Late spring I adopted a cat from the Weatherford/Parker County Animal Shelter. He is a beautiful, big boy that looks like a red tip Siamese. My husband, not usually a cat enthusiast named him Top Cat, or TC for short, and soon fell in love with him. I did everything by the book to get him adjusted to his new home. The first few days he stayed in the utility room and even when he was allowed to explore the house, he was still confined to the utility room at night. Because we have three dogs, all terriers, TC spent most of his time upstairs which is blocked off from the dogs, or on top of the refrigerator.

But TC had a problem. He despised the dogs. Every time one passed by he would hiss, growl, hunch up his back and sometimes even spit at them. This only served to put the dogs on defense, and thus began the battle of “get the cat.” Alan and I did everything we could think of to get them used to each other, and in fact it seemed to be working with the dogs, but TC never felt comfortable and lived his life wandering the house alone at night while we were all shut up in our bedroom, and staying in high places during the daytime. We could tell he was lonely and unhappy so we made the difficult decision to re-home him.

With careful consideration, time, and work it is possible to find a good home for a pet that is not working out in your home. You have to keep your pet’s best interest at heart because there are a lot of frauds out there and your pet could end up dead or tortured. The sad fact is there are more pets than good homes. Just visit your local animal shelter if you doubt it.

The worst thing you can do is turn your pet loose out in the country. This is one of the cruelest fates a domestic pet could meet. They will encounter fear, hunger, abuse and suffering if they even survive, and the likelihood of someone taking them in is nil.

Your pet is your responsibility. There is no one that can look out after his interests but you and he deserves your best efforts.

I took a digital picture of TC and created a flyer about our situation and expelled TC’s many virtues. I emailed the flyer to everyone I knew asking them to pass it on as well. Then I took the flyer and put it on bulletin boards at the Aledo Vet Clinic, PetsWest and PetSmart. I talked about TC to anyone who would listen, including my pedicurist, Dianne Hensley, who was interested in an indoor-only cat. Top Cat was re-homed at the Hensley’s that very weekend and as their only indoor animal, is thriving.

It took more than a month to find TC a suitable home. You are under no obligation to give your pet to the first person interested if the situation is not right for them, but I was so grateful that with the Hensley’s it worked out. Be sure to remember to send all your pet’s paperwork to his new home and you may even want to consider having the new owner sign an adoption contract with a waiver of liability. Tell the family to call you if the adoption does not work out or if they have any questions or problems. Also, be willing to take your pet back if things don’t work out the way you both hoped.

Please, please only use the animal shelter as a last resort. The Weatherford/Parker County Animal Shelter is already overwhelmed. With 88 kennels filled to capacity at all times and taking in an average of 20 unwanted or homeless animals daily, the math is not in your pet’s favor. Animal shelters are a needed resource for people who find unwanted animals on their property and have no other recourse but to bring them to the shelter. There has to be a place in every community for that. The problem lies in people who do not have their pets spayed or neutered and keep bringing litter after litter of puppies and kittens in for the shelter to handle, as well as those who won’t take the time to housebreak the puppy they once loved, or to re-home their pets for a variety of other situations that life hands them. It’s a sad fact that too many people see animals as being disposable.

So Top Cat is enjoying his new home. He has a number of beds to choose from each night and Diane tells me he visits all of them. Lap time is always available and he spends hours gazing out at deer from their bay window. I can even visit him occasionally and at the very least will be entertained with TC stories during my pedicures.

I am so glad that we took the time to find Top Cat’s “Home, Sweet Home.”