hi,am aware this thread is old and dont want to 'necropost' or whatever they call it on forums these days but woud just like to say own experience of preloved for buying kitties.
some years ago,had been searching far and wide for a cat-any cat,there was no criteria to choosing was willing to take on elderly,disabled or the behavioraly challenged because most of our cats have been that way,am a long time service user of residential centres and have severe autism and intelectual disability.
unfortunately the living circumstances for any kitty is unique;we are not allowed to have cats indoors in the residential centre because of certain individuals who woud harm them to direct attention onto them.
the place that kitty woud be living is our farm of sorts which is for people with ASDs but it isnt a farm in that its a fully habited residential place with some farm style features designed to educate and help develop the skills of its service users in animal care and vegetable growing.
the cat woud have their own bungalow and people constantly around them day and night; they can choose to go into the main house and be pampered or go to their own bungalow and chill out-their bungalow had different types of cat beds and cat trees around the entire wall and had also managed to get a wireless IP camera setup to spy on kitty.
all the sanctuaries support staff had tried,whilst well meaning they did not even get past the word farm they assumed it was a working industrial farm where attention,care and warmth woud be limited,they said to find somewhere that rehomed mousers-but because of the level of autism am completely detatched from humans and only connect with animals such as cats,had wanted one idealy to be a friend.
no one was willing to come and do a visit to see what we were trying to say.
so had ended up constantly checking out preloved every day several times a day,waiting for the new ads to become old ads so did not need to pay the subscription thing for it.
staff woud phone many people up only to be told the cat had been sold.
eventualy luck had came via preloved in the form of a two year old tortie and white upper class moggie called lottie.
her mum and dad were moving out of country and coud not put lottie through the stress of traveling but they were very concerned about her and asked if they coud be updated on her life through email-which had done-regulary sending them photos,videos,news on any tom friends she had made and how often she got out.
lottie was an amazing kitty,never bit or swiped anyone,she actualy made highly phobic or challenging profoundly autistic kids and adults become calm around her and develop a love for her and other animals, she also cured several support staff of cat phobias because they had been bitten when they were kids and took a grudge out on cats for the rest of their lives.
a while ago some idiots were speeding on a road near a motorway and crashed and all the traffic got diverted down the road our place was on.
several weeks earlier,our nearest neighbour had started taking in and feeding lottie,despite the fact she knew where she came from and thanks to the felines love of routine and habit; lottie woud head there everytime without fail after being fed at ours.
some loser who had been detoured was speeding down the road at motorway speeds and lottie-who was heading over to the neighbours house somehow nearly got over ok;the wheel clipped her head which took her away instantly.
but...prior to finding lottie,many of the preloved ads were very dodgy,for example advertising a six year old norweigan forest cat [not gccf/tica registered]; dude needed glasses as it was not even a diluted wegie in the photo,however regardless of what cat it was; was not bothered as long as it was a cat- so staff phone them up to enquire about her and they were told straight away she was sold but there may be some more cats available and to give a ring back later when some bloke was going to be in.
staff did so,but the cats he was selling or allegedly selling were all papered and well out of the money range that had.
thinking back the way the caller had passed us onto some other bloke it did seem dodgy.
had come across
so many adverts where the pictures of the cat were nothing like the breed the owner was stating,have got favourites but am personaly not bothered what breed the cat is when looking for a cat;but it has to be said; if the owner is writing something very different to the photo-shoud this be acting as buyer beware,possibly a false ad?
the one thing am glad about with preloved besides having got lottie off there is the fact it isnt full of cats being given away for free in comparison to the american craigslist for example,that is just another way of saying 'hey chavs,feeling out of the game lately? come get some pitbull bait'.
/sorry for huge post.
