the woes and joys of fostering

[ellag]

hi, i thought i would start a thread where kitty foster parents can post about anything about fostering. stories with happy endings, problems we face, sad stories, foster failures (we all have 1 or 2) and about how much joy fostering brings us. hopefully that will encourage more people to take the leap who have been thinking about doing it.

i got my first foster baby about a year ago. he was 8 weeks old and he's still here

 we had an adopter after only 6 days but it was my husband--who said we couldn't keep any fosters--that declared he wasn't going anywhere. then i had a litter 0f 4 5 week old babies who were really sick with coccidia. i promised the runt if he would fight, he could stay and stay he did. he's 10 months old and weighs 10 lbs! those are the only 2 i have kept.

a few weeks ago i got a gorgeous, sweet flame point male siamese. he's about 1-2 and he was scared to death. he hid under the bed for a week but we finally got him to join the family and he was doing really well so the rescue said he had to go to petco. he was adopted right away so i was really happy for him and then i get a message that the family returned him because he wasn't friendly enough and had been hiding under the bed (they only had him a week). so guess where he is now?

very frustrating when people give up after only a week. i guess people think when they adopt a cat it's going to jump in their lap and purr away with no issues whatsoever!

they took one of our 4 month old kittens in exchange. i hope he's friendly enough..

it is hard to let them go when you've had them a while. i foster for a fairly small rescue that gets most of it's cats and dogs from county animal control that is a high-kill facility. without fosters these cats and dogs would be killed..

anymore fosters here?

 

[kittens mom]

I wish I could personally thank the fosters for our Little Mercy. I reached out to the city shelter in hopes of making at least blind contact. I wanted to thank them for the wonderful job they did in raising her and find out if there were any baby pictures of her.

There Probably should be a Foster Cat Parents Day to celebrate those that can raise and release to a new home.

I really do appreciate the time and love that went into raising our little girl.

 

[theyremine]

I foster for a small no-kill rescue.   My first 2 feral kittens were 6+ months old when I got them.   They were trapped at 4-5 months for TNR but were sick with lung worm and so were kept to be treated.  Then they came down with a bad case of herpes.   That's when I got them.   The male was very aggressive and protective of his sister.  They were foster failures; they live with me and are very loving kitties, but only to me.   I vowed not to foster again.

Last spring I became aware of 4 feral kittens but our rescue had no foster home for them, so I took them.  Our rescue allows the fosters to adopt out of their homes, to have last approval of applications and to screen applicants if so desired.   I got to review all approved applications on them and choose.   I further screened the applicants via phone..   The pair of tabbies were adopted almost immediately.   But my black and tuxedo kittens were not adopted until they were 6 months old.  I was prepared to keep them until I found the right home.  

I feel bad for Kittens Mom as both she and the foster home have lost out.  My experience with these kittens and their families has been very rewarding. Just today I spoke with the tabbies' mom and they are now over 10 months old!  And I get pictures regularly from both pairs' "parents".

I did have one bad experience,  an older cat whose unfit owner claimed him.   Legally, there was nothing the rescue could do.

Now I have two new fosters and I'm looking forward to meeting their future families.

 

[molly92]

This thread is a great idea! I fostered when I was living with my parents and couldn't own a cat because of my dad's allergies. But I could keep fosters in a separate room. I started when a 5 month old kitten started showing up in our yard. He was just skin and bones and a vet visit confirmed that he had just about every parasite in the book.

 

Stray Kitty 2014-12-10 001.JPG

• molly92
• Jan 24, 2016

He was very scared of course, but he was weak enough that he let me do just about anything to him-baths, medicine, etc. I called him Merlin because his fur looked like a scraggly old wizard. After a few days I tried petting him for the first time, and he just started purring so loudly for such a little cat! It took a couple months to get him healthy, neutered, and socialized.

Merlin 2014-12-23 026.JPG

• molly92
• Jan 24, 2016

He grew into a very playful 6 month old kitten, but he still had a tremendous amount of trust in me in spite all of the medications and vet visits I'd put him through. He liked to drive my dogs nuts by poking his paw out under the crack in the door of his room. At adoptions, he was always sticking his paw into other cats' cages trying to make friends. He really needed a playmate and a whole house to run around in and the attention of a family. So I was glad when he got adopted by a family with another cat and two well-behaved little boys who would be content to play with him all day long. Although I still miss him sometimes, I know he's very happy and having a great time. I fostered more cats after that, most of which were owner surrenders of some sort so the bonding was not as intense as it was with Merlin, but it was always so rewarding to have a foster be adopted out to a perfect home, knowing both the person and the cat were going to be very happy. 

I don't have the space to foster right now, but I probably will in the future. The experience I had with Merlin makes me think that cats can understand on some level that they're being cared for and are grateful for it, especially those that are rescued from bad circumstances.

 

[crazy4strays]

Great thread! I'm a cat foster mom. I decided to foster because I want to help cats but adopting more isn't an option. I've fostered 4 cats so far and all have been adopted. My last foster was adopted in January 23. So I've been foster free for a whole 4 weeks. They found a woman with around 30 cats who is facing eviction and we will likely get some of hers. So I'll probably be busy again soon.

It's late but I'll be back to post later!

 

[caitini]

I do short-term fostering for a rescue - basically I'll look after a foster cat when its usual fosterer goes on holiday for a bit. When I did it the first time I thought it would be really really hard to say goodbye at the end but it actually wasn't, I did miss him but I also felt it was nice for my resident cats to have their normal life back. I have two more fosters right now for a couple days. It's really interesting experiencing all the different types of cat personalities and it's nice to feel I'm giving back something to the people who give their homes so selflessly to these kitties.

 

[caitini]

(Here's a pic I took of the little cuties this morning)

SYPEw1j.jpg

• caitini
• Feb 22, 2016

 

[ellag]

this is my current foster boy, olaf:

he spent his first 2 weeks cowering under a bed but this morning i woke up with him laying beside me licking my fingers! he has the most beautiful light blue eyes! the rescue thinks he 1-2 years but he's smaller than my 2 10 month old kittens. maybe he's just a petite boy? i've never had a siamese before--is it normal for them to stay petite?

that's my lazy moe, crashed with his sisters when i first got them. he's my other "failure" that i almost lost to coccidia. he's over 10 lbs. now! he's still my favorite and still tries to nurse on my earlobe, lol.. 

 

[ellag]

well, it looks like mr. olaf is going to be my 3rd and LAST foster failure! he's very happy here and i just can't put him through the trauma of getting adopted and returned again. all my other cats love him except my calico, valentine and she doesn't really like any other cat. 

he's another member of the pride now!

 

[handsome kitty]

He looks happy!  Congrats on your new family member.

 

[crazy4strays]

I'm on my 5th and 6th foster cats. (have two here right now) My first foster cat was a beautiful medium hair calico girl with only one eye. She was transferred to the Humane Society after a short time in our home. She went out to her forever home from there. I got a petite sweet little kitten named Daisy at the beginning of October. She went to her forever home at the end of November. 

After her, I got Peaches, a Siamese mix, who hissed and snapped at me a lot. With patience and loving care, she was able to find her forever home at the end of December. At the end of December, I got Leo, a spunky orange and white kitten. He raced around all the time and was super hyper! One morning when I woke up, he had found a mouse in my kitchen and caught it!

A sweet young couple with a 4 year old son and a couple of dogs adopted Leo at our Family Farm and Home Adoption event on January 23rd.

After that, I went for almost 7 weeks without a foster! Currently, I have two fosters. About 9 days ago, I got Patches. She is a short hair calico who is pregnant. She came from an "overwhelmed Good Samaritan." In other words, a person was trying to help strays and wound up in over his head. That's a pretty common occurrence in my county. The man who had her also had 2 other pregnant females. The rescue is fostering all 3 of them. We're going to foster them until all their babies are weaned and adopted. At that point, the mamas will be spayed and returned to the owner. 

This past week, I heard about a local man who threw a box of cats on the road. Some people saw them get dumped and tried to get them to the Humane Society--where they were turned away, like normal.

Our rescue group was contacted and although we had our hands full, with 3 pregnant females and not very many cat foster homes, we accepted them. They got them into the vet's where they were checked over and neutered. I took one and one of the other cat fosters (who also had a pregnant female) took the other. I'm very pleased to be with a rescue organization that tries to help people, if at all possible.

I'm working on accustoming mine to being handled. He appears to be quite young, possibly under a year old and is very small and bony. He has beautiful medium length gray hair

 

[devviepuu]

i just last night picked up my first foster family!  a momma and two kittens.  i was really excited but also rather anxious!  but less than 24 hours in and momma's life philosophy seems to be 'why aren't you petting me right now?'  the two kittens are extremely unaccustomed to giant two-legs wandering around, so i plan to sit and pet momma in their little room (my spare bathroom, to keep them isolated from my other two cats before i try an introduction) while they can watch.  this has already paid a few dividends -- one of the kittens let me pick her up for a quick snuggle and the other granted me the sufferance to pet his majesty.  :-)

as for my permanent babies (now two years old), one of them has not a care in the world.  the other, my buddy artemis, took one sniff of me this morning, gave me a hiss to register his displeasure, and has been subtly snubbing me ever since!  cats, right?  i got all of the adults a calming collar this morning and TBH it seems to have had an immediate effect.  momma actually settled down long enough to purr and snuggle with one of her babies.

any tips for a mixed family like mine?  i do aspire to be a foster fail, but i'd like to know that i can get the kittens and their momma to a good forever home.  if i have them long enough to do a full introduction, i'd love to be able to to tell my local rescue (new york animal care & control) that they are good with other cats.

 

[devviepuu]

--whoops, spoke to soon!  momma sprung free of her isolated room and launched herself at my man artemis.  yikes!  managed to separate them and get everyone back into their corners, and got a few scratches in the process.  now have a baby gate stationed between the spare bathroom and the main bit of my apartment.  everyone seems to be calming down.

 

[ellag]

so far this lady that i got yesterday has been a joy. i named her ripley and the vet thinks she's around 2 but she looks much younger imo because she's so tiny. she barely weighs 4 lbs but i'm going to do my best to fatten her up a bit. she is super sweet and affectionate. no spay scar so she might be pregnant but she doesn't look pregnant yet. she purrs constantly and loves belly rubs. the perfect little kitty!