u/DRGNMSTR7

TL;DR: Our scared 7-year-old outdoor cat has lived her whole life on one large residential campus, and that environment may be impossible to recreate for her. We have to leave by the end of June, couldn’t find anyone suitable to adopt her, and now we’re torn between taking her with us or leaving her in familiar territory with imperfect care.

Hi cat-favouring people, I need help thinking through a genuinely difficult cat decision. Apologies in advance, this post got a bit long.

So we have a female calico, around 7 years old, neutered. Let’s call her Beetle.

She was born and raised in the same large residential campus-type environment where we're currently living and has lived here her whole life of seven years, and with us for the last two of the four years we've been here, jumping from cat-parent to cat-parent. She is indoor/outdoor (honestly more outdoor though) and knows the area, trees, smells, escape routes, other cats (kinda, although she hates them and they chase and bully her), safe spots, danger spots, the whole ecosystem.

Now my wife just resigned from her job in March. She’s pretty done with this role, entirely burnt out, doesn’t want to continue here anymore, and is looking for her next opportunity. But because of this, we do have to leave the campus, because our housing is tied to her current job. We basically have to leave the campus by the end of June.

Then came the decision on what to do with the cat.

Our first instinct was to leave her here. She is an outdoor cat, she knows this territory, and we were worried that moving her might give her severe anxiety (and as people who live with anxiety, we preferred to not have her engage with it lol, anxiety is a 0/10, would not recommend). She may specifically need a quieter, gated, campus-like environment to be able to function safely and we may not honestly get that again for quite a while. If we move to a more urban, open, noisy, traffic-heavy, dog-heavy, or unfamiliar setting, I’m worried it could really mess with her head and safety.

And she really needs the outdoors, she does NOT do well staying indoors only.

She had a pretty serious injury in Dec of 2024, likely from jumping down from a tree or getting cut on bark. She needed surgery and stitches and the doctor recommended we keep her indoors to protect the surgical site from infections. So during recovery, she had to stay inside the house for about 2 weeks.

And she absolutely HATED staying indoors because she needed to go outside to pee and poop. She refused to poop indoors for 4 days straight because she hates the litter box that much, she would just sit still every 2 hours trying to hold in her poop (only finally went when she just couldn't do that any longer). First thing she did after finally being allowed outside again was catch and eat a bird. So yeah, lol.

We tried finding another family or teacher on campus to adopt her, but couldn’t find anyone. The cat parents already have cats, and the animal lovers without pets were mostly thinking of getting dogs. And she doesn't reeeaaaally get along with other animals.

There is another cat she grew up around, this cat is actually her sister (same litter), but even that cat bullies her a bit. When Beetle sees another cat, she runs, which makes the other cat chase her more. And when chased, she runs up trees. So she spends a good time up in dem sky gardens and we thought finding her a cat parent here might fix that scene, but no dice so far.

We also asked her previous cat parent, who is still on campus, if he could adopt her back. He’s not too keen. He has a baby and doesn’t want to keep Beetle around the baby, even though she is very gentle and the baby comes and plays with her every day. So that part feels a little odd to me. We know he can probably still feed her, but he may not want to keep her inside his house or properly take responsibility for her. Thing is, she also has food anxiety (I think) from the constant and inconsistent house switching (I think). So we also considered this set up because it felt like a decent compromise — at least she'd get fed regularly.

And she hates carriers and travelling to the vet which is 90 minutes away, but this cat parent has in the past handled at least some of the more concerning situations and taken her to the doctor's.

So I was first leaning toward leaving her with this setup. But my wife strongly feels we should seriously consider taking her with us and now I’m also softening up to the idea. She says Beetle is happy with us, and would settle in.

So the actual question is: should we take her with us, or leave her here under the care (sort of) of her older cat parent in the hopes someone else adopts her?

I’m honestly confused. I don’t want to fuck up the cat’s life just because we want her with us, but once we make the decision we can't unmake it, not gonna be able to easily come back to this campus/school to bring her back. We're really trying to think this through properly, because we're finding it hard to predict what kinda impact taking her out of this campus will have on her.

And on top of all that, we may also have to move multiple times in the coming few months:

* From current campus home

* To my wife's family home

* To a temporary (2-3 month) stay at a friend’s place before we finalize a house

* To our own temporary place till we figure out where my wife's next opportunity is (I work remotely)

* To finally another move next year because of a new job/school change for my wife once she secures that next opportunity

The multiple moves make the problem so much worse.

I'm pretty sure (although less so with each passing day) if we have to leave her we'll probably / most likely emotionally recover once we settle in at a new place and get another cat. Plus, I still logically think she should stay, I'm sure some future teacher will adopt her, a lot of animal loving teachers come and go here.

But if no cats on campus like her and no one else on campus is ready to take her on in their house at least immediately (or ever, who really knows), I don't know what her quality of life is gonna be like. And changing from house to house I think has also given her trust issues and a bit of separation anxiety, and she took a long time to really trust and not be jumpy around us.

I finally made a pros and cons list using ChatGPT (just uploaded whatever I typed above into the AI and asked it summarise, and the list also still didn't really help narrow anything down whatsoever lol, but sharing it below). Haven't shown any of it to my wife yet, don't wanna overload her with thoughts until I have something more concrete. But planning to show her whatever you guys say in the comments below.

Reasons to take Beetle with us:

* She trusts us most and seems calmer with us, so leaving may hurt her emotionally.

* We can feed her consistently and monitor her health, stress, fleas, injuries, and toilet habits.

* We can get her vet care if needed, instead of relying on someone half-invested.

* No one has agreed to properly adopt her, so staying may mean unstable care.

* Other cats already bully her there, so the campus is familiar but not fully safe.

* If she adjusts, she may eventually have a safer long-term life with us.

Reasons not to take Beetle with us:

* The campus is her whole world, so leaving may break her sense of safety.

* She knows the territory, escape routes, and cat politics, so she can currently navigate danger.

* She is very outdoorsy and hates the litter box, so indoor life may make her miserable or unhealthy.

* She may need a quiet gated place, which we may not find soon.

* Urban noise, roads, dogs, crowds, carriers, and multiple moves may overwhelm her.

* If she escapes somewhere new, she may not find her way back.

* Taking her may be for our comfort, not hers, and that scares me.

Would really appreciate some advice from the reddit hive mind on how to approach this situation ❤️