My Foster Cats and Kittens
I began fostering cats and kittens for A.D.O.P.T., a no-kill animal shelter, back in May of 2008. Six months prior to that (a week before Thanksgiving), I was laid off from my job after working at the company for 17 years. With all the extra time on my hands I decided to start volunteering at A.D.O.P.T., first on poop patrol, cleaning litter boxes and feeding the cats and kittens at the shelter, then helping out with maintaining our off site cat facility at a local PetSmart and doing adoptions on the weekend. I had indicated a desire to help out with fostering and got my first opportunity several months later when I was asked to foster a young cat that had been adopted but whose new owner was suddenly called out of town before she could pick him up. It was only for a week and he was a sweet, quiet little boy that loved to snuggle. It was a super easy foster situation and he was absolutely no trouble at all.
I can't say the same for my second set of fosters....12 kittens between 4 and 6 weeks of age. Yeah, I jumped full on into Crazy Cat Lady mode. From then on, I'd had kittens and young cats on and off year round. The last set of fosters I cared for from A.D.O.P.T. arrived at my house in June 2011. They included a mamma kitty named Electra and her six adorable kittens. Electra and all but two of the kittens had been adopted by October (I actually adopted one of them). I took the two remaining kittens back to the shelter where they were eventually adopted together.
There are other shelters and rescues in the area, like Feral Fixers who I have also fostered for (see Summer 2012) in addition to the Fox Valley Animal Welfare League where I'm now volunteering as the "social media" person (i.e. I manage the website, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest accounts). FVAWL isn't a shelter/rescue group. They area non-profit operating a low cost spay/neuter clinic and help to get homeless cats/dogs into foster care and no-kill shelters. When I am foster free, I've been opening up the kitten room for the resident cats. It gives them more room for litter boxes and food. Plus, it's helping Duncan keep his weight down as he's too scared to go into the room (got chastised by too many mamma kitties who didn't appreciate his attention to their kittens) so that limits the amount of food he has access to. It also seems to help lower tensions between the other cats and gives Arwen and Caitlyn more space and more cat trees to create safe havens for themselves.
I can't say the same for my second set of fosters....12 kittens between 4 and 6 weeks of age. Yeah, I jumped full on into Crazy Cat Lady mode. From then on, I'd had kittens and young cats on and off year round. The last set of fosters I cared for from A.D.O.P.T. arrived at my house in June 2011. They included a mamma kitty named Electra and her six adorable kittens. Electra and all but two of the kittens had been adopted by October (I actually adopted one of them). I took the two remaining kittens back to the shelter where they were eventually adopted together.
There are other shelters and rescues in the area, like Feral Fixers who I have also fostered for (see Summer 2012) in addition to the Fox Valley Animal Welfare League where I'm now volunteering as the "social media" person (i.e. I manage the website, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest accounts). FVAWL isn't a shelter/rescue group. They area non-profit operating a low cost spay/neuter clinic and help to get homeless cats/dogs into foster care and no-kill shelters. When I am foster free, I've been opening up the kitten room for the resident cats. It gives them more room for litter boxes and food. Plus, it's helping Duncan keep his weight down as he's too scared to go into the room (got chastised by too many mamma kitties who didn't appreciate his attention to their kittens) so that limits the amount of food he has access to. It also seems to help lower tensions between the other cats and gives Arwen and Caitlyn more space and more cat trees to create safe havens for themselves.