[MadlyHatter]

Four years ago (a year before I left for University) I got a kitten (now a cat) and she has always been my cat as opposed to a family cat like our other two, she eats and sleeps in my room, even her litter box was in here before she learned to go outside, but now I've finished uni I'm moving out; however I'm only moving into my next house for a year (In the midlands of Britain), as a way to just find my feet, and living with two friends, and then I'll be moving again to live on my own in another completely different place. I don't know whether I should take my cat with me? Its always been the thing that as soon as I move out I'm taking her, and my parents keep reminding me, but I don't know whether to ask them to keep her until I have a permanent home, which will break my heart but this isn't about me, or whether to risk her being unsettled for the next few years. I mean there is a chance she'd be absolutely fine with moving around, but I'm not sure; I don't want to leave her again because this time its for a whole year, not just for a few months at a time where I come home every other weekend anyway. But I will if people think it isn't fair to move a cat around so often.

[smoothy]

Its your cat... not your parents to take care of... take it with you... it will adjust to a new location. It would be unfair to expect your parents to feed and take care of it.

[hheath541]

No, abandoning your cat for a year because you don't want the move to upset her, isn't fair to her. What if your plan to move to a permanent home is delayed? Would you just leave her for the two, three, five years it might take before you move again? What if something happens that makes your parents unable to care for her? A million things can happen in a year to change plans.

I have cats. Most of them, I have had since their birth. I would never leave them somewhere while I moved out, especially for an entire year. They are mine, and I am theirs, and we need each other.