Frequently Asked Questions
What does CWS do?
Lost Cat
Trap-Neuter-Return-Manage (TNRM)
Sterilisation
- What is sterilisation? Why sterilise?
- At what age should a cat be sterilised?
- How much does sterilisation cost?
- How do I prepare a cat for sterilisation surgery and what does post-surgery involve?
- Should only female cats be sterilised since male cats can’t get pregnant?
- What some religions say about sterilisation.
- How does sterilisation benefit me, my neighbourhood and my cat?
- How does sterilisation work in controlling the cat population?
- Can just one or two cats guard an area against non-sterilised cats?
- How does sterilisation save lives?
Cat Abuse
Cat Rescue
- I really want to help the sick cat or kitten but I can't afford it. How can I find a foster?
- Can you come down and pick up the cat if I find a sick/injured cat?
- What if I find an injured or sick cat? Can I bring the cat to you?
- What should I do with a community cat? Is there anyone else who can take it?
- What about kittens? I heard a kitten meowing and the mother is not around.
- Why not run a shelter?
Cat Feeding
Cat Ownership
- I have just received a warning from HDB or Town Council about keeping cats in my HDB flat. What should I do?
- What does it mean to be a responsible cat owner?
- Should I sterilise my pet cat?
- Isn’t it cruel to deprive my cat of a chance to have a family?
- I don’t think I can afford to sterilise my cat.
- What some religions say about sterilisation.
Cat Fostering & Adoption
- How do I put a cat up for adoption?
- How do I remove listings of adopted cats from the board?
- How can I edit or amend my adoption listing?
- I wish to sign a simple contract for the adoption of my cat. Do you have a sample and does a contract protect the cat?
- I am a first time foster, how do I go about selecting a good adopter for the cat/kitten I have put up?
- What should I do if I would like to adopt a cat? Is there an adoption fee?
- Why didn’t I get the cat I requested? I wrote in as soon as the cat was posted.
- Why doesn’t the foster respond to me?
- I have just returned a cat. Why can't I adopt another?
Cat Nuisance
Volunteering with CWS
The Cat Welfare Society is a non-profit organisation run entirely by volunteers, registered in Singapore under the Societies Act in October 1999 and as a Charity as of June 2004. The Society's mission is to save lives through sterilisation. We believe that there are humane, effective ways to control community cat population -- that is, through sterilisation instead of destruction.
To support our network of caregivers in Singapore in their Trap-Neuter-Release-Manage (TNRM) efforts, we offer vet subsidies through a reimbursement scheme. To ensure the success of TNRM in the various estates in Singapore, we also serve to facilitate caregivers and Town Councils or Management Committees in problem-solving and complaint management.
We are not set up to run a shelter or rescue operation but will do the best we can to connect people to the right resources and other caregivers for the support they need to do what they do best, providing for the well-being of our community cats.
We appreciate the hard work that people are putting into shelters, but ultimately shelters are a drain on resources -- both time and money. In a well-run shelter, the cats taken in will have good lives, but in the meantime, 60000-80000 cats live on our streets. It is impossible to fit all of them into a shelter.
With sterilisation however, we’re making sure these cats don’t reproduce -- they live out their lives on the street where they are cared for by caregivers under a Trap-Neuter-Return-Manage programme.
In some places in the US where sterilisation has been practised aggressively, the number of cats going into shelters has dropped by as much as 50%. The number of animals killed has also dropped from 13 million ten years ago to 4 million last year. This has been attributed to aggressive sterilisation.
In Singapore, the same results are seen. Before 1998 and the introduction of a local sterilisation programme, 13,000 cats were culled every year. Last year the number of cats culled fell to 8000.
We don’t have a phone number as we don’t have an office. All the volunteers work out of our own homes and offices. Please go to Contact Us to see how you can reach us.
Alternatively, you can look for us on our frequently monitored Facebook Page.
Please call the AVA at 1800-4761600 or 64719987 and SPCA at 62875355 to find out if your cat has been brought in there. If you live in an HDB estate, please call your Town Council to see if they have recently trapped any cats. You can find the Town Council numbers at www.sgdi.gov.sg.
Time is of essence. Please call as soon as you realise your cat is missing. When it is confirmed that your cat has not been a victim of trapping, you can enlist members of the community to help you find your cat by using our self-posting Lost & Found bulletin to send out word about your missing cat.
We encourage you to please keep your cat indoors at all times. Cats are safer and live longer when they are fully indoor cats.
Trap-Neuter-Return-Manage (TNRM) is a method being promoted as a humane alternative to euthanasia for managing and reducing community cat populations. TNRM relies on sterilisation of the cats so that they don't breed.
TNRM begins with the trapping of community cats using humane traps. The captured cats are taken to a veterinary clinic where they are sterilised. The sterilised cats are marked so that they can be easily identified, usually by cropping the pointed end of the ear so that it has a square appearance (known as ear tipping) or cutting a notch at the tip or on the side of the ear.
After the cat has recovered from surgery, it is subsequently released to the site of capture.The cats are then managed back in their original environment.
A caregiver then provides regular food and monitors the colony over time. With TNRM, the cats’ reproductive capacity is eliminated, leading to a gradual decline in their numbers. Nuisance behaviors such as aggression and caterwauling are also substantially reduced.
A community cat is commonly known as a stray cat, but we think the word ‘community’ better describes these cats. Calling them stray cats gives one the impression that these cats don’t have a home and that they wander around -- but they do actually have a home, which is the environment they live in! Some of these community cats have been residents in the environment for much longer than some of the residents.
Community cats are a part of the community too!
You can try luring the cat into a cat carrier with food.
Alternatively, you can borrow a humane cat trap from the Cat Welfare Society by emailing us at info@catwelfare.org. We require a $75 deposit which is fully refundable upon return of the traps.
If no traps are available or you have difficulty trapping the cats, there are professional services that you can engage that provide the full service of trapping, transportation and boarding. Please contact
Acodia House
Tel: 93390481/96169619 (Damy)
Email: acodia@gmail.com
Lingcat Feline Services
Tel: 94788285 (Rebecca)
Email: lingcat@singnet.com.sg
To find out more about sterilisation, please see FAQ - Sterilisation.
No it is not. Feeding cats is perfectly legal. Littering however, is illegal. Please make sure that you feed responsibly and that the area is cleaned up after you are done with the feeding.
If you have been stopped by residents or officers from feeding even though you observe good feeding habits, do carry around print outs of the following to educate them:
3-Step Responsible Feeding
Responsible Feeding Brochure (Front)
Responsible Feeding Brochure (Back)
If the harressment escalates, call the police.
There may be irresponsible feeders in your neighbourhood that is causing the negative perception of all cat feeders. These feeders either do not clean up after feeding or they invite cats upstairs by feeding along corridors. If you come across any irresponsible feeding, do try to educate them as their actions may be the cause of complaints in your estate that is leading to the removal of cats for culling.
Feeding does not lure cats into the area -- food and territory are not the same. A cat may live in one area and eat in another.
Also, there are cats everywhere -- these cats were already in the community in all likelihood before someone started feeding them. Imagine this -- is it more likely that someone stood outside every day with a plate of food hoping a cat would show up one day, or that the feeder saw a cat or cats and started feeding them? It’s not fun to feed -- to do it properly takes a lot of time and commitment. Most feeders do so out of a sense of compassion and would be happy to stop if there were no cats that were hungry and waiting for them.
You can help to start a group in your area, or join an existing group if there is one. Do drop us an email at info@catwelfare.org and we’ll try and put you in touch with other volunteers in the area if there are any.
It is not enough to just feed and sterilise the cats, important as that may be. Do inform your Town Council that there is a sterilisation and management programme in place in the estate and offer to assist them in resolving any issues that may arise from complaints.
Sterilisation is the surgical removal of part of the reproductive organs (ovaries and uterus of females and testicles of males) from an animal so that it can no longer reproduce. It is a safe and quick procedure that is performed by a veterinarian. The cat is under general anaesthesia the entire time, so it will not feel any pain. The procedure takes 5-15 minutes and the cat is back to normal in 1-2 days.
Sterilised community cats can be recognised by a tipped left ear. Tipping is done during the sterilisation surgery while the cat is still under anaesthesia. It is a universally recognised way of marking a sterilised cat so that it is not neutered twice.
Why?
Only by tackling the root cause of cats being killed every year can we stop the problem -- and that is that there are too many cats breeding.
13,000 cats are killed a year -- that works out to 35 healthy cats a day. To keep that number down, the number of cats born has to be reduced drastically. To put it simply, the fewer cats born, the fewer cats have to suffer and die.
In general, cats are sterilised when they are 6 months old. However, some female cats do come into heat at an earlier age. Signs of heat include increased appetite, restlessness, being more affectionate than usual and emitting short low calls. At this point, she will also start to attract males. Tom cats, on the other hand, when they reach sexual maturity, will instinctively spray their surroundings with strong-smelling urine. Look out for these signs and take your cat to be sterilised immediately once you see them.
Depending on the vet clinic, the cost of sterilising cats are:
Male cat: SGD40 - SGD100
Female cat: SGD50 - SGD180
For a list of vet clinics, you can visit Singapore Veterinary Association.
If you are sterilising community cats, you can call Cat Welfare Society’s voice mailbox at 7000-CATSNIP (7000-2287647) or email catsnip@catwelfare.org to book a subsidised slot. CWS will make an appointment for you at the nearest participating vet clinic.
All cats sterilised through CWS will have their left ears tipped.
The cost of sterilising a cat through CWS is:
Male cat: SGD20 - SGD35
Female cat: SGD35 - SGD65.
The cat must not be given any food and water from 10pm the night before surgery.
After surgery, keep the cat in a quiet place and observe its behaviour. You may release it only when it is fully alert and eating well. A male cat usually takes 24 hours to recover, while a female cat might need 48 hours.
Sterilising male cats will result in health benefits and eliminate ‘anti-social’ behaviours. Also, if a male cat is not sterilised in an area of sterilised female cats, it will roam further afield to look for non-sterilised females and impregnate them.
The MUIS Fatwa Committee states: "Fundamentally, all mazhabs (Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence) allow the sterilisation of animals. After analysing the arguments and position of the different mazhabs and medical opinion from the Society of Prevention of Cruelty Againts Animals (SPCA), the Fatwa committee decides that sterilising cats on the basis of 'maslahat' (general good) is harus (permissible)."
Sol Hanna, President of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia says: "There is nothing in Buddhism that indicates that sterilisation creates unwholesome kamma. While the female cats may experience some suffering after the operation, this is relatively mild, and is inconsequential next to the wholesome kamma of preventing the future suffering of cats that are without homes and being destroyed by the authorities. Plus there is good kamma in helping all the tom cats restrain their lust!"
Me
If you don’t like cats, you will be glad to know that sterilisation is an effective way of reducing the number of cats in your area in the medium to long term.
If you like cats, you will be happy that fewer cats are being killed because of sterilisation.
My Neighbourhood
Sterilisation eliminates or severely reduces certain ‘anti-social’ behaviours of cats. These include calling out loudly while mating, spraying urine and fighting. While these are perfectly natural behaviours in the wild, they often invite complaints in our urban environment.
My Cat
Sterilisation has health benefits for both male and female cats. Spayed female cats will not contract ovarian and uterus cancers, or pyometritis (a potentially fatal uterus infection). Their chances of getting breast cancer are also greatly decreased, especially for those sterilised before their first heat.
As for sterilised male cats, they will not suffer from testicular cancer and because they are less inclined to fight other cats, their chances of being bitten and hence contracting feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) are very much reduced.
Also, when sterilisation reduces the number of cats in an area, there is less risk of complaints, which would otherwise lead to the cats being rounded up and killed.
When we trap, sterilise and return the cats to their environment, the sterilised cats will guard their territory against other non-sterilised intruders. The sterilised colony will first stabilise, and then decrease over the years as the cats live out their natural lives. But this is only possible if pet cat owners do not abandon their cats and kittens.
There must be an optimal number of cats in each area to guard against unwanted intruders. If the area is big and the number of cats few, the small number of sterilised cats may not be able to keep out non-sterilised intruders effectively. It is however, difficult to conclude what the optimal figure should be, as many other factors, such as the area’s density and number of food sources, affect the outcome. Therefore it is best to return all sterilised cats back into the neighbourhood and let natural attrition decide on how many sterilised cats each area needs to keep out intruders.
Sterilisation saves lives by reducing the number of cats that are killed each year in a bid to control the cat population.
For more than 25 years, an average of 13,000 cats have been killed each year to control the number of cats on the streets. This means that more than 325,000 cats have been killed.
Sterilisation is a humane and effective alternative to killing. When we reduce the number of cats on the streets through sterilisation, there will be no need to kill.
1. Stay calm - you've just seen something distressing and it's completely normal to be very upset or to panic. Take a deep breath and remember that everything you do right now makes it easier if you are able to prosecute.
2. If the cat is injured, take photos quickly and bring it to the vet immediately for medical treatment. While you are there, please tell the vet that you suspect that the cat has been abused and that you would like the vet to give you a written report.
3. If the animal is dead, don't touch it. Take photos if you can and make as many notes of the scene as possible. Take the animal to the vet for a necropsy - you can also wait for the AVA or SPCA to do it, but the faster you get to a vet for a necropsy, the more details you get. In a tropical climate, decay sets in fast and it may soon be difficult to determine the cause of death.
4. Prepare your information.
If you have photos, a vet report etc, make sure to prepare all the information and bring it with you. If you have witnessed anything (even if it's just discovering the body), take a few minutes to sit down and write out a statement. Don't jump to conclusions - just state what you saw/when it happened/what you did. Also, it's helpful to carry a copy of the relevant legislation. The resources are all available online. You'll want the Animals and Birds Act - and specifically Section IV. You'll need this for the next step.
5. Make a police report.
This is the point that most people seem to get stuck on because often, you'll be told that the police do not handle animal abuse cases. People have been told quite often to call the SPCA . The police DO investigate. It also says so in the statute. The officers are likely to call AVA. You may want to inform the AVA yourself as they will probably be conducting the investigation and they do have the powers to investigate.
The reason it is a good idea to write your statement before heading to the police post is that it's more efficient and you can avoid errors, either grammatical or factual.
If an officer tells you that you cannot make a report, or that it is someone else's jurisdiction, you may want to show him or her the legislation. You may also wish to escalate it to a superior officer - most of them are much better informed.
You can also lodge a report online but these are for non-urgent cases.
Bear in mind, only a witness can make the report - so if someone tells you that they saw a cat abused, only that someone can make the report. You cannot.
6. When you make a report, get a case number. Also ask which officer is going to be in charge so you can follow up with him or her.
7. Inform SPCA and CWS so that they can help to follow up with the police and AVA and create awareness about the case.
SPCA and the Cat Welfare Society will put up a "Reward for Information" leading to prosecution for confirmed abuse cases. First of all, ask your Town Council to put up the Reward for Information Notice on their notice boards.
The best person to lead the citizen patrol is a resident of the area as you will have ground knowledge of the estate and the neighbours. As a resident, you are also in the position to ask for assistance from the Town Council and Member of Parliament.
Let us know when you have set a date for the citizen patrol and we will help you call for volunteers. The aim is to flyer the blocks around the location of the abuse with the reward notice to ask for witnesses to step forward. A petition for resident signatures can also be initiated for more frequent police patrolling and CCTVs to be installed.
This is also a good time to educate the public about responsible pet ownership and kindness to community animals through engaging them and with materials from SPCA and Cat Welfare Society.
Any information gathered during the patrolling should be reported to the police to help them in their investigation.
Catching a cat abuser takes vigilance and putting the neighbourhood on high alert not only increases the chances of the abuser being caught but also reduces the chances of the abuser striking again for fear of being caught.
Many fosters would like to remain anonymous and often only take referral cases from people they know because of the high occurrence of people dumping cats on them and disappearing thereafter. They are then left with the burden of taking care of the cats.
As such, any requests for fosters will be placed on our Special Appeals bulletin instead and we will let the fosters screen through the cases themselves and contact you directly.
If you can manage it, we hope that people who find the cats can foster them and make use of the Adoption bulletin to find and screen for good permanent homes. The sad truth is that there are more cats out there that needs help than people who can care for them. If you can help, we sincerely hope that you can extend a hand to these cats.
There are also shelter and boarding services if it is not convenient for the cats to remain in your home:
Kittycare Haven
80 Lim Chu Kang Lane 1 (inside Globe Eximport Pte Ltd)
Tel: 97958995 (Sia Ping)
Email: siaping@yahoo.com
Website: http://kittycareservices.blogspot.com/
Mutts & Mittens
11 Pasir Ris Farmway 2
Email: enquiries@muttsnmittens.com
Website: http://www.muttsnmittens.com
We do not run a rescue operation as we are run entirely by volunteers with work commitments. If you drop us an email, we can try to connect you with a caregiver in the area if one is available.
However, sick or injured cats often go into hiding. If these cats are not caught and brought down to the vet by the person who sees the cat, there is a good chance that the cat will be gone by the time caregivers go down.
Remember that time is of essence -- every minute that is wasted deciding whether to pick up the cat may be the minute that could save that cat’s life.
If you have trouble catching the cat, you can seek help from SPCA or consider contacting a professional cat trapping and transportation service
Acodia House
Tel: 93390481/96169619 (Damy)
Email: acodia@gmail.com
Lingcat Feline Services
Tel: 94788285 (Rebecca)
Email: lingcat@singnet.com.sg
We do not run a vet clinic unlike SPCA and none of us are licensed to treat sick animals. Please bring the cat to the nearest vet clinic instead.
For a list of vet clinics, please go to www.sva.org.sg or to www.yellowpages.com.sg and look under veterinarians.
We would advise you NOT to remove a community cat unless it’s in danger. Most cats are fine where they are. If you'd like to help it, do consider getting it sterilised if isn't already and return it to the area where you originally found it.
Furthermore, due to the vacuum effect, more cats will just move into the area to take the place of cats that have been removed. There are not enough homes and shelters to house them all.
So please do not take a healthy community cat away unless you plan to take it in yourself.
Please check and make sure the mother cat is really not around. Kittens need the colostrum in their mother’s milk to survive -- if you remove a kitten from its mother, chances of its survival are much slimmer. Many a well-meaning person has picked up a kitten, only to find that the kitten does not survive.
Furthermore, once you’ve touched it, your scent is on the kitten. The mother cat may see this as threatening and abandon the kitten.
Standing around in front of the kitten and looking for the mother for a few minutes is not going to accurately tell you if the mother cat is around. She may be gone for hours to hunt for food. If you are standing in front of the kitten, the mother cat is not going to make an appearance.
The best thing you can do is to walk off and check back periodically. If the kitten is still there and in distress, then you might consider taking the kitten in.
We appreciate the hard work that people are putting into shelters, but ultimately shelters are a drain on resources -- both time and money. In a well-run shelter, the cats taken in will have good lives, but in the meantime, 60000-80000 cats live on our streets. It is impossible to fit all of them into a shelter.
With sterilisation however, we’re making sure these cats don’t reproduce -- they live out their lives on the street where they are cared for by caregivers under a Trap-Neuter-Return-Manage programme.
In some places in the US where sterilisation has been practised aggressively, the number of cats going into shelters has dropped by as much as 50%. The number of animals killed has also dropped from 13 million ten years ago to 4 million last year. This has been attributed to aggressive sterilisation.
In Singapore, the same results are seen. Before 1998 and the introduction of a local sterilisation programme, 13,000 cats were culled every year. Last year the number of cats culled fell to 8000.
No it is not. Feeding cats is perfectly legal. Littering however, is illegal. Please make sure that you feed responsibly and that the area is cleaned up after you are done with the feeding.
If you have been stopped by residents or officers from feeding even though you observe good feeding habits, do carry around print outs of the following to educate them:
3-Step Responsible Feeding
Responsible Feeding Brochure (Front)
Responsible Feeding Brochure (Back)
If the harressment escalates, call the police.
There may be irresponsible feeders in your neighbourhood that is causing the negative perception of all cat feeders. These feeders either do not clean up after feeding or they invite cats upstairs by feeding along corridors. If you come across any irresponsible feeding, do try to educate them as their actions may be the cause of complaints in your estate that is leading to the removal of cats for culling.
Feeding does not lure cats into the area -- food and territory are not the same. A cat may live in one area and eat in another.
Also, there are cats everywhere -- these cats were already in the community in all likelihood before someone started feeding them. Imagine this -- is it more likely that someone stood outside every day with a plate of food hoping a cat would show up one day, or that the feeder saw a cat or cats and started feeding them? It’s not fun to feed -- to do it properly takes a lot of time and commitment. Most feeders do so out of a sense of compassion and would be happy to stop if there were no cats that were hungry and waiting for them.
Please email info@catwelfare.org for assistance.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is if you have observed responsible cat ownership by
- keeping your cats strictly indoors; and
- sterilising them.
These are the 2 most important conditions of cat ownership as they dispel all the reasons that HDB cite as to why cats are banned as pets in HDB flats -- that they are hard to confine, that they shed fur and defecate in public areas and that they caterwaul (during mating season).
By meshing your windows and gates, the cats will not be loitering in public areas. They will also be kept safe from falling out of windows. Sterilising them will eliminate the need to roam to find a mate and the caterwauling and fighting during the mating ritual.
Please do not, under any circumstances, abandon your cat in public areas as a result of receiving a warning. Pet cats often do not survive well on the streets as they have lost the instincts to fend for themselves. They also add to the community cat population in the estate and are thus in danger of being trapped for culling.
- Do not let your cat roam outdoors
It is a myth that cats in particular need to roam to be contented. The curiosity in any animal, be it a dog, a rabbit or a hamster, would prompt them to explore if not properly secured. There are many examples of cat owners with cats that are perfectly contented to be indoors with the proper care and attention.A large percentage of complaints that CWS receives about cats are in fact about roaming home cats than they are about community cats. These roaming home cats often loiter around upstairs along corridors and may defecate in inconvenient places or enter peoples' homes. They also reinforces peoples' perception of cats as hard to confine and out of control.
- Provide a cat-safe home
Cats are climbers by nature and in high-rise Singapore the incidence of cats falling out of windows is high. Wire mesh (plastic, metal) sold in hardware stores can help prevent painful injuries or death to your beloved cats. - Sterilise your cat
Eliminate undesirable behaviour such as marking (for males) and caterwauling (for females). This also prevents unwanted litters from being born. - Feed high quality foods
Leftovers, food scraps are not meant for cats/pets. They require a good quality diet that will keep them healthy. There are many good brands available in reputable pet shops. Do check with them on recommended foods. Spending a little more on proper diet/better brand of food will prevent massive vet bills in the future. A healthy cat is a happy cat. Recommended types of food should be grain-free, free of colourings, sodium, artificial flavourings & by-products. They are many resources on the Internet that will educate the proper diets for healthy pets. - Provide a scratching post
To prevent your cat from scratching your furniture, provide a scratching post or board. There are also anti-scratch sheets that can be used on your furniture to protect them.Never declaw your cat. Declawing is actually an amputation of the last joint of your cat's "toes". It is a painful surgery, with a painful recovery period. It can lead to physical, emotional and behavioral complications and the cat is also deprived of its primary means of defense and escape (by climbing) if it ever escapes to the outdoors.
- Pets are for life
Please do not abandon your cats. They often do not survive well on the streets as they have lost the instincts to fend for themselves. They also add to the community cat population in the estate and are thus in danger of being trapped for culling.
Yes. They will benefit health-wise and you will gain when they stop trying to leave your home to mate, spray urine around the house and get into fights with each other. Also, you will not have unwanted litters of kittens on your hands.
A breeding pair can produce 3-5 kittens, 3-4 times a year. That would result in 9-20 kittens being born in a single year. With so many cats in the house, owners then feel overwhelmed not just by the sheer numbers, but by the time and effort it takes to take care of so many, as well as the financial cost of food, litter and veterinary bills. Many then decide to abandon their cats. Abandonment is a major factor in hindering the efforts of volunteers to control the cat population in Singapore.
Cats do not mate for pleasure. They have no control over their mating i.e. they are slaves to their hormones. Studies have also shown that it is actually a rather painful experience for the female cat.
It is more cruel to let the cats breed when we cannot find enough homes for their litters. Many cats, including kittens, have been abandoned by their owners who end up with more cats that they can handle. Most do not survive.
The question you should ask yourself is "Can I afford NOT to sterilise my cat?"
Your cat may have kittens and finding good homes for them will not be an easy task. If you do keep all of the kittens, the cost of food, litter and medical bills may prove to be a heavy financial burden. Also, certain costly health issues like cancer can be avoided with sterilisation.
The MUIS Fatwa Committee states: "Fundamentally, all mazhabs (Schools of Islamic Jurisprudence) allow the sterilisation of animals. After analysing the arguments and position of the different mazhabs and medical opinion from the Society of Prevention of Cruelty Againts Animals (SPCA), the Fatwa committee decides that sterilising cats on the basis of 'maslahat' (general good) is harus (permissible)."
Sol Hanna, President of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia says: "There is nothing in Buddhism that indicates that sterilisation creates unwholesome kamma. While the female cats may experience some suffering after the operation, this is relatively mild, and is inconsequential next to the wholesome kamma of preventing the future suffering of cats that are without homes and being destroyed by the authorities. Plus there is good kamma in helping all the tom cats restrain their lust!"
Our automated system allows you to personally post up details and pictures of the cat.
Firstly, you need to sign up for a user account on the top of this website.
To post up a cat for adoption, upload a good photo and a short write up of the cat, along with its name and your contact details. Our moderator will go through your posting and publish it when everything is in place.
If a potential adopter is interested in the cat that you have posted up - they will contact you directly.
If the cat is above 6 months old, you must sterilise it before putting it up for adoption. You warrant that the cat is sterilised when you post it for adoption at our website.
For a detailed guide on how to register an account, post cats for adoption as well as removing adopted cats from the board, please refer to User Guide (right-click to download). You will need Adobe Reader to read the file.
Login and go to 'Fosterer's Corner' under the 'Public Adoption Board', you will see a list of your cats. Just change the status to 'Completed' and click 'Submit' to remove the listing.
You will not be able to see the listing once it is removed. To put it back on the board, you will have to submit a new listing.
For a detailed guide on how to register an account, post cats for adoption as well as removing adopted cats from the board, please refer to User Guide (right-click to download). You will need Adobe Reader to read the file.
The listings are not meant to be edited. This is to prevent possible abuse where the content is changed once the listing is approved. You may re-submit a new listing and remove the old one if you need to change anything.
We have provided 2 sample agreements/contracts which you can download and amend for your own use.
Sample Trial Adoption Agreement
(To remove the "SAMPLE" from the document, edit the "Header and Footer" of the page. Click on 'View' on the menu bar and select "Header and Footer". Then select the "SAMPLE" and delete it.)
The contracts/agreements would make the adopter aware of the responsibilities required of him or her as a cat owner, and you can have something to fall back on should there be a dispute and you wish to take legal actions.
To help first-time or inexperienced fosterers, we have listed some points in Adoption Help (right-click to download) for you to consider when selecting the right adopter.
This is a public bulletin which means that we are not affiliated to the people who made the postings. Cats that are up for adoption are placed with fosterers.
You would have to contact the fosterers directly (click on 'Contact Fosterer') to find out more about the cat and arrange for a viewing session. You can check with the fosterers if an adoption fee is required.
Please do practice sound judgment when it comes to meeting fosterers. Also as a responsible pet owner, please do your research before you make any decisions to adopt. A pet is for life.
We have no control over whom the cats are given to as these are not our cats. The fosterers make the decision as to a suitable adopter.
Please remember -- a cat is a lifetime commitment. The foster is trying to find the best match for the cat and therefore selection is not always on a first-come-first-serve basis.
CWS runs the adoption board as a public service -- as such anyone can post on the board. We do not know most of the fosterers and they have full control over their screening process for adopters.
If you adopt and return a cat on a whim, without any compelling reason, we will ban you from adopting another cat from our board. If we receive complaints from a number of fosterers, we will also ban you from adopting whether or not you've adopted before.
We reserve the right to ban fosterers or adopters at our discretion.
Many times, the cats that are roaming upstairs along corridors are not stray cats but home cats. If you know of cat owners who let their cats roam instead of keeping them indoors, please inform us so that we can get our volunteers to pay them a visit and advice on responsible cat ownership.
Here are some humane ways of repelling the cat that you can employ to safeguard yourself:
- Rub white vinegar, strong lemon juice or crushed mothballs where the cat likes to linger. Cats don't like their scent!
- Stick disposable chopsticks or satay skewers (sharp end down) into flower pots
- Splash or squirt water on the cat when you see it outside your door
Often, the spraying of urine is a territorial gesture by an unsterilised cat. If you would like to help this cat, do consider getting it sterilised. A sterilised cat will be tamer and less likely to roam.
If you are living in an estate managed by a Town Council and call them to complain, the cat will be taken away and killed.
If you live in a private estate and complain to the AVA, the cat will be trapped and killed.
If your management committee or residents' committee is trapping cats and is not part of a TNRM programme, the cats are again in all likelihood either being killed or dumped. These cats are not being taken to a nice shelter somewhere where they are looked after for the rest of their lives simply because there isn't enough space to accommodate all these cats.
This does not mean that if you have a valid complaint that you must suffer in silence. Contact CWS and we'll work with you to find an effective and humane solution.
First of all, thank you! We are almost entirely volunteer run and we appreciate any help that is offered.
Check out the various roles offered by the Society at Be a Volunteer. If you are interested in any of these roles or if there are any special areas you believe you can help out in, do fill out the volunteer form and write to us at volunteer@catwelfare.org. We'll be happy to hear from you.
