Kitten Carpathia: Good Outcomes

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Good Outcomes

I think my little Brian has a new home. I put his bow on him and made him smell good. No sooner had we parked at the shelter when a lady who had parked next to us asked to see what I had in the carrier. We got inside, she held him, he purred. I told her about him and before I could say "I think he'd like to be an only child". she said "I have no other pets or children." She wanted to see the other cats available but asked the people at the desk to not put Brian away. They told me that even if she didn't take him, he'd go very fast. Instead of leaving the shelter upset, I was very happy. I have since looked his ID up and it's not appearing. That tells me he's been adopted. I hope he's adjusting well and is very happy. My passenger seat is covered in little white hairs; kittens shed a lot when they're nervous. I hate to clean them up, they're like little momentos. So weird to think I'll never see my little emo kitty again but I'm very glad I got to know him.

About This Blog

I am a foster parent. The animal shelters of our nation have deployed a volunteer foster parenting program to help the underage baby animals that come into the shelters daily. In the past many of these homelss infants died. Either they were euthanized for lack of space to house them in the shelter or to prevent the slow demise of death by illness that permeates most shelters. Baby animals have little in the way of defenses to combat common animal ailments that are unavoidably prevalent at the pound.
Often employees of the shelters would take these babies home to bottle feed them and keep them in a safer environment until they were old enough to get their shots and be adopted. These babies also got the benefit of being accustomed to people and became young animals that were much better prepared to be pets. Being able to stay with their siblings until ten or twelve weeks of age also helps to build a more confident and well adjusted animal. Since the primary goal here is to prevent these little ones from even being born, it is necessary that all young animals that are being adopted be old enough to be sterilized to prevent the spread of over population. To safely be spayed or neutered a young animal needs to be a minimum of two pounds. There simply aren't enough employees able or willing to take home all of these little ones, so it became necessary to inlist the help of volunteers. While the foster program covers puppies as well as kittens, it is the cat population that has overwhelmed the system. The majority of young animals needing temporary homes are kittens. This is good! While I really don't prefer cats to dogs, kittens are MUCH easier to raise than puppies.

I started foster parenting in July of 2007 when a friend of mine sent me an email from the Los Angeles Humane Society asking for volunteers. He had done it before and I thought I'd like to give it a try. I went to the prerequisite training seminar and signed up.
On August 28, I officially became a foster parent by recieving my first litter. The experience of foster parenting has been rewarding enough that I want to share it with others and encourage people to volunteer with their own local shelters. My intentions with this blog are to promote a dialogue of advise and story sharing between foster parents and ANYBODY who loves animals. The focus here will likely be on cat care but I have friends who fostered Oppossums and baby birds and other fun things. Whether through organizations or just happening to find a tiny life all alone, taking care of a baby of ANY species is a journey of the heart and it's worth taking.

Babies are the focus here. The homeless pet situation is huge with many topics to discuss. I do not take in adult animals unless I have room for another pet because it could be a very long time before that animal finds a "forever home". I have my limitations. I have four cats, one dog and an eleven year old son. It would be unfair to my son for me to turn my house into any more of an animal way station than it already is. There are people who do provide foster care for adult animals that might otherwise be destroyed . I acknowledge that these people take on more than I'm capable of handling and I applaud them.
I'd like to note that my foster parenting at the moment involves working for the shelters. There are private organizations that need foster parents too. I want to try this avenue as well. I'm sure there are experiences unique to each way; but for now it's important to me that I am working at what I think of as Ground Zero - the pound. Up until fostering I had never set foot in a pound. Shame on me. I always thought the pound would be too depressing, "I don't want to go there, I will be tempted to take every animal home." Yes, it is very sad. I brought my son with me one day and we were passing all the cages on the way back to the vet's office to get some treatment for one of my charges and my son said "It's like a prison for dogs." I said, "Yes it is, but just think, they didn't commit any crimes. They don't deserve to be here and some will get the death penalty." I have a hard time reconciling the two polarities of animals being put to sleep in shelters and adoption organizations that come to the house to see if you're worthy of adopting one of their animals. I'm a big fan of "happy mediums" and am looking to find some middle ground here.

I'd also like to dismiss some of the bad image of shelters as being animal death camps with maniacal blood thirsty people in charge who can't wait to destroy another animal. I am always amazed at how much the employees of the shelter system are NOT callouse to these animals. If anything they become callouse to people because they are constantly witnessing humans dumping off their pets who are no longer cute and fun and have become an inconvenience.

Yes, I was also on a popular TV show too. While that's not what I'll be talking about here, I'm not going to be a snob about questions or coments regarding that. For whatever reason you're here, you are welcome but be warned, we'll find something for you to do to help with the crisis of homeless pets!

Kitten Carpathia

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Good Outcomes

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