Welcome back Trevor!

Trevor is back! We're not sure why, because he's such a sweet cat. But here's what happened:

Trevor came from a kill-shelter in Kentucky last year. He was placed into foster care in September with another cat, Lia, whom the family decided to adopt! After several months of fostering Trevor, the family contacted us to say that Lia was not doing so well in their home and they did not believe she was happy there. They said she had started missing the litterbox and was hiding a lot. They really liked Trevor so they wanted to adopt him and return Lia. We agreed because we wanted what was best for the cats and we thought Lia may do better in a different home, perhaps without children. The family adopted Trevor in March 2011. All correspondence with the family from March til December indicated that Trevor was doing well and they loved him. Never once did they contact us to say otherwise.

On December 3rd at 2 am my fiancee and I were on Craigslist looking under the free section. There was an ad for a Free Cat, so I clicked on it out of curiosity. I never expected to see Trevor's photo and read about his family trying to give him away. Not once had they contacted us to return him or even to let us know there was an issue and could no longer keep him any longer. It states very clearly in our contract that if the adopter can no longer keep the cat for ANY REASON they are to contact us and return the cat. They had broken their contract and we were very upset.

We called the family and left a message regarding the ad, reminding them of the contract they had signed, and asked that they call us back immediately. Not 1 minute after hanging up the phone, it rang. I spoke with the woman and she told me that Trevor was 'attacking' them and the dogs. Last I knew they only had one dog so I inquired about it. Apparently, over the past six months they had gotten a SECOND dog, had a new baby and gotten Trevor declawed! Talk about being under a lot of stress! The poor cat no longer had it's primary line of defense, his claws. The woman told me he was biting and was also refusing to use the litterbox, two common side effects of declawing which I pointed out to her. She insisted that it had NOTHING to do with him being declawed, that they had taken him to the vet (probably the same vet who suggested declawing and made money off these people) and he said Trevor was fine, that the behavioral problems had nothing to do with declawing him. I find it very odd that she had no problems with him before she adopted him, got him declawed, and added a new dog and baby to the house. Cats don't just suddenly decide to become a nuisance one day for no reason at all. They aren't spiteful; that's why I love them.

So I offered to take Trevor back. I offered to help her find him a more suitable home. I offered to screen people and readopt him out, if she wanted to keep him until I found a new home. Would you believe that while I was in the middle of offering assistance, the ignorant woman hung up on me?!! Then, when we called back, her boyfriend answered and said she was in the bathroom and couldn't come to the phone. Yeah, I'm sure. We never got a call back that day or the following day. I looked into my options. It was suggested that I have someone pose as an interested adopter and contact her without mentioning the rescue. We did that. She lied to the person, failed to mention that she adopted him from our rescue and then when the person tried to set up a time to "meet" Trevor, the woman refused to respond to calls and texts. So I was then told i could (and would probably be forced to) take the woman to court. So I called the court, got the information and tried one more time to do things the easy way by texting her and requesting that she return Trevor. She got snippy, told me she had removed the ad so leave her alone, and said she'd get me for harassment if I didn't stop contacting her. Right. I never knew that one phone call and one text message in a three day period was considered harassment. So I told her we could do this the easy way or the hard way, she could either return him on her own accord or we would take her to court for breaking her contract. She responded, "See you in court." Real mature.

My fiancee sought the advice of his friend who is a Buffalo police officer. He advised that we seek assistance from the police department in the woman's town by having an officer escort us to her home for a property dispute. As much as I hate the idea of a cat being considered 'property' i was willing to give it a shot. It was our last option before filing a lawsuit. So we went, bringing along all the paperwork including her adoption contract for Lia, her adoption contract for Trevor, her adoption application, a copy of her ad on Craigslist, our records of Trevor and email correspondence from the woman. The officer went to the door with my fiancee, presented all the evidence to her and told her to return the cat. She refused, stating she "never signed a contract", which was a complete lie seeing as the document was in the officer's hand. The officer held it up and asked if this was her signature. She said it was but she had never signed a contract. Eventually, after 10 minutes of arguing with the woman about the contract that was CLEARLY in front of her face bearing her own signature, my fianceee told her she could return the cat now or we would be taking her to court. The cop pointed out that we had MORE than enough evidence to get the cat back in court so she would only be wasting everyone's time. She finally agreed, retrieved Trevor and handed him over, feigning sadness over losing him. Crazy, I thought she didn't want him anymore. Wasn't that the point of the Craigslist ad?

Trevor is back and he is doing very well. He is getting along with the other cats here and is just as sweet and talkative as I remembered. We haven't had any issues with litterbox use or aggression, so I'm really not sure what the woman was talking about, if she was even telling the truth about his behavior or if the truth was just that she didn't want to take care of him anymore. I will never know, it doesn't matter. I hope this is a lesson to others though: we stand behind our contract (which has been updated so this does not happen again) and we DO NOT give up on our cats!

Trevor is neutered, UTD on shots and is now front-declawed. He is seeking a new home, a true forever home where he will be safe and loved for the REST of his life! If you are interested in welcoming Trevor into your family, please email us at havenhousecats@aol.com.