Content policy

• Breeding ads. No advertising litters, stud service, or a cattery. There is no shortage of cats here.
• Selling animals. No sale listings, no auctions, no "rehoming fee" posts. Adoption through a legitimate shelter or rescue is welcome; a price tag is not.
• Exact home addresses. Not yours, not anyone else's, not in a photo caption. Map pins are snapped to roughly a block on purpose, so don't defeat that by typing the address into the text.
• Other people's private information. Phone numbers, addresses, workplaces, or screenshots of private messages, posted without that person's consent.
• Animal cruelty content. Do not post cruelty for shock value. If you are reporting suspected cruelty, contact animal control and tell us at hello@209cats.comrather than posting graphic images.
• Harassment, slurs, and pile-ons. Disagree about trapping methods all you like. Do not go after the person.
• Naming and shaming private individuals. Accusing a neighbor of dumping or abuse in public does not get the cat helped and does expose you to real legal risk. Report it to us and to animal control instead.
• Spam and off-topic commerce. This is not a marketplace, a job board, or a place for unrelated promotion.
• Veterinary misinformation. Sharing what worked for your cat is fine. Telling someone to skip treatment, or pushing a home remedy for a medical emergency, is not.

• Lost, found, and sighting reports, with a clear photo and the area.
• Foster, transport, supplies, and TNR requests, including the awkward urgent ones.
• Cat profiles, so the neighborhood already knows what your cat looks like before anything goes wrong.
• Local resources: low-cost clinics, trappers who will lend gear, shelters worth calling.
• Wins. Reunions are the best day on here.

Verified rescue organizations may post adoptable cats and link to their own donate page. Those links go to the rescue, never to us: 209 Cats takes no cut and has nothing to sell you. Individuals rehoming a personal cat should work with a shelter or rescue rather than advertising the cat here.

Every post, comment, cat profile, help request, and report has a report button. Reports go to a moderation queue that a human reviews.

• Most first problems get the content removed and a note explaining why.
• Repeat or deliberate violations lose posting access.
• Anything involving a threat to a person or an animal is removed immediately, and we will cooperate with animal control or law enforcement.
• You can block another user at any time, which hides their content from you.

Think we got it wrong? Reply to the notice or email hello@209cats.com. We would rather reinstate a good post than lose a good neighbor.

Filing a report for a cat that is not lost, or a sighting you did not see, wastes the time of people who drop what they are doing to go look. Please do not. See the lost & found guidance before filing if you are unsure.