Cats on Gumtree?

[Simpo Two]

I was rather surprised to find cats for sale on Gumtree:

https://www.gumtree.com/p/cats/maine-coone-burmese...

IMO if she dosn't want them she should give them to a rescue centre. eBay won't sell animals and I'm surprised Gumtree does.

[Patch1875]

We got both our kittens via Gumtree.

[anonymous-user]

Simpo Two said:

IMO if she dosn't want them she should give them to a rescue centre.

I think that is wrong, rescue centres should be for worse case cats. These cars want rehoming and seems fair to advertise on gum tree, it is free and a wider audience.

[Saleen836]

No different to people advertising on Facebook selling pages when a cat or dog etc need rehoming, if it gets the job done what is the problem?

[Simpo Two]

I can see the 'commodity' angle, and am happy that a buyer pays for a pet (as you do from breeders or rescue centres) but unusally for me I have a moral issue with people simply raising money by flogging off surplus pets. Why doesn't eBay accept pets?

[anonymous-user]

Simpo Two said:

I can see the 'commodity' angle, and am happy that a buyer pays for a pet (as you do from breeders or rescue centres) but unusally for me I have a moral issue with people simply raising money by flogging off surplus pets. Why doesn't eBay accept pets?

I see the money bit as weeding out the people that wouldn't care for the cats as they wouldn't pay anything.

[Trabi601]

The Spruce goose said:

I see the money bit as weeding out the people that wouldn't care for the cats as they wouldn't pay anything.

There are plenty of badly treated 'fashion' dogs around to disprove this.

Back to the cats - you'll need a bloody big house to keep indoor Maine Coons happy!

[bexVN]

Trabi601 said:

The Spruce goose said:

I see the money bit as weeding out the people that wouldn't care for the cats as they wouldn't pay anything.

There are plenty of badly treated 'fashion' dogs around to disprove this.

Back to the cats - you'll need a bloody big house to keep indoor Maine Coons happy!

Depends on the cat. In her younger days she liked to be out and about but the last few years our Maine Coon has been a proper home bod by choice.

[Prof Prolapse]

I've found rescue centres needlessly obstructive in the past.

I wasn't allowed a cat from our local rescue centre owing to the fact I am in full time employment and the proprietor would rather have them destroyed (yes really) than let me own one. The nearest alternative centre commanded a three tier interview process, and a similar attitude.

I was only left with Gumtree/Classifieds. I've had a cat and dog since, with no horror stories or issues. You just have to be a lot more careful.

[Simpo Two]

Prof Prolapse said:

I've found rescue centres needlessly obstructive in the past.

I wasn't allowed a cat from our local rescue centre owing to the fact I am in full time employment and the proprietor would rather have them destroyed (yes really) than let me own one. The nearest alternative centre commanded a three tier interview process, and a similar attitude.

Sorry to hear that. The two rescue centres near me are very good and from my experience at least take the buyer on trust. Then again it's just me here, no busy roads and I'm in most of the time. However I have heard that the RSPCA can be awkward.

[Prof Prolapse]

This is just some local lunatic. I've had numerous cats and dogs in the past from rescue centres and found them much more obliging.

The point is though, situations like this create a demand for unregulated animal sales, even for genuine people like me.

[J4CKO]

Gumtree is like the Dark Web

[Gretchen]

I think eBay has always fallen in to a 'mail order' category. Hence live animals can't be sold via them. Whereas Gumtree, Pre-Loved etc are perhaps collection only selling sites. It's no different to putting an ad card in a local shop window, just opens to a wider market.

Anyone buying anything or homing an animal through these pages should still have their wits and common sense about them, just don't send any deposits.