Below is some information on what to expect when you are invited to visit the sanctuary. All visits are by prior appointment only and will only happen after a successful home check.
First Impressions & Realistic Expectations
Some cats don’t cope well with strangers, often making themselves scarce when new people visit their homes, and this is particularly true of rescue cats.
Our cats are not kept in individual cattery pens. They live in groups in a cat friendly environment which naturally includes plenty of escape routes and hiding places! To them this is home and they are cared for by people that they trust. Our cats can move away from strangers just as they would in their own home and in fact they often do! That is normal for a cat!
When you come to visit, some of our cats might hide to begin with, avoid interaction altogether or seem uninterested when they first meet you. It’s not that our cats are unfriendly. Rescue cats often just don’t feel confident enough to show you who they really are and visits can be very overwhelming for them. That’s why we take lots of videos of our cats so you can see their true colours!
So, when visiting we ask that you take some time to sit and allow the cats to acclimatise to your presence. Five minutes before you turned up, they were probably either playing with their friends or snuggled up asleep. Then you arrive. A stranger to them with your unfamiliar presence, voice and scent.
Remember trust is very important to a genuine rescue cat, life has taught them not to trust strangers but often if you are patient and spend some time quietly sitting, you’ll find they usually come forward to say hello.
Trust our Knowledge
Worst case scenario none of the cats will come forward. That’s why it’s important to trust us. We see the real version of our cats every day, as the humans they have built trust with. We see (and enjoy) the cuddles, the head bumps and witness the confident and playful zooming around. We know the real version of the cats not the ten-minute visit version you see.
We won’t steer you in the wrong direction. We aren’t interested in homing to just anyone that applies to adopt – we are looking for the right homes for our cats. They are our priority, and their requirements and needs will always come first so we will only ever match you with cats that we are confident are right for you.
Compatibility Matters
More importantly adopting a cat is about finding the right match based on compatibility.
A cat that comes forward for some fuss might not be the right cat for you. Maybe they don’t get on well with other female cats and that’s exactly what you have at home. Or you might have very young children or a busy household, and we know from experience that will cause stress to the cat. Maybe the affectionate cat you are cuddling on your visit is like that because they need high levels of human companionship, but you work long hours. Yet the quiet cat, the one that’s silently observing you, could well be the perfect cat for your home but you just don’t know it from first impressions.