Since moving to Italy in October 2014, I have already dealt personally with numerous kitten adoptions, mostly privately but a couple with the help of an association, in addition to other animal-related situations. While most people realise that cats are not cuddly toys, there does seem to be a high level of superficiality from some people. On almost every single adoption appeal there are several people who show significant interest in the kittens, they’re keen and enthusiastic, we spend hours communicating either via telephone call, whatsapp or messenger only for these people to change their minds and decide they don’t want a kitten anymore – not just that they don’t want that particular kitten anymore, or that they’ve adopted another needy soul, but that they don’t want any kitten, full stop.

Now, I’m no stranger to people changing their minds, we all do it, it’s perfectly natural. Cats and kittens should not be an impulsive decision – actually, no animal should be adopted on a whim! I whole-heartedly approve of every single potential adopter doing their research, and taking their time before deciding if a kitten is truly right for them. However, what I would appreciate is that people do the majority of their research BEFORE contacting an animal rescue or a volunteer who is trying to re-home kittens. The internet is FULL of websites dedicated to cats, all the information you could possibly need to decide whether a cat will fit into your life is right there, at the touch of a button, and often quicker than waiting for a reply from somebody who is probably already overwhelmed with cat-related chores, as well as everything else they have going on in their life. I accept that, with animal rescue, there will always be “wasted time”, and I am always here to give advice and help people to make the right decision for them, but I just ask that people think twice before impulsively sending a message or making a phone call about a ridiculously cute kitten that they’ve seen on social media, organising a time to go and see the kitten, if they’re not at least 75% convinced that they will eventually adopt a kitten, any kitten, even if it’s not one of “my” kittens.

Cats are not easy to look after. Personally, I don’t think any animal should be considered “easy” to look after because it allows a certain level of indifference towards the animal to brew. Every animal that we bring into our homes and lives should be done so with full awareness and acceptance of the responsibility for the life, care and well-being of that animal – be they horses, dogs, cats, rabbits, birds, Giant African land snails or even ant colonies. There still seems to be a huge part of society that believes that dogs and cats are easy animals to look after, simply because they’re domesticated (or semi-domesticated for cats) and have been with humans for thousands of years, but this is simply not true. Our modern lifestyles clash with the lifestyles of the hunter-gatherers who domesticated dogs, and with the agricultural farmers who helped encourage the (self-?) domestication of cats. For most people, our current lifestyles are unrecognisable from those early civilisations; in a relatively short time our lifestyles have changed significantly. As Homo sapiens with large complex brains, we can, for the most part, deal with this modernisation, but we should not expect our domestic animals to do the same. Kittens cannot be expected to live their entire lives on the floor of an apartment, as one adopter once wanted from me. Introductions between kittens and dogs need to be done with great care and attention, especially when neither creature has ever met the other species. Kittens will absolutely cause some level of damage to a house or its furniture. They will scratch, they will bite, through play and learning, and they do need training to a certain degree. If you’re going to keep the cat as a house cat, there will be litter boxes to consider, amongst a hundred other things. Bringing a kitten into your life is not something to do lightly, just because a cute face makes your heart burst.

When I was a young teen, my sister and I badly wanted leopard geckos. My parents encouraged us but responsibly. We had to do research, we had to find out everything we could about the animals – food, housing, care, everything. Both of us had huge project books on the animals, we went to pet stores to see them and hold them in person. Our parents impressed on us just what a huge responsibility a pet was – despite the fact that we already had birds! Eventually, through research, we decided that they simply weren’t a good option for us at that time in our lives. I don’t ask for people to complete university-level assignments in order to decide if a kitten is right for them or not, I just ask for them to sleep on it, think about it for a while – there will always be kittens needing homes. Always.