The CAT family includes between 300-500 felines of all ages, breeds, colors, and personalities who are all looking for special human companions and homes to call their own! All cats and kittens adopted from the Cat Adoption Team are spay/neutered prior to adoption.
Because adopting a cat or kitten—or any other pet—is a serious decision, CAT has a team of adoption counselors who are trained to help you find the perfect lifetime companion. As you view the cats in our facility or at one of our outreach locations, our adoption counselors will provide you with background information about those you’re interested in, and will help you get to know your prospective new feline friend. The adoption process usually takes at least 1 to 2 hours, which helps assure a good match between prospective owners and the cats and kittens in our care.
CAT does reserve the right to refuse adoption to any individual.
The CAT shelter is open to the public seven days a week Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. If you plan on adopting a cat the same day, please be at the shelter before 5 pm to allow enough time for you to make this lifetime commitment. You can always put a 24-hour hold on a cat if you would like to bring back the rest of your family, or if you need a little extra time to think about your decision.
You can also view many of our cats, along with background information and descriptions at www.cat.petfinder.com.
The Cat Adoption Team requires all potential adoptive families to meet with a trained adoption counselor before adopting a cat. Families must complete an application and sign a contract, which outlines our organization’s adoption guidelines. Individuals who are interested in adopting a cat or kitten are welcome to call our facility to discuss these guidelines before visiting our adoption center.
Indoor-Only Policy
Since cats live much longer, safer lives indoors—and because we believe cats can live happy, active lives indoors—we adopt to indoor-only homes. With rare exception, cats may be approved by our Operations Manager, in consultation with our medical team, to go to an indoor/outdoor home. Cats designated as allowed for indoor/outdoor homes are usually cats with persistent behavior problems such as inappropriate elimination, where our medical team has ruled out any underlying physical cause. Those adopting cats designated for possible indoor/outdoor homes go through our normal adoption process and sign a contract specific to indoor/outdoor situations.
Declawing
We ask adopters not to declaw cats adopted from us and focus on educating adopters on the detriments of declawing, humane alternatives to declawing, as well as how to train a cat to scratch only where appropriate. When an adopter is interested in having only a cat who is declawed, we direct adopters to cats at the shelter who have already undergone the procedure.
Kittens
In order to give our kittens a strong, healthy start in life, and to minimize behavior problems by assuring that they are fully weaned and litter box trained, we do not adopt out any kitten until they are at least 8-10 weeks old. We spay/neuter kittens when they are healthy, over 8 weeks and weigh 2.25 pounds.
FIV+ cats
Cats or kittens that test positive for FIV can still live relatively long and healthy lives in an indoor, stress-free environment. They must, however, be adopted to homes that either have no other cats or already have asymptomatic FIV-positive cats. This disease cannot be passed on to humans; they can, however, be transmitted through blood to healthy cats. Therefore, these cats must be placed in indoor-only home.
Renting with Cats
Since we want to ensure lifelong placements for our cats, we ask that adopters make sure their landlord allows cats and pay their pet deposit in advance of adopting.
Cats as Gifts
The Cat Adoption Team has gift certificates available if the person the cat is intended to be with, is not available to visit the shelter. We strongly believe that choosing a cat is a very personal decision and plays an important role in making a lifelong commitment to a furry companion.
Shipping of Cats
Please note that because we want the best match possible between adopters and their new feline friends, we ask adopters to meet with and get to know the cats or kittens prior to adoption. Therefore, we do not ship cats or kittens. This helps ensure successful adoptions for adoptive families and cats or kittens alike.
If you have recently adopted a cat or kitten, visit our resources for cat care tips.
