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When people can no longer pay their mortgage and lose their home as a result, they sometimes cannot take their cat with them and decide to leave her in the house. They assume “the next person” will find the cat and take good care of her. It’s a bad idea.
“Agents for the foreclosure company may not enter the home for days to weeks after it has been vacated,” the American Veterinary Medical Association points out. By then, it may be too late.
A better bet, the association says, is to try to find a new home for your cat or leave her with a shelter or rescue group. Your cat’s chances for survival at a shelter are not 100 percent, but she has a much better chance of being adopted there than being found in an abandoned house where she might have scoped out several hiding spots. In addition, euthanasia drugs, if it comes to that, are much more humane than letting a cat starve to death.
Euthanizing a cat for an easy way out is an awful idea. The owner should contact multiple no kill shelters so the cat can be rehomed. I’m a volunteer at a local animal shelter where we educate pet owners to do the very thing. It’s no fault of the animal and they shouldn’t pay for it by death.