The kittens are coming, the kittens are coming!

That's right folks, kitten season is bearing down on us with alarming speed. If you haven't done so yet, please get your pets spayed or neutered right away since breeding season is upon us. Even though it is still cold out, the shelter is starting to take in quite a few pregnant cats and even some young kittens. I know of at least two foster homes that have just recently had a mother cat give birth, the shelter has a dog that just had puppies and I myself currently have 5 kittens that are about 7 weeks old right now. And boy are they cute!

I took these kittens home the first week in February. They were born to a feral mother and caught by a good Samaritan who brought them to us. That person also arranged for a feral cat rescue to trap, spay and release the mom cat to avoid any more kittens in the future. Since they were so young, they needed to learn to eat solid food which they have done, although they are quite messy about it. I have one girl and four boys and they are all part Siamese. There colorings are black, black and white, and cream colored with chocolate points. There names are Ranger, Riley, Panda, Neko, and Nora.

Of course, we apparently can't have a foster without at least some drama and this litter is no exception. This time it was our fault and an accident. Riley, one of the black and white kittens is very social and wants to be with you at all times. Unfortunately, this led to him jumping up underneath my roommate as she was sitting down. So Riley got sat on. I rushed him right to the shelter because he appeared to be bleeding from the mouth and I was concerned about internal injuries. Thankfully, it turns out it was most likely a bloody nose and other than being sore for a day or two he had no lasting effects from being sat on. (Except for getting the nickname of "Splat" from my roommate's husband).

So here are our current babies:


This is Riley right after he came back from the shelter to get checked out after being sat on. Doesn't he look so small? But don't let this picture fool you. Once he recovered from this incident, he became a high energy, feisty kitten who is in to every thing.


This is Neko. He climbed into Paige's dollhouse one day and sat down like he was coming over for tea. He is one of the most timid of the kittens. He tends to hang back and let the more outgoing ones check things out before he ventures near. He is also the most vocal, with the typical Siamese meow.


This is Nora. She is the only girl in the group and she likes to sit in my laundry basket. She may be the only girl, but she is a tough chick who definitely holds her own with her brothers. She, like Neko, has kept her blue eyes as she has gotten older and looks very Siamese.


This is Panda. He is the smallest of the group and very clingy. He is at the top of a cat climbing tower in my room in this picture. Even though he is the smallest, he was one of the first to figure out how to get down from the climbing tree because as soon as a person comes in the room, he wants to rush down to climb on the person and either sit on their lap or on their shoulder. He also needs lost of cuddles and foster "mom cat" attention.

The other kitten is named Ranger. He is often off on his own and is the bravest in the bunch. When the other four were just deciding if it was safe to step out of the room they spent the first week in, Ranger was already off exploring the bottom floor of the house. He seems to have no fear, gets into everything and seems to be able to handle himself in most situations. And for those of you who are fans, he is named after a character in Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum novels. The Ranger from the books is the mystery man, always dressed in black, often off on his own and eating healthy food while everyone else is eating junk. My Ranger is all black, often off on his own, does not sit still long enough to get a picture that is more than just a blur of long black hair and eats the healthy dry kibble while all the others chow on the high calorie wet food. He is a bit of a bad boy, but does like to cuddle from time to time and I must admit I have a bit of a soft spot for my little bad boy (and the Ranger from the books too)!

And for those of you who are wondering, so far so good with Hope's relaunch into her forever home. She is eating this time and slowly adjusting. I will keep my fingers crossed that her good luck continues. Here she is right before she left for her second attempt at moving to her forever home.

Hope Returns

Normally having hope return to your home is a good thing. Every body needs hope right? I would agree - except for when Hope is a foster cat that you sent on her way to a forever home. That is right folks...Hope is now back in my foster room.

She went to her forever home and for some reason stopped eating - at all. At first we thought it was because she was accidentally sent home with the wrong type of food. (And I learned not to use certain abbreviations). But I got a call from the shelter foster coordinator yesterday to say that Hope had been returned to the shelter the day before because she would not eat anything and had not eaten anything in the 24 hours she was at the shelter either. We were all kind of mystified.

So I said that I would come in and visit with her and see if I could interest her in food. When I got there she was terrified and curled up in my arms, stuck her head in my sweatshirt and shivered. I decided to take her back into foster to see if I could get her to eat again in the hopes that it was a reaction to stress. She was also started on some antibiotics in case there was an illness brewing that we could not yet see.

After about an hour at my home she started eating. Not well, but at least she did at least try to eat something which is more than she had done since she went to her forever home. We are all still a little mystified because she went home with wonderful people, but we will just keep her here with us and try to get her to eat more regularly so she can return to her forever home who is anxious to have her back. I will keep you posted on her progress.

Of course, because she is back and does not care for other cats, I now have five 6 week old kittens running around my house like crazy. More on them later.

A Return to Home

I am happy to say that as I type this Hope is probably on her way to her forever home. I took her in for a check up with the shelter recently and although she was doing well health wise, she still looked funny with her skinny legs and missing hair. So we decided to keep her in foster for a little while longer. While I was there, the people who rescued her emailed one of the supervisors to see if they could visit her.

These people were very nice people who found Hope hiding under their porch who, even though they were dealing with a terminally ill cat of their own and it was a few days before a holiday, took the time to catch her and bring her to us for the care she needed. So, I was happy to say that they could pick a time and I would bring Hope in to the shelter so they could see how she was doing. I know that if I had brought a sick cat some where I would want to see how she was doing.

They came to see her last Saturday and were thrilled with how well she was doing. Hope seemed to love them right away. And since they saw her at her worst, they did not think she looked bad at all. I mentioned to them that Hope occasionally poops over the side of the litter box and they said that their cat had done that most of its life and it was no big deal. By the time the visit was over, they had decided to bring Hope back into their home permanently. It seemed like Fate had a hand in Hope's life.

So, Hope was spayed yesterday and will go home with her new forever parents sometime today and I am thrilled for them all.

Hope is a big word (and a little cat)

Hope is a big word in animal shelters and in fostering. We use it all the time in many different situations and for many reasons. I can't count the number of times I have heard that word while volunteering at a local shelter or when talking with other foster families. We hope for many things like:

• We hope that no new cats will be surrendered that day
• We hope that our many talks about spaying and neutering cuts down on unwanted litters of kittens
• We hope that our words against declawing don't fall on deaf ears
  
• We hope our fosters will not get sick.
• We hope that the medicines we are forcing on them will get them through their illnesses.
• We hope that they will know how to use the litter box.
  
• We hope that the crate training will teach them how to use the litter box.
  
• We hope that they will eat to gain back their lost weight.
  
• We hope that their hair will grow back and that the hair loss is not permanent.
  
• We hope that they will overcome the abuse or neglect they have suffered
• We hope they will learn to trust us and long for our attention.
• And most of all, we hope that they will find loving forever homes.

That is why I find it appropriate that my newest foster is named Hope. The staff at the shelter named her Hope when she was brought in on Christmas Eve, probably because she looked so bad. Normally we rename our fosters, but the name seemed so right that we have kept it. This is Hope.



She is a dilute tortoiseshell kitten who we are guessing is about a year old. I was actually volunteering on Christmas Eve when she was brought in to the shelter by a good samaritan who found her under a porch in the cold and I was the one to put her in her cage in holding. She was skin and bones and missing patches of fur. Being the sucker that I am, my heart went right out to her.



After about a week in the shelter she was doing better but really needed to be in a home to rest, recover from a mild cold and gain whole lot of weight. She was slightly less than four pounds when she was surrendered to us and should have been a whole lot more. Her hair was thin or missing in parts, most likely due to lack of nutrition. By this date I had been without a foster for slightly less than a week. But when she curled into a little ball in my arms, I just could not walk away from her. Thankfully, by that time, I had been without Simon just long enough to let him go and be emotionally ready for another foster.

Since Hope just needs TLC and to gain weight and I was looking for a slightly easier foster than last time, we were a good fit. And the staff was glad to send her home with someone who could give her lots of love, but would know what to do if she suddenly took a turn for the worse especially since I still had the supplies and knowledge on how to give her IV fluids if she suddenly needed it.

She is still doing well here with me. I brought her in today for a check up because she was scratching at her ears. Her ears are clean and mite free so we are trying her on a prescription allergy diet, just in case her hair loss and ear scratching is an allergy. Other than that, she is happy to be back at home with us and settled into the foster room again. And we are happy to have her.

Happy New Year

I am pleased to be able to end my first year of fostering will all of our 35 fosters in loving forever homes. That is right, everyone is adopted. Simon, the last of my four feral kittens that I almost lost to two different bouts of pneumonia was adopted by a wonderful lady yesterday. That means that I am foster free for the first time since early March. I have really enjoyed fostering and after a short break in the new year, I will be back with more stories from the crazy animal house. Happy New Year.

Taking a Break

It has been a while since I posted because things have been crazy and the weather has been changing. Cold weather means an increase in my pain and tiredness so I do not spend as much time online. I am actually just at the start of a break from fostering so I thought I would let everyone know and post an update on all my fosters for everyone that has been following before I went on my break. So here goes:

Marley, Cali, Sophie, Nugget, Pumpkin and Patch have all been adopted. Parker (the bottle baby and sibling to Dana) unfortunately caught a bad respiratory infection at about two weeks old while in another foster home and did not survive. Since Parker and Dana's mom was so sick when they were born and we lost Dana after a few days, we were kind of prepared to lose Parker if he got sick. We all would have preferred another outcome, but at least Dana and Parker were well cared for and loved for the short time they were here. And the good news is that their mother has pulled through and is available for adoption and is so sweet we expect her to find a home quickly.

Jaz, Simon, Sophie and Tink completely recovered. During the spay process I did learn that Jaz had only one kidney, Sophie has a heart murmur and Tink ended up with a hernia from the surgery that had to be treated for the week leading up to the annual kitten adopt-a-thon. They joined many of the other kittens that were in foster care for a two day adoption event. Since the foster parent stayed with the kittens to answer questions about them during the event, I figured that they were social enough to attend since they were calmer with me around. 61 kittens found new homes during the two day event. And I am please to say that Jaz, Sophie and Tink were among them. Simon was not adopted during the event because he was very nervous.

I actually went into the event hoping to find either Jaz or Sophie a home. Jaz was the most outgoing and Sophie was sweet when she was not scared. So I would have been happy to have one of the four find a home. Jaz captured the heart of a nice woman who did not mind that she could be feisty and had only one kidney. Sophie caught the eye of a wonderful couple with out kids looking for two kittens to be companions to their older cat. I told them all about their history and told them that since Sophie got along so well with her siblings, she would probably get along with any kitten they chose. I was thrilled when they looked around and ended up coming back and wanted no only Sophie, but Tink. Tink had been so frightened they had not even been able to hold her. They felt that since they were looking for two kittens so that the first one would have someone to play with, they did not mind if it took Tink a long time to learn to trust them. It was the best case scenario that I could have found for both of them, but especially Tink.

Simon did not find a home during the event and I decided to take him back home rather than leave him in the shelter that was now crowded with the "leftover" kittens. He would not do well in our kitten cage with other kittens and would likely get sick again from the stress. I am going to keep him in my home and continue to build his confidence until the shelter is less full of kittens. Until then, the shelter is going to list him on petfinder and have me bring in him if anyone calls about him.

Since Simon is just living lose in my home with my own cats, I do not really feel like I have any fosters at the moment. And that is a good thing. I am tired after pulling Silvermist, Simon, Tink and Sophie through their illness and losing other fosters. So I am taking a break for the time being. I am not sure how long it will be, possibly just until after the holiday. No matter what, I doubt it will be long because every time I volunteer at the shelter, I see a new cat or kittens that need a foster home. So far I have stayed strong to my decision to take a break, but we all know I will not last for long, because I love it too much. See you soon.

Muffin - Finally ADOPTED!

I am happy to report that Muffin (my second foster mom and the mother of my foster failure Doyle) has finally been adopted! She has been at the shelter since I finished their foster time back in May. She was happy there, but was not finding anyone who was interested in taking her home. Thankfully, the shelter was able to recently transfer her to another shelter.

The shelters in our area often transfer cats back and forth if they are having trouble getting particular cats adopted. That way they cat gets a whole new group of people looking at them. And I am please to report that this was all Muffin needed. It only took about two weeks after her transfer for her to find her forever home! My family and I are so happy that she has a new forever home. I had considered taking her back into my home when she did not get adopted, but she did not get along with my current cats because the house was just not big enough two dominate female cats to get along. So I am very pleased!