What to do if your beloved pet needs a new home

You may be sure you’d never give up a beloved pet. But sometimes life happens, like it happened to Katrina Glover.

She and her cats were living the good life in the Bronx, New York, when someone found a cat outside in the harsh winter weather. “A friend said she wanted the cat, so I took it in,” says Glover. “She never came and got him.”

Busy with work and school, she waited a bit too long to neuter the young male, and he got her females pregnant. Eight well-loved, well-cared-for cats had become nine with four litters of kittens. Then she lost her job, her mother died of cancer, and she fell into depression.

“My cats at some point became the only reason I got up every day,” she says. “Every bit of money I got went to take care of the animals. I wasn’t taking care of myself mentally, emotionally or anything.”

She was overwhelmed and at risk of losing her apartment when someone suggested that the ASPCA could help. They provided vet care and helped her through the process of surrendering some of the cats. But it wasn’t easy.

“When I called ASPCA for the first time, I cried the whole phone call,” she says.

There are more cases like Glover’s than you probably think.

“The vast majority of people who are looking to relinquish or re-home their pets really don’t want to, but they feel like they have no other alternative,” says Matthew Bershadker, president and CEO of the ASPCA.

The stereotype of someone whose impulse-purchase puppy no longer matches their designer handbag is not the reality, says Sharon Harmon, president and CEO of the Oregon Humane Society. “I hear those frivolous reasons less and less. They stand out, but they are uncommon,” she says. “For us, the No. 1 reason is cost of care, when we ask

ASPCA VIA AP This March 2018 photo provided by the ASPCA shows a member of the Community Engagement team assisting in the rehoming of Katrina Glover’s cats in New York. Animal welfare experts say there are many sad but good reasons why people have to relinquish pets.

ASPCA VIA AP This December 2015 photo provided by the ASPCA shows ASPCA L.A. Community Engagement Manager Denise Bohn, right, delivering supplies to a client, a cat named Oreo and her owner Josefina Tejada in Los Angeles.