for an interview.
Interviews will always occur at our premises or the foster home of the cat. For safety reasons, we will never do a home interview at the prospective adopter's house. The interview will go into more detail about what kind of home the cat would have with this family, and the cat's more detailed history, personality and behaviour, and the adoption contract will be reviewed.
We will get back to each interviewee, even if the cat moves to another home. Please note that we can only make a contract with a legally competent person (+18 years).
Adoption fees
One adult 200€
Two adults 350€
One kitten 250€
One kitten + mother 400€
Two kittens 450€
Can I take the cat with me after the first meeting?
We will never, under any circumstances, let you take a cat with you on your first appointment. Even if it's because your cat needs a friend in a hurry or you live so far away that it's difficult to travel a long distance twice, the cat won't go anywhere on the first meeting. This is not to inconvenience people coming from further away, but to make sure that the cat is not adopted on a whim, but that their adoption is well thought-out and their particular characteristics and needs are taken into account.
On countless occasions, a person has sent us a message saying that they are interested in a cat and could take it in immediately. We go through our policy with this person, they are ok with it and come in for an interview. Then the next day, after the interview we receive a message saying that they don't want to offer the cat a home afterall because it was too timid/hissy/something else.
What if we hadn't insisted that the cat must be met in advance and that they must interview in the first place? The cat would probably have been returned to us quickly, and this back and forth would have raised the cat's stress levels quite unnecessarily, and possibly caused some unpleasant symptoms. Or worse, the rushed adopter might even sell the cat onwards without any interest in where the cat would end up, or kill or release the cat into the wild.