After her husband died from a heart attack before Christmas, Margaret Baker wanted some company – so she applied to adopt Lilly, a Bengal cat in a Feline Care animal shelter. However, when the charity discovered that Mrs. Baker lived on Abbey Estate in Thetford, Norfolk, they denied her application, on the grounds that she lived in too rough an area! Mrs. Baker explained, “They phoned and said due to my postcode I couldn’t have Lilly…I put the phone down and just burst into tears”.

Mrs. Baker’s daughter, Angela Rourke, calls it “discrimination”, but manager of the charity shelter, Molly Cutmore, feels otherwise; “We’ve heard reports of people training their dogs to attack cats and there have been cruelty cases on the estate…We don’t want to stop people who want one having a cat, but can’t re-home them if we think something will happen.”

Although we cat the Cat Health blog have great sympathy with Mrs. Baker, we’re on the side of the charity this time. As much as some people may want to own cats, it is the safety of the cat that is of paramount importance and cat welfare charities cannot be expected to give cats to people who live in areas that have been deemed unsafe. Owning a cat is not a right, it’s a privilege – some areas simply aren’t suitable and that’s too bad.