Many students like the idea of having a house pet for the school months. Since there are so many cats around, it is quite easy for a student to adopt or purchase a kitten or a cat. These animals are given a home in the first couple months of school, and have learned to live with the warmth of an owner. But the issue is when students leave and cannot take their pet home with them. Cats are left un-neutered fending for themselves on the streets of London. The problem of stray cats around the beautiful city is only multiplying.

Florine Morrison, founder of the registered charity Animal Outreach, said, “Every year when students leave the city, there is an increase in the number of cats found.” This is an important problem for the neighbour, the student and most importantly the cat. Morrison said that people living in student-heavy neighbourhoods find cats giving birth to kittens under their porches, meowing at their windows for food or walking around starved and diseased.

It's possible that students do not realize that dumping cats or any animal on the streets is illegal, and they can be charged for it. Morrison suggested that students should consider fostering a pet if they have the desire to have one during school. Fostering a pet means you can keep the animal for a set time that fits your availability, and give it back to the shelter or foster home when you can no longer keep it.

Morrison offered these honest words directed to anyone thinking about leaving their housecat homeless: “Consider if you get caught, but most importantly consider the animal. An animal that is used to being cared for and loved and is put outside on the streets to fend for itself is not going to survive.”

Before you go ahead and take on the ownership of any animal, think about the long-term consequences. If your family will not allow your house pet to come home with you when school is done, then don't adopt — foster instead.