Adopt A Cat

Kittens, grown cats and the ones that wait longest:

a litter of two-month-olds pulled from a roadside finds homes quickly, while a calm eight-year-old or an FIV-positive tom can wait months for one reply. A kitten is playful and still an unknown; nobody can promise yet how sociable it will turn out. An adult arrives with its character formed, and whoever is rehoming it can tell you whether it tolerates dogs, toddlers or other cats. If you have found a kitten in the street, check animals lost and found first in case someone is searching for it; once nobody claims it and a vet has seen it, it can be offered for adoption here. Dogs looking for a home are in adopt a dog.

A kitten or an adult cat for an apartment or a finca:

the home decides it. Kittens should not leave their mother before about eight weeks, and still need booster vaccines, and castration at around four months if the rescuer has not done it. Two kittens keep each other busy in a flat where everyone works all day; a single one turns its energy on your ankles and the curtains. In an apartment tower in Curridabat, windows and the balcony need mesh before the cat arrives, because cats fall from height far more often than owners expect. On a finca outside Turrialba, a cat that goes out meets dogs, cars and, in rural areas, snakes, which is why many people rehoming a cat ask for a mostly indoor life. An FIV-positive cat can share a house with other cats if all are castrated and get along, since the virus passes mainly through deep bites.

Foster homes, the application form and the home check:

that is how many rescue groups in Costa Rica work. Several have no shelter, so the cat lives in a volunteer’s house, the hogar temporal, and you meet it in a living room where its manners with people show. Expect a short application, a reference or two, a home check in person or by video call, and a simple adoption contract; some groups let you foster for a couple of weeks before the adoption is final. Owners rehoming one cat before a move are less formal, so there the questions are yours to ask.

A rescued cat’s vaccination card and FIV test:

ask to see both before the visit ends, the card showing which vaccines were given and when, the test result with its date. A kitten under six months can test FIV-positive from its mother’s antibodies, so a positive at that age needs repeating later rather than ruling the cat out. Check that it is castrated, and look closely: runny eyes and sneezing point to a respiratory virus, dark crumbly wax in the ears to mites. Be cautious with posts offering a “free” Persian or Ragdoll in another province that ask for a transport fee up front. Meet the cat in person or on a live video call, and send nothing for a cat you have not seen.

Your cat’s listing and the handover:

answer up front what adopters will ask anyway: age, sex, castration, which vaccines and when, and the FIV and leukaemia result if it has been tested. Say how it gets on with dogs, children and other cats, whether it has lived indoors and what it eats, and be honest about why you are rehoming it. Daylight photos of the face and whole body, plus a short video, say more than a paragraph, and your canton tells people how far they would travel. Ask about the adopter’s windows, other animals and plans to move, and hand over the vaccination card with a bag of the food the cat knows. A carrier or scratching post you no longer need can go in cat supplies. The cat handed to the first person who replies is the one most likely to come back up for adoption a few months later; the questions you ask now are what keep it in its second home.