Daisy

You might want to try Petfinder . They have links to animal shelters nation-wide. You can post ads there, too, I believe.

I got my Nellie from there. She had a lot of pictures and a long, loving biography.

Good luck.

MzNeko

You've got my sympathy - that's such a hard choice.

If you did decide to try keeping them, might I suggest one of these...

I'm seriously considering getting one. We have three indoor-only cats in our small apartment and it would make box-cleaning time so much easier. Our cats have been indoor-only from the beginning, so they didn't have any adjustment to make.

Daleth

I had another thought to add. One of my cats is a feral cat. She was born wild and lived about 2 years that way. When we brought her in, I never thought she'd adapt to being an indoor-only pet. 3 years later, she's as content as any animal I've ever known.

If you decide to make the move with your pets, they may adapt just fine.

Luck!
Dal

wildernesse

My cousin recently roomed with a person who adopted cats and then found them good homes over the internet. At one point, they had five indoor cats--I believe all but one were adopted.

The roommate posted their pictures on some internet site, and, get this, sold the cats to good homes. She would have email correspondence with the new owner for a while, to get a good feeling about them. Someone actually drove from Florida to North Carolina and paid over $100 for one of these cats. (I'm a cat lover, but this left me flabbergasted.) Of course, the payment was really more of a reimbursement for vet fees.

One of my childhood best friend's mother had something like 30 cats--indoor/outdoor--because she volunteered at the pet shelter, and whenever they were going to put a cat down, she would adopt it. She kept in touch with some of the previous owners who could no longer keep their cats (one particular little old lady had to give up her cat when she moved to a nursing home for instance). Talk about cat people! They took good care of their cats, well fed and vet appointments and all of them "fixed".

So, you might ask around at some of the pet shelters to see if any "nutty" people like these exist in your area. Good chance that they do.

--tibac

wildsimian

If this makes you feel any better .......

When I decided to adopt a kitten I went to my local animal shelter, but I became so smitten with an older cat (she was 4 at the time) I wouldn't have dared leave her behind that day.

So there are people out there who will adopt older cats.

----

Also ... about 10 years ago we moved from NY to Florida. We brought our German Shep with us, but unfortunately she was not accustomed to the tropical Florida environment. The bugs drove her crazy, and she developed the mange so badly that we ended up having to put her down. She was miserable. If I had to do it again I would have put her up for adoption.

Sometimes it's hard to determine the "right" thing to do. Go with your instincts, know you made the best possible decision that you could, and don't be too hard on yourself either way.