# How to deal with giving away a pet?



## mommyofshmoo (Oct 25, 2004)

I'm not sure yet if we're actually going to get rid of our dog, but we've been considering it for some time and today I really reached my limit.

I'm ready to more seriously consider giving him away and my biggest concern is how to approach this with dd (3 years old.)

(The reason for giving him up is that he's an escape artist and we live a block from a very busy street. He's going to get himself killed and I've reached a limit of trying to contain him. Plus, I get yelled at periodically by various people who find him.)

So how does one do this? Do you give him away first (behind a child's back), then explain it later? Do you not mention it and hope they don't notice and that they slowly forget? Do you tell then beforehand? Do you say why?

My family always said that pets had "gone to live on a farm." In our case, the pet had either dies or been put to sleep- not given away. Personally, I'm glad my parents told me that at the time- it was nice to imagine my pet in a better place.

Anyway- anyone had any experience here? We're not 100% decided, but I really would like to find him a better home- one where people have more time to spend with him and where he is safer. I don't want to traumatize dd, though.

Thanks


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## JillChristina (May 24, 2004)

We just went through this with our cat last week.

About two months ago, we adopted a new cat from a shelter. Our old cat, Pintobean, did NOT like him. About two weeks after we got Max, one of the cats started peeing all over the house (mostly on dd's stuff). It got to the point where something new was getting peed on every day. This was totally disgusting to me and made dh furious. So, we took our older cat to the vet and had her checked out to make sure she didn't have a UTI or some other infection. $165 later we find out she's fine. We come to the conclusion that either the new cat is peeing or he's upsetting our old cat so she's doing it (this is what it turned out to be). So we decided to take Max back to the shelter (luckily it's a no-kill shelter). This was SO heartbreaking because he was a wonderful cat. We just could not live with the constant peeing.

When it got to the point where we were about to make a decision, I started discussing the situation with dd (she's 3) and told her that we might need to take Max back to the shelter. She came with me to the vet with me when we had Pinto checked out and I tried to keep her informed about what was going on. On the day I took Max back, I told her what we were doing and why. I let her say good-bye to him before I took him (she stayed at the neighbor's house). I think we'd talked about it enough that she either understood or was ok with what was going on. I, on the other hand, was a basketcase.







Hopefully someone gives Max a good home.

I felt it was important to be honest with her. My parents had our dog put to sleep behind my back when I was in high school (rather than try to find her a home - she wasn't sick) and I'm still bitter about that. I don't want to have that kind of relationship with Kylie. I was lucky that she handled the situation well (better than I did). I guess if she had been upset, I would have tried to validate her feelings and cried with her.

Good luck. I know this is a horribly hard decision to make.

Jill


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## Latnam (Apr 3, 2006)

Just went through this situation yesterday. My wife and I have twin girls, 16 months of age. In addition to the kids we had 4 cats. The cats have been with us for 5-6 years.

Past couple months the cats took it upon themselves to turn our house into a giant litter box. At first it was thought that the cats were scared of the location of the litter box. Kids in the area being kids and screaming, so the cats went to a safe spot to relieve themselves. Yet there were times the kids were no where near the area, and the cats still used that spot.

Took the cats in, to check for the urinary tract was infected or not. Nope..behavior issue. The whole time the wife and I were trying to come up with something to help the cats and kids co-exist. New litter, cleaning the litter pans more frequently, paying more attention to the cats than normal, etc.

Spoke to a friend of mine, and of our cats 3 were male and 1 is female. I didn't think too much on it, but the males were the one's we caught pee'n everywhere. It was explained that the cats were marking their territory. Something that male cats do. It came to a breaking point when the cats started pee'n on the kids stuff.

So yesterday, a cat adoption rep came by and picked up all 4 of the cats and their belongings. Granted the female cat more than likely had nothing to do with this, however we have another issue as well. Currently I'm serving in the U.S. Navy. Military has a big issue with people having indoor pets in government quarters. At some point in time it wasn't, yet there were people well before me that ruined it. Turning a nice house into something that should be condemned. Hence why the military is rather angst against having pets.

We figured that if all 4 cats went, they would have each other until they get adopted by someone else. I'm grateful my kids are too young to remember this. Maybe faint images when they get older. The wife and I were pretty much a trainwreck after the cats were gone. Insult to injury was added in trying to take my mind off of it, I turned on the radio in the house. Picked a random station and sat down on the couch. The song Yesterday by the Beatles came on. Now the song is stuck in my head while I'm sitting here at work. Trying to get stuff done, yet I'm in a blah kind of mood.

I know what I did was for the better of the wife and kids. Just didn't fathom how hard this was going to be on us. The emotional seperation.

Planned on once I retire from the military the kids will be 7-8 years old, can get a dog and cat then. The constant moving around isn't really fair to the animals, and I personally don't want to go through this ever again.

In summary of all this, if you have cats and soon to have kids or kids approaching toddler age. Watch your male cats closely. Once the kids are walking about, that's when our troubles started.


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