Top Ten Reasons You Shouldn't Take in a Stray Cat in College

Yes even if it’s only for a couple days…

It happens all the time, or at least it does for me, you find a stray cat and you want to take it in. My sophomore year me and my roommates adopted a cat from the shelter because they were going to put him down, he lived with us for about a month and then we took him to my one roommate’s grandparents where he’s lived a happy life. My junior year we found a little white cat on the street that we would've taken in if we were allowed to have cats, but we couldn't so we just fed him tuna on the porch for about six months until he stopped coming around (no worries we later found out he just moved up a street and one of our friends was feeding him there).

Pickles and the kitten

This last August we found a cat where I work so me and my roommate took her in for what we thought was only going to be a couple of days… Three months later, she’s still here and we continue to grow more and more attached to her every day.  The last one we took in was what we estimated to be a five week old, little gray kitten, that one of our friends found, we had him for about a week until we found him a home. I know I might not sound like a person that should be giving a lecture on why not to take in a cat you found, but over the years I've learned lots of reasons you should avoid it.

So here are the top ten reasons why you shouldn't take in a cat you found on the street:    

1. They’re expensive. You might not think that cat food and litter would be expensive but it adds up. Especially if they’re like our cat, whose name is Pickles, and has approximately four teeth so she can only eat wet food.
2. You may think you’re going to take them to the pound but you don’t. You realize you could never do that even if it’s a no kill shelter because you don’t want them to live out their life in a cage.
3. Because you don’t take them to the pound you decide you’ll find them a home through friends, but you don’t because everyone’s either allergic, don’t like cats, or already has a cat that wouldn't get along with another one.
4. They might have fleas. While Pickles didn't have fleas the white cat our junior year did, luckily we didn't let him in the house. Fleas are a horrible thing to have your house get infested with and they take about a million flea bombs to get rid of if they get bad.

   

   Me and Gunther, the cat we got sophomore year.

5. If you get a female cat of the street chances are she’s not spayed and she could even be pregnant. Are you really ready to take care of not only one cat but potentially six or eight
   more kittens? 
6. There could be something wrong with it. When you take in a cat you have no idea what shots it’s had or if it has any diseases and the only way to find out is to take it to the vet, which for a college student living on the ramen noodle budget costs a lot of money.
7. Your lease probably says no pets. Remember that piece of paper you signed a couple months ago? Well it probably says you can’t have pets, and if you’re found with pets on your property you’ll either get fined or evicted. And if your landlord does allow pets you probably have to pay a very nicely priced pet deposit, which you won’t get back even if the animal does no damage.
8. You might think all cats are litter box trained, but they’re not. Kittens are super easy to litter box train, older cats not so much. And let me tell you, cat pee is not an easy smell to get out of the carpet.
9.  Cats are very temperamental. And they hold grudges. If you make your cat mad one time they’ll gladly repay you with peeing in front of your door. Or in the case of Pickles, she watched me clean her litter box; made sure I was looking and then proceeded to pee directly on the bathroom floor next to her litter box. 
10. And finally, I don’t care what you say you will get super attached. The day you find the cat a home you’ll either decide to let her go or you’ll decide the home isn't good enough for her even when it probably is.

The kitten

I know I should probably start listening to these reasons on why not to get take a cat in off the street in college, but I don’t, I've had a love for animals my whole life and I've always been one to take in stray animals (I blame it on my mom). But I would advise against it, the best idea if you find an animal on the street is to take it to a shelter, especially if  it’s a no kill shelter, which are growing more and more common every year now.