Cat Friendly Homing

What are the Cat Friendly Solutions for stray, abandoned and pet cats?

International Cat Care has developed a programme within Cat Friendly Solutions for Unowned cats called Cat Friendly Homing (CFH) which looks at solutions for unowned pet cats. These are cats that are usually kept confined in a homing centre, in a pen or in a foster home with people who will care for them, prior to finding them a home.

Cat Friendly Homing

Principles of Cat Friendly Homing

• Only cats which are suitable to live as pets should go through the ‘homing’ process
• Time spent in any homing centre should be as short as possible because cats find the experience stressful and there is a greater risk of spread of disease when large numbers of cats are kept in close proximity.
• No cat should ever be worse off as a result of human intervention
• Confinement should only be part of the cat’s journey to a new home and not a permanent or prolonged situation
• Each cat should be treated as an individual taking into account its own requirements
• All cats and kittens should be neutered at the earliest opportunity and before they go to new homes in order to guarantee that they will not have kittens which could potentially add to the population of unwanted cats

All cats and kittens should be neutered before they leave the homing centre

• Cats obviously not suited to homing as pets (feral, street and community cats) should not go through the CFH process but be found solutions using TNR

Finding out the best available information will often involve training to learn new skills to add to your existing knowledge

In order to follow the principles, those who care for cats should have the best available information to be able to:

• Support both the physical health and mental wellbeing of the cats
• Recognise health problems when they arise and act if help is required
• Understand and implement measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases
• Care for cats in a way that minimises any distress they might experience
• Interpret whether a cat is comfortable or uncomfortable when confined and intervene to resolve distress

Placing a box inside a cat’s cage can make a cat feel more comfortable, in this case, the cat is relaxed and choosing to rest on top rather than hide inside. Source BCSPCA

Three key areas of Cat Friendly Homing

There are three key areas of CFH which reflect a cat’s journey through the homing process. These key areas are referred to as:

• INTAKE
• CARE
• OUTCOME

> Intake: Admit wisely