Little eyes...

There are days when all looks bright and shiny when it comes to fostering. You wake up and know you are helping animals to get a chance at a happy, fulfilling life in homes that will love them. If not for your efforts, the shelters could easily get overloaded to the point where euthanasia is the only option, just so that they don't run out of funds, resources and space. By taking on the workload of giving the cats/kittens a temporary home, you are giving them a chance they might not otherwise get. It's a wonderful feeling, even during the rough patches - like when you discover the dirtbox got well-used the night before and is now half empty, with the rest all over the floor... or the patches of wallpaper ever so lovingly removed in tiny kitten-paw-sized scraps... or the net curtains now having more 'net' and less 'curtain' than you recalled...

But then there are days when the world folds up and falls on your heart. The days where you discover that these wonderful, loving, warm little heartbeats must be stilled in the name of mercy. When keeping them alive, to brighten your days, is just selfishly prolonging their suffering or delaying the inevitable. When the vet tells you, in the kindest way possible, that extending the course of antibiotics is quite probably a waste of resources that could be used to successfully save another family of kittens that have a better chance of beating the illness.

Today was a day that said it all, in every way. In the midst of weeks of fine weather and summer heat, today was windy, cold and wet. A poet might say the world started weeping, for it knew the fact that we were trying so hard not to acknowledge - that these lovely kittens had no future that didn't involve large amounts of cost for future owners, illness and suffering for the kittens, and - in the meantime - a possibly constant drain on the resources of a wonderful organisation who does everything it can to give every animal the best chance of a loving life.

Some days, life just isn't fair.

The aftermath for us, the fosterers: A long and chemically-stringent cleanup of their entire living area, inside and out, to make sure that there are no 'bugs' left behind that could infect any future foster cats... a period of mourning, while we try to untangle the heartstrings these little balls of innocent love got attached to in us... and a hard think and talk about whether we can do this again.

I think we could. I know if we did it wouldn't be easy - there would be the fear that it might somehow - despite everything we were told by the vet - be caused by something here and thus happen again... the worry that we won't give them as loving a temporary home as they deserve because we don't want to feel the loss of handing them back just as we find ourselves getting attached again... the concern that with all the prices going up, and donated supplies to the shelter getting tighter, that we won't be able to afford to 'top up' the food/litter...

These are hard choices, decisions that need to be well thought out BEFORE you take on the responsibility for the innocent lives you will be entrusted with.

The pay-off is great, for those willing to see it that way... but it carries a price. For those who can, please do... for those who aren't sure, go talk to the staff at the shelter... but for those who think "I don't want to face times like this..." then please, don't. Give food, give money, give resources... those are VITAL things that mean you are still giving, still doing a 'good thing'... and without you, the rest have no chance at all.

Heartbroken!

This post hurts to write. Today we said goodbye to 4 of the sweetest, most loving little balls of fur I have met in a long time. Four little kittens, put to sleep way too soon... because they were sick.
A few days after we took these babies and their mumma on, when they were only about a week old, their eyes kept sealing with gunk, so began the vet visits. The vet thought they might have herpes, with possibly having cat flu as a secondary infection, so ...they were being treated for that with eye drops. When that didn't work, Baytril was added on top of the eye drops. After a week on the Baytril, they'd started to come right, eyes were clearing up, and all was looking good. But then that course stopped, and a couple of days later they were getting all the signs, but worse, back again. So today, we took them back for another vet visit... their last. The vet mentioned possibilities like Chlamydia and FIV (Feline Immunodeficiency Virus ) when we went back in today, and said even a 2nd course of Baytril was highly unlikely to do any good. So, we said goodbye.
What hurts the most is that in EVERY other way, these little guys (and girl) were the most sweetest, loving kittens ever.. they'd purr at even the briefest of touches, demanded cuddles constantly (before wanting to race after a sibling to attack), and were totally adored by the whole family (despite the mess they regularly left us to clean up!). They would've made awesome pets for any lucky owner... if they'd just been healthy. The world is so unfair sometimes!

Dude... black & white boy, who was so laid back, he'd go all floppy in your hands and start purring the moment you picked him up. You could do pretty much anything with him, and he'd just keep giving you that purr and adoring look. He got even smoochier in the last couple of days and would wrap himself around my neck, thrust his nose deep into my ear, and purr extra loudly.



































Mostly Ginger, nicknamed Buddy, was a right wee terror... who somehow wormed his way into being my 2nd favourite. Usually the first one to race out the door if the door to the washhouse, that was their temporary home, was opened to go exploring, this boy would try and climb up my legs when he wanted his cuddles, and would probably have had the loudest purr of the 4. If I felt claws around my ankles, it was usually Buddy, saying "hi, pay attention to me please". Buddy and Dude were usually the first ones to go racing into the shower if the door was opened while the water was on, only to come racing back out to shake themselves dry again... and occasionally turn right around and race right back in. Adorable dorks!





























Ginger and White, nicknamed "Mumma's Boy", was the quietest of the 4 when it came to demanding attention (but had just as loud a purr as his siblings!), and usually the 1st to go running back to their mum for cuddles and food. I was planning on getting more photos of him and the torti girl later today, as they were the only ones I didn't get many good ones of.















































Torti girl, nicknamed Minnie, as she was almost a short haired, miniature copy of their mother. A right wee tomboy, who was as rough-n-tumble as the boys were, and usually the only one not so keen on staying still to have a cuddle. No thanks.. far too many brothers to chase and pounce on, or curtains to tear up, etc. However, she was always the first to come running, purring like mad, if you put the shower mat down on the floor... she'd curl up and go to sleep on it quite happily, usually as close to your feet, if not ON them, as she could get.

The saddest part of the job...

Today was a sad day indeed. When we first got this first family of foster cats, we brought home four little bundles of fluff that barely had eyes open, and a mumma cat who I would have sworn was half wild, if her temperament was anything to go by. 5 days of intensive 'being zen' later, and she had bonded to us and was fairly relaxed when we open the washhouse door, and even let us pat her head. By the end of day 10 she was as tame as anyone could want, and was showing a lovely, placid nature. She was even tolerating our 2 year old coming in all 'full volume, top speed' and demanding cuddles.

Yesterday she was taken to the vet to be speyed, and came home all drowsy and droopy after a successful surgery. Today I had the heartbreaking job of returning her to the SPCA Shelter to recover, get fed back up to optimum weight and health, and go up for adoption. The rest of the family was really down, and it wasn't exactly a picnic for me either. There are times I am so glad to have 'emotion detachment issues' - they make the rough times like these a little easier to cope with.

It was amazingly reassuring to discover that the Hamilton SPCA have a "No Kill" policy of fosters and adoptees... only the ferals and seriously infirm get given 'the cold needle' and even then, only if there is no hope for rehabilitation or recovery. It meant that I wasn't handing over this lovely tortie girl to face a death sentence if she wasn't adopted within a week or two. In fact, if she's still there when we take the kittens back, we might just adopt her ourselves.

Fostering cats is a real mixed blessing... on the up side, you know you are helping the SPCA cope with a massive overload, taking some of the stress off their awesome crew of staff and volunteers. They provide the fostering family with pet food and pay for required vet visits, and it's as simple as a visit to the shelter to collect the food or a phonecall for an order number for the vets.

The downside is that it is so very easy for you to get attached to the fostered pets, and having to hand them back can feel like a betrayal of trust... but you know you'll do the fostering thing again, and have to go through the heartbreak once more... and again, and again... because you know it's the best thing for the animals in the long run.

Oh yeah, photos of the kittens to come soon - just need to find the time to edit them all - so many wonderful shots to choose from!

Getting up to speed...

Well, this is a little late in starting, because we wanted to get the OK from the SPCA first... now that we have it, here we go!

Back at the start of December 2010, we offered to foster cats for the SPCA, especially pregnant cats, who for obvious reasons soon take up a lot more space than, say, a single cat, once they drop their kittens. It's our way of supporting their great effort, without having to find money out of a tight budget.

So, our first foster cats... a mumma cat with four little kittens, each hardly bigger than the palm of my hand when we got them. Their eyes had only just started to open and all they did was sleep and feed. Mumma cat wasn't at all sure about us, and understandably so... she had been at the shelter for only a single day after being collected from the home of someone who suffered from Alzheimer's - not the best environment to raise a young family.

Mumma cat is a beautiful tortoise shell, though she was skinny and nervous. Her four babies were an almost-entirely ginger boy, a ginger-&-white boy, a black and white boy and a lovely little tortoise shell girl. It wasn't long until they would start to develop their personalities.

Now, because we had to keep them quarantined, and we are blessed with having an easily-isolated wash house and bathroom attached to the house, it was a simple matter to keep them separated from the house, our own cats, and the outside world. The only problem was ventilation. Without offering them a way to escape, it was going to be difficult indeed to prevent the cats from making a horrible stink. The solution was granted by some MacGyvering - the application of some shelf brackets to the side window frames allowed us to force the windows to be locked open JUST enough to provide airflow, but not enough to allow the adult cat to escape.

Alas, it seems her past came back to haunt her, and her kids... because Mumma cat had Feline Herpes which flared up again due to her high stress levels and low body tone. This was rapidly passed on to her little ones, either through contact or through her milk. Either way, just after Christmas we had to take them all to the lovely folks at the Hamilton South CareVets because the poor wee mites would wake up with their eyes glued shut with -yuk- which the vet explained was caused NOT by the Herpes virus itself, but more the secondary bacterial infection that was able to get a foothold while the immune systems were fighting the virus.

A drop in each eye,
Three times a day.
All going well,
The goop goes away...

Not quite, as it turns out... because though Mumma cat managed to fight it off fairly well, her babies didn't have much of an immune system and thus were not faring so well. By the time the drops were nearly gone, we were due to take them all back to the SPCA for worming and a quick check-up, however due to the SPCA's cat expert's concern it may be Cat Flu, and not wanting to bring that kind of thing into the main compound, we were asked to take them back to the vet for their worming and check-up. The usual vet wasn't available, due to the holiday period, so we had to take them to the Chartwell CareVets. The lovely vet there was able to not only give us more eye drops, but also suggested Baytrel to act as a 'big hammer' for the bacterial infection. That was January 5th.

And now, here we are at Jan 10th (well, now Jan 11th) and that's the foundation of the story. Over the next few days we'll start to fill in some of the more memorable moments and experiences of fostering cats for the SPCA here in Hamilton.

It's not easy... and there are days when you wonder why you opened your stupid yap to offer... but then there are those moments that make it all worthwhile.

It's a lot like having kids really...