We were all approved. We drove 2 hours to Ottawa to meet our new companion cat. Everything was perfect. The volunteers at PetSmart were wonderful. And then they took the picture of us with our new girl. And then it all went south because we had put a collar on her.
Over the phone, Donna said that putting a collar on an indoor-only cat is "animal abuse". They don't need collars because they're never suppose to go out and they'll be identified by their chips. With that logic, I suppose she thinks children don't need lifejackets because they're not suppose to fall overboard but they can always be identified by their DNA. Clearly she's never had plumbers, electricians, etc coming in and out of her house and spooking one of her cats.
In our very rural neck of the woods, if a cat is wandering around outside without a collar, it's assumed feral, probably diseased, and possibly rabid. No one is going to pick it up and take it to the vet to get scanned. There's even rumours around here that some individuals like to take pot shots at collarless animals because they obviously won't be missed.
Whereas, if the cat has a collar, it's assumed to be vaccinated and safe and have a loving and caring human at its home. And if that collar has a tag that says "I'm an Indoor ONLY cat", they can expect when the call, that human is going to respond "Oh, thank God you found our baby! We've been tearing the house apart looking for her!"
I need to believe that because it's what Donna said and not that Donna was using the collar as an excuse because she has something about LGBTQ+ couples. read more