Cat Rescue is a 1-4 player co-operative card game. On a turn, you take a cat from the street or the rescue home, then slide it into the cat shelter. When three or four cats of the same color are in a row or column, these cat cards in the middle are flipped over and now ready for adoption. When the flipped-over cats are pushed out of the shelter, they are adopted to their new loving home. The game ends when the deck is depleted or when the rescue home has three cats. Players then receive a "cat rescue" title based on the number of cats they helped get adopted.

The second edition of Cat Rescue includes a competitive mode in which each player scores individually for cat cards that they flip over and that they push out of the shelter, gaining points for adopted cats and losing points for those moved back into the street.