Where is your shelter based? What are your operating hours?

We do not have a shelter, we have a small rescue centre in Bellville and we refer to it as HQ (head quarters) at a private home where our base is. This is where new rescues come to and stay in quarantine or until they are ready to go to foster homes. Sometimes they get adopted straight from the rescue centre, but their condition and rehabilitation needs will determine where they go. All decisions are based on what is in the best interest of the rescue. This is also where all our food, medicine, litter and equipment gets stored. Our foster homes are all set up to provide the best care for all our rescues and they are also situated close to our vets (we have 5 main veterinary practices who assist us) so that we can get the best medical care for our rescues when they need it. We also have a kitten room with many scratch posts here for fostering kittens that are safer to mix with other cats and it has an outside catio attached so kitties can go and play in the grass.

Why we don’t allow visiting kittens before adoption

The most popular reason that people list for wanting to meet kittens before adoption are to see if they will bond with a kitten, to see if the kitten likes them, to estimate if the kitten will be a good fit for the family, etc. Whilst we understand this thinking, we believe the risks still outweigh the benefit and we have adopted out thousands of kittens successful without prior meeting.

1. Kitten personalities are developing continuously and are based on many factors like genetics, early socialisation, breed (not in the case of rescue moggies). Underlying Personality will remain for life but behaviour will be adapted to the current circumstances and environment.

   During their stay in our foster care, we supply them with the necessary attention, physical handling, safe social interaction and socialisation in a proper home environment, in order to ready them for adoption.

   Meeting them for a short time during their developmental stage won’t provide you with enough information to make a fair and objective decision in choosing a kitten for adoption.

2. Bonding – the process of bonding with an animal is largely dependent on a complex weaving of factors like cognitive choice, emotions, learned actions, perceptions, interpretation of interacting with animals, etc. Because this process can hardly be established in one meeting of kittens, we believe bonding with any kitten is posible over a period of time. This should not be confused with instant ‘falling in love’ with the appearance of a kitten.
3. Fit for the family – we do have many years of experience in adopting out thousands of kittens and cats and whilst there is no hard set of rules to help determine a best fit for the family, we trust our knowledge to assist you in finding the right kittens for your family.
4. Timing. A visit to meet kittens is not enough time spent with kittens to form a proper decision on bonding or fit. An outgoing kitten might feel off today (e.g. after deworming) and not act himself during a visit, giving the visitor a wrong impression of how the kitten usually behaves.
5. Health and Safety. The biggest reason why we don’t do meetings for adoption is to protect our kittens from bacteria, viruses, diseases or fungi exposure. We carry so many pathogens on our clothes, hair, shoes, etc. that can be harmful for kittens. We have immune systems that can easily fend off infections, but kittens have underdeveloped immune systems and they can get sick or die very quickly. Unfortunately we had bad experiences in the past, losing kittens after visits and that forced us to change or visiting protocol.

We realise that our policy might deter adoption for some people, but we pride ourself in our safety measures and our adoption statistics are testiment to our care.
We sincerely appreciate all adopters who respect our protocols and we do wish you long happiness with your adopted kittens.

Ps, we GUARANTEE you your kittens WILL love you 🙂