Griffin Goes Home

I am very happy to report that Griffin, my little gray and white baby, got adopted! He was my first socialization foster and even though he is a kitten, he was sitting in the shelter waiting for a home.

He did not get adopted quickly because he did not get along with other cats and could not go into the kitten cage. We needed to go to a home where he could be the only pet. With all the other kittens around during kitten season, he kept getting overlooked. It did not help that he spent most of his time with his back to everyone because he was afraid of the other cats.

My creative roommate made him a larger, scrapbooked cage card that explained his situation and asked people to take the time to get to know him away from the other cats. He was adopted a few days later. I am very happy for him.

Almost Empty Nest

Today I brought Arista, Darcy, Pixie, Duncan and Chica into the shelter. Pixie, Duncan and Chica have finished their medications and since they are already spayed and neutered, they will go right onto the adoption floor. Darcy and Arista are scheduled to be spayed and will go on the adoption floor as soon as they recover. That leaves me with just Tiger. (And our own three cats).

The place seems kind of empty right now because we have had so many fosters and almost all of them returned to the shelter at the same time. It is nice because it is a lot less work, but I miss them. Because of his litter box issues, Tiger is not allowed to roam the house, so we have no little ones underfoot right now.

Arista will be returning to us tonight and staying for a day or two while she recovers from her spay, but then she will go right back to go up for adoption. Both the foster people and I were concerned about Arista recovering on the adoption floor like most kittens do because she needs to be watched closely to make sure she does not have any eating issues. And of course, it is easier for the shelter if she recovers with me because then they do not have to deal with her recovering and eating a different food from everyone else at the same time.

I will not get any new fosters until we figure out what is the cause of Tiger's litter box issues. We think he might be afraid with so many other cats around, so we have been emptying my house of other fosters to see if that helps and they have also sent out a lab test on him to make sure it is not medical. Unfortunately, litter box issues like his - he has peed on my bed more than once - can prevent him from ever getting a forever home. So cross your fingers and send us good thoughts and hope that we can get this fixed.

I will update here as I hear about adoptions on my crew and will let everyone know when we do get a new kitty, but it will probably be quiet in the Animal House for a while so we can work on getting Tiger straightened out. Bye for now.

Julius - Update

Well, I dropped Julius off at the shelter for his neuter surgery on Friday and when I went in today to pick up some supplies, he had already been placed up for adoption and gone home to his forever home. I am so happy for him. Yeah Julius!

Magic is now on the adoption floor. He will not find a home as quickly because of his litter box issues. He has had a few people interested in him because of his great personality that have changed their minds once they learn about his issue. So I will cross my fingers for him and hope that someone will see that he is worth the extra effort. I will keep you posted.

Two Down, Six to Go

Two of my eight foster kitties went in to the shelter on Friday to be neutered and find their forever homes. Magic and Julius are now at the shelter and should be on the adoption floor by Monday. Darcy was supposed to go in with them, but the surgery schedule was full. I will miss them both, but had a soft spot for Julius because he had attitude. I wish my latest guys a good journey and good luck in finding their forever homes.

Looking for a Forever Home

Here are a few of my foster cats. All of them are looking for their forever homes. Some are in the shelter and some are still in my home. The shelter that I foster for is located in Massachusetts. For detailed information about each cat or kitten, click on their link. It will take you to my foster profile page where you can find out about the cat and find links to email me or to send a post to a friend.

Muffin Griffin - Adopted
Julius - Adopted Darcy - Adopted
Tiger Arista

The adoption fee for any kitten under 4 months old (all of them but Muffin) is $200. While this seems like a lot for a kitten, it covers quite a few things. It covers the surgery to spay or neuter the kitten and the shots and tests that most vets would do the first time you bring your kitten in to visit them. I do not know about other areas of the country, but around here getting the kitten fixed alone can cost you close to the $200 adoption fee.

Many of the foster kittens I have are not yet fixed due to either weight or age. However, if you adopt a kitten that is not fixed from the shelter, they will make an appointment for you to bring the kitten back for surgery when it is big enough. You are not charged anything for the surgery when you bring it in because the cost was covered in the adoption fee.

I will add pictures and links for more of my fosters when I get a chance. It is actually kind of hard to get a nice shot of a kitten's face because they never stop moving. I have four more kittens that I have not listed in this post yet because I am still trying to get photos of them. They are Magic, Pixie, Duncan, and Chica. Magic has a profile on the foster profile page. The other do not because they just recently came to my house and are too sick with the cat version of the flu to even be considered for adoption. Once they are a little better, I will add their profiles.

Now I don't really expect to get a lot of people contacting me actually interested in adopting the cats I have as fosters. What this post and the profile page is more about it letting people know how many different types of cats and kittens are in your local shelters or foster programs just waiting for their forever home. If you are considering adding a pet to your family, please go to your local shelter or rescue group. The animal there really need someone like you.

Crazy Cat Lady

It's official. I am now doomed to be known as a crazy cat lady. This is because I just turned 36, I'm single with no children and have 11 cats in my house. 11 cats? Did I just say 11 cats? Yes I did. I should have 12, but one is at the vet due to health problems.

I realize that I have lost my mind and need help but I am not sure there is any hope for me. :o)

Ok, here is the rundown of why I currently have 11 cats. My roommate has one cat (Fidget). I have two. Sadie, my 13 year old girl and Doyle, my former foster kitten. That makes three cats. The others are foster kittens.

First I have Arista. She is the kitten that stopped eating on me and had to be force fed for a while. Now, with a change in food, she is doing fine and just needs to gain some more weight. Next came Darcy and Julius. They are a socialization foster.

The Friday before the July 4th holiday I went into the shelter to get food and checked in with the foster people to let them know that I was actually going to be around for the holiday in case they got any "emergency fosters" that needed a place for the holiday weekend. Turns out they did. They asked me to take home Magic, Tiger and Dandelion. They had just that day come in from another foster home to be adopted out because they were 8 weeks. What was not mentioned until they were dropped off was that they had some issues with going outside the litter box. One kitten was also too small to be fixed yet. And the foster family they were with was leaving that day for vacation and could not take them back.

Well a kitten with litter box issues can not be adopted because they will just be returned. Since I have some LB issues around my senior cat due to her age, I have experience with problems like this and the supplies to deal with it. I agreed to take them home for the weekend and see if I could figure out what the litter box problem really was. It was a real good thing that I did. The most common reason for a cat going outside the litter box is a health problem. Withing 24 hours I realized that one of the kittens (Dandelion) had blood in his urine. I brought him back to the shelter as soon as they reopened after the holiday to be looked at by the vet. He has a bad UTI (urinary tract infection) which can be very dangerous for a kitten. He will stay at the shelter until this clears up and he stops having blood in his urine.

(For those of you keeping count we are now at 9 cats).

On the 9th, I took my niece to the shelter to visit. She likes to go in and visit with Muffin who was our foster when she was caring for her kittens. She is Doyle's mother. Mother cats do not get adopted out quickly so we visit her often. While I was there I saw that two of the foster kittens that I had recently returned to them to be adopted out were still there waiting for a home. I was not surprised that Griffin was still there because he does not like other cats. The fact the Lulu was still there was very surprising to me. She was adorable and great with kids. A kitten like that usually would go in less than 48 hours.

I went out back to check on Dandelion and could tell that they were packed to the rafters with cats, many of them kittens. I mentioned that I was surprised that Lulu was still there and they told me that people were not adopting kittens quickly like they had in the past and that they were running out of space for them.

Since I had just brought Lulu in from foster earlier in the week and still had her sister, Arista, at home, I offered to take her back home with me if they needed to free up space. They talked about it and asked me how many I currently had in the house. Lulu was already on the adoption floor and was likely to get adopted that weekend because she was so good with kids, but they had cages full of kittens in the holding area that were fixed and ready to go. There was just no room on the adoption floor. And since they had so little space, they had to put more kittens in a cage than they normally would which leads to them getting sick. (Think of how quickly the flu goes through a school. It is the same concept). Normally the shelter would not ask anyone to take on more than what I already had but they are desperate right now.

Being the sucker that I am, I went home that day with three more kittens. They are all fixed and old enoughto be adopted out. They just need a place to stay and someone to feed them until space opens up on the adoption floor. They are sneezing and get some meds as a precaution, but they are not much work. So Pixie, Chica and Duncan joined our foster crew.

So there you have it. 12 cats. I know I am crazy. But from what I could see, the shelter is soon going to have to start turning kittens away due to lack of space. Having this many in my house is a temporary thing because of the combination of kitten season and a bad economy.

Of course the real heroes in all of this are my roommate and her husband who are actually the owners of this house and have been amazing in putting up with me and my animal craziness even though it can be annoying at times. They did not even threaten to boot me out the door when I reminded them that we had agreed to watch my sister's Shitzu this weekend so her husband could take her away for her 40th birthday.

So this coming weekend it will be 2 adult cats, 10 kittens, one freaked out 5lb. dog, a thrilled 4 year old, a tired foster mother and two roommates plotting the foster mother's early demise. I will check back in with an update and pictures soon. :o)

Gaining Ground

Arista has started gaining weight again! This is making me very happy. She spent a few days at the shelter being force fed to keep her from losing even more weight. It was decided that she did not like the "good" food that the shelter provides and so she just stopped eating. Normally, a kitten would eventually eat any food if they got hungry enough, but she was little to begin with and so when she lost so much weight, she lost interest in eating even when she had the food she liked.

She came home to us here on Sunday and I continued to force feed her with a syringe. And let me tell you, pureed cat food smells nasty. It also gets all over you and the kitten when you try to hold the kitten down and squirt the food into its mouth.

Thankfully, after a long week of doing this two times a day, Arista decided to give us both a break and just eat the Friskies that I got for her. Of course, now her sister doesn't want the "good" food either so I have been feeding them both Friskies. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against Friskies, it is just not what the shelter uses and so it makes feeding time harder for them when not all of their animals are eating some version of Science Diet.

Both Arista and Lulu were surrendered at close to 8 weeks old. Their owner kept two kittens from their litter and surrendered four to the shelter. Arista and Lulu were too small to be adopted right out like their litter mates. They most likely were eating Friskies at their owner's home and for some reason, Arista could not adjust to the change. I am optimistic that she will continue to get bigger now that we know the issue.

So the moral of this story for pet owners is - if you have to surrender an animal to a shelter or rescue group, give them all the information you can. Something as small as a food flavor preference can become a big issue once they get to the shelter.

And the moral for foster parents is - if you are going to have to force feed a kitten pureed cat food, just be thankful that your new washer and drier were delivered last Friday - cause you are going to need it.