PLEASE NOTE:

All surrender requests, including those for kittens and mothers, are carefully reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Please allow up to 72 hours for phone responses and up to 48 hours for email replies.

To help us better manage the process, we strongly encourage submitting all surrender requests via email to intake@hartofme.org. Requests received by phone call or sent to our info@hartofme.org e-mail experience an additional delay

We always accept HART returns. Please e-mail our medical manager, b.dobbs@hartofme.org if you have a HART cat you can no longer keep.

If your surrender request is an emergency, please note this in the header and in the e-mail. Please provide the name(s) of your pet(s), age(s), sex(es), reason for the request, your location and contact information. This helps us cut down on the process time.

Surrendering Your Cat

HART understands that surrendering a cat can be a difficult decision to make. We carefully evaluate each surrender request. Due to our shelter's limited resources, we cannot accommodate all surrender requests. We recommend that you contact your local registered animal shelter before contacting HART for suggestions. A list of shelters can be found here. 

Please Note: We always accept any cats or kittens that were adopted from HART (read below for more details).

RETURNING A CAT ADOPTED FROM HART: As stated in our adoption contract, if you can no longer able to keep a cat or kitten that was adopted from HART, we require that they are returned to HART. “Once a HART cat, always a HART cat”. Please e-mail our medical manager, b.dobbs@hartofme.org or call and leave a voicemail at 207-489-9526 to arrange the return of the cat to the shelter.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

  • Stray cats or feral cats: Contact your local Animal Control Officer/department. They are normally reached by calling the non-emergency police number for your town. There is a list of animal control contacts on the State of Maine Website.

  • Other surrenders: Our shelter is an open-concept shelter, where cats are housed together in rooms.  Our cats are only adopted to indoor-only homes. Cats that only live outside or do not like other cats, may do better in a different shelter environment. A Surrender form must be completed and a surrender fee is assessed when a cat enters the shelter.

  • HART does not recommend posting your pet as FREE on Facebook or other unscreened locations. 
    To try to re-home your pet without entering a shelter, we recommend, the two organizations below. Both screen all potential homes and allows you to be involved with rehoming your pet. 

QUESTIONS? If you have questions regarding a surrender, please contact our Intake Coordinator by emailing us at intake@hartofme.org. Questions are normally answered in 48-72 hours. Messages left on our main phone 207-829-4116, will have an additional delay for response.