Fostering

First of all, I’m *not* a Crazy Cat Lady. Sort of. Well, I’m definitely not a hoarder, that much I can say for certain! We rehome our kittens, and we have a limit to how many we’ll have in the house at one time. See? Totally not crazy!

I foster kittens, and my specialty is bottle babies, although I usually end up with some a little older than that each year. I used to do fostering through rescue organizations, but now I do it on my own. We’re looking into becoming a small non-profit rescue organization so that we can pull animals from the shelters ourselves, and get discounts at the vet for animal health care.

A typical fostering happens something like this.

I get a call from Amanda (my dear vet-tech friend and “kitten pusher”), or from my vet’s office, or from a friend who has a friend who found 1 to 6 kittens, and they’re really tiny, and do I want to take them on.
I ask my wonderful husband, Aidon, what he thinks, and he says “whatever you want, sure, if you want to,” and then I say “sure, I’ll take them on.”
I take kitten delivery, and start getting them acclimated to bottle-feeding and human touch and love.
About half the time they run into some scary episode or three where I have to either medicate them, give them sub-q fluids, tube-feed them, enema them, or even resuscitate them. I even have an oxygen machine that’s saved a couple of tiny lives. Most of the time they make it, some of the time they don’t. Those are rough days and nights.
I, and my family, give them a LOT of love, and we create REALLY sweet and affectionate kittens. They pretty much all meet our (large and friendly) dog, so they tend not to be bothered by gentle dogs once they’re used to them.

I take a lot of pictures, and post them on the internet. They get old enough, and we start looking to rehome them. Sometimes I have kittens from multiple litters at the same time.
Someone decides that a kitten (or two!) should be theirs and talks to me about giving them a forever home. They meet, and if it all works out, the kitten goes on to live a wonderful happy affectionate life, and I get updates and photos!

There are lots of variations on this theme, but pretty much, that’s how it goes. We pay for all the expenses ourselves, so while we don’t, at this time, insist on donations for our kittens, we do accept them.

Our adoption requirements are pretty simple:

Your kitten must be spayed/neutered. There are far too many unwanted kittens in the world, and my kittens won’t perpetuate this problem.
Your kitten must be indoor only.
Your kitten must never be declawed.
I must approve you to be their forever home, so no one is guaranteed a kitten – but I’m pretty reasonable. Also, I will ALWAYS take a kitty back if needed. Our babies are loved, and I don’t want any of them getting dumped on the street, or in a shelter if you can’t care for them any more for any reason.