There's a 4 month old cat at this shelter near me I saw on their website last week. Reading its backstory it sounds like the ideal sort of cat for me. Been thinking this over for a few days now and I'm feeling conflicted.
On the one hand, I know I could give it a lot of attention and love right now. I haven't been working for the past few months due to the covid so I'm home basically all the time right now. It could sleep with me and eat with me, if it could handle riding in a cat cage I could take it outside in the car. At the moment I don't mind getting bitten, scratched, woken up whenever, and it would be nice to have a little companion. I think we could have a good life here.
On the other hand, I know that when I'm working again this cat is going to be alone in my apartment for 8 or more hours a day 5 days a week. That might be a couple weeks or a couple months from now, I don't know. But I do know when I'm working again it will be totally alone, it will barely be able to see outside, it's not a big apartment and there's nothing for it to do. I feel like if I was a 4 month old cat I'd get probably get bored really quick and start making my own fun by tearing stuff up. I have a lot of things here, musical instruments, electronics, a new bed, it could get messy. That concerns me, coupled with my past experience.
Around 16 years ago just before I started college I adopted a shelter dog. When I was around he was fine, cuddly and chill but the following year, when I started going to classes all day he got separation anxiety and I eventually had to rehome him because he would bark constantly, scratch and chew on things and freak out when I wasn't around. I tried getting a bark collar, he'd still bark even despite the shocks and the neighbors complained. I tried getting a large kennel and run where he could be outside, he hurt his mouth trying to bite his way through the wire. It's clear he was getting stressed and unhappy when left alone and I felt guilty about that. Fortunately I knew a couple that wanted to adopt a dog had a large yard and he could accompany the wife to work, seemed like he was a lot happier with them, so I had to let him go with them. But that experience has made me wary about getting another pet and having to leave it alone.
So you see I'm really unsure about this. People say cats are easier to care for than dogs I know. I plan to go visit the cat this week and see if it likes me, I'm kinda hoping it's already been adopted out or it just plain doesn't like me, that would make it simpler. It's not a no kill shelter. I'm going to talk to the shelter people and see what they think about my situation, but I think on here I'll get a broader range of opinions hopefully from people who have owned cats just like this one or been in a similar situation.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/hd5gxz/thinking_about_adopting_a_young_cat_advice/
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