Are we crazy to get a cat in Berlin?

My fiancé and I really miss our cat back in the States and are thinking about getting a cat in Berlin. When we arrived in Berlin we were not sure how long we would be able to stay so we left our cat in the care of my parents where she has been very happy. We now know that we will be living here for 6 more months, then plan on traveling for another month before heading home. A cat would greatly enhance our lives and we would love to get one but we have several dilemmas.

1) We have no idea how one usually acquires a cat here. Back home we adopted our cats through animal rescue or Craigslist. I haven't seen any cats advertised on Craigslist here and while I found one source, I am not sure if it is the best way to go about it. http://berlin.kijiji.de/f-Tiere-Katzen-W0QQCatIdZ56

2) My fiancée insists, and rightfully so, that we would need to be able to take the cat home with us because it would not be fair to give the cat a home for 6 months and then have to leave it here. Does anyone have any experience importing a cat to the United States?

3) Our final dilemma is that we would have to send the cat home one month before we arrived. Luckily my parents are amazing and have said that they would pick it up and care for it wherever it was to arrive, but I would imagine this would be an added difficulty.

If anyone has any information or ideas about any of these I would really appreciate it. We are just in the research stage and I want to be sure before we leap. Thanks so much.

Yes, you are.

If you are sure that you're only staying for 6 months you should NOT get a cat.
Getting a cat is a (cat-)life long commitment! If you're not sure that you can keep the cat for 15-18 years then one should not get a cat!

Bad idea. Bad idea all the way around. There is nothing good about your idea. Wait until you get to the US. There are more than enough cats in shelters there that you can be pretty damned picky. Flying in cargo is traumatic, vet trips for all the shots and chipping in such a short time is traumatic, three home changes inside six weeks is traumatic. Give the fucking cat a break and get one when you're somewhere a bit more permanent.

woof.

nw2berin, I know how you feel tho. I miss my two cats to death. I left behind in my old country together with my girlfriend. (Miss her as well).
But that doesn't mean I'll go pick up a comfort-cat (or girlfriend) just like that!

You just have to accept the situation.

I have no intention of picking up a cat to make us feel good for a little then dumping it when we leave. This is just an idea that we were exploring that I thought would be mutually beneficial in that we would love the cat and take care of it for the rest of its life and a cat that needed to be adopted would be adopted. I have recieved several posts telling me that there is not as much of a feral cat problem here which is terrific. Certaintly we want to be fair to the cat and having it vaccinated doesn't seem too cruel to me, but I do understand the complaint that a series of moves is stressful on the animal. I appreciate the input, but wish to say the criticism can be pretty rough on here after stating explicitly that the animal is in the forefront of our concerns and it is merely an idea we were trying out. Thanks for your help.

You haven't read many of the threads on this forum then...

I have, and I know. But it doesn't make it not true.

There are of course animal homes who are happy to give away pets to responsible owners. The Tierheim Berlin writes that there are currently 650 cats looking for new "Dosenöffner" (that's how cats see their owners, the one who opens the cans ).

People can also apply for "Katzen-Pflegestellen" which means taking care of a cat for a limited period of time.

My response was pretty goddamned restrained as well as being informative as to exactly why it's such a bad idea.

woof.

You might consider acting as cat-sitters while you are still here. You have all the joy of taking care of a cat without the headache of what to do with it when you leave, and you are helping others.

amazingly restrained, you have a soft spot for cat "owners", eh?

As Rainy Days said, most animal shelters are more than full, so they often look for people who have experience in caring for a cat and who give the cat a foster home for a while, often those are cats that have been treated very badly and are traumatized. Could you "handle" such a cat?

Leasing

Really bad idea. 6 months is hardly long to wait to go back to your own cat. Also if you did take a new cat home with you, how do you know it will get on with your old one?

Yeah, your old cat probably doesn't speak a word of German!

Dunno Sarabyrd, maybe they will really hit it off and there will be some awesome bilingual kittens

I love cats and I'm all for finding homes for them, but I say it's not a good idea. You are only here for 6 months, and then you are leaving. Cats take time to adjust to your surroundings. It's a lot of stress for the cat to have it adjust to it's new home, then fly it alone to the US and leave it with people it sees as strangers, then come back and move it yet again into your new place. It's also not easy to get animals abroad these days. You have to do more than vaccinate them. They have to have kind of an ID chip in their ear now that has their vaccination history in it. All this is not cheap and it's a lot of hassle for 6 months. I'd say wait until you are more settled.

I love my cat, but I wouldn't have dreamed of having one unless I knew I was staying. Whoever said 'catsit' was onto something. Also I know a girl in the US that fosters pets. She rescues them from shelters and finds homes for them. If you have the time and patience maybe you could try that?

Fully agreed. Catsitting or temporary Katzen-Pflege would be an alternative. Or maybe you could help out at an animal shelter to be around cats.

There are ways to be involved with animals without actually owning them. Here at the Riem Animal Shelter, they are always looking for people to come and take their dogs for walks. When my older sister lived near Nürnberg, she was involved with a project where she got feral (or at least not socialized) cats/kittens from a shelter and basically tamed them, at which point they were able to be placed permanently. Your love of animals is a good thing, but I think Bad Doggie had some good points. I also think the 6 months will really fly by. If you don't get a cat here you save yourself the stress of adoption, vet visits, shipping the cat alone across the ocean...Think of it as a six month vacation from the responsibility of pet-ownership -- you can stay out late, go on long trips, all without worrying about your little one.

You guys are so much more innovative than me. =) But I guess someone had to do the initial nagging. ;)

Best option as suggested is to offer foster care for kitties from a teirheim. They usually are looking for peoeple to look after ctas/kittens for short periods and you still get the pleasure of having a cat or two around the house. It's a good answer without the issue of exporting them back to the US; which could be costly.

Crazy yes how could you think of such a thing...a fate worse than the gates of hell taking a cat to the US imagine the trauma of the poor wee bugger.Even though I imagine the cat would be the envy of all the others in its hood back in the states,the coolest,fittest, and the most handsome,compared to all the FAT CATS in the states.