Kittico Cat Rescue is a group that relies solely on foster volunteers to house the cats that we take into our program, we do not have a shelter facility. At many times throughout the year we will not have room in our program for intake.

We can give you a few suggestions for and a little background about placement of your cat:

Late spring, summer and early fall are the times of year that rescue groups and the animal control facilities are overwhelmed with animals; therefore it is the hardest time to place animals for adoption. When animal control facilities are full they end up euthanizing up to 60 animals a day (at the largest shelters). They automatically put down owner surrender cats if there are not any rescue groups able to take them into their programs. They must hold strays 3 days (if they have room to do so) then euthanize once again if there are not any rescue groups able to take them into their programs. .

If it is not time critical, you may want to wait until a better time to place your cat. Try placing flyers in local vet's offices as well as pet stores. Advertise in local papers - some of the suburban papers allow these types of announcements free. Ask friends, family and coworkers. Call all of the local no-kill shelters first. There is a listing of all of the groups in the "City and Country Pet" (click on animal friends and calendar, then click on rescues, orgs for listings of all the groups in the area). Many of the other local pet monthly publications have this information as well. You can also do a shelter search on www.petfinder.com. Other possible resources are dfwpetplacement @ Yahoo! Groups, and www.craigslist.com. Please be aware that animals over 5 years old are often harder to find homes for.

If you are surrendering due to allergies, go to these links for helpful advice:

If you are surrendering due to biting or other behavioral issues, be advised, for liability reasons (biting) and low adoption probability (behavior problems), these animals most often will be euthanized immediately. If you are willing to try to remedy the issue go to: www.americanhumane.org.

Many declawed cats become biters or have problem using the litter box. Please keep this in mind. Changing litter is often the only thing needed to help remedy that problem. The biting occurs because they don't feel they have the protection of their claws anymore, and use the biting as a defense. Whatever actions are causing the biting behavior are putting your cat in a defensive mode; try to remedy that issue.

If you are moving, there are plenty of places nationwide that accept animals go to: www.peoplewithpets.com to find them.

If you would like to be placed on a waiting list to enter your cat into our program, pending your cat meeting our adoptions criteria, please let us know. This can take 4-6 weeks, or more at certain times of year. Your request for placement does not guarantee acceptance into our adoption program. Our email address to inquire about placing a cat in our adoption program is: surrender@kittico.org.

Whatever you decide, please do not abandon the pet outside or dump in a country area thinking that they can take care of themselves. This is usually a very bad idea. It is cruel in that many pets who have survived indoors all their life or have been fed always, do not have the survival instincts needed to live in an environment where they must search for food and stay away from predators. Also, if the animal has not been fixed, it just adds to the pet overpopulation problem. Lastly, many people living in the less populated areas have this occur more often that you think and it can put them in a difficult financial position.

We hope this has helped. Good luck!

-Kittico Cat Rescue foster/adoptions program