Countdown To Adoption

So it is week seven and I am starting to get sad because our time together will be ending soon. On Sunday April 3rd the kittens will go in for their veterinary exam and spay/neuter surgeries. Yikes! I am going to miss the hell out of them but they will all go off to fantastic homes and grow into amazing cats.

"I'm getting surgery on my WHAT?!"

This week has been more about getting to know them than anything else. They are further developing their personalities and I am having a great time watching them bloom. I have really put a lot into getting them comfortable with humans as soon as possible, so this is kind of a win for me. I made sure to interact with them very early on in their lives in hopes of imprinting a positive feeling toward humans. In my opinion hand raised kittens (or kittens with human influence so early in life) end up being the best kind. Kittens who learn to love and trust humans early will end up more loyal and affectionate towards their people as adult cats. So, hopefully I helped these guys out and all their future owners will have to do is love the crap outta them!

My little guys almost left me a few weeks early, actually. The foster coordinator asked me at the beginning of the week if I would mind bringing them back and letting someone else foster them for the last two weeks. In return I would be taking home a pregnant cat that our intake team had seen at Animal Care and Control. The intake team cannot bring a pregnant animal to the shelter unless we have a foster for her because it is very rough on a mother if she gives birth in a shelter environment. But getting the pregnant cat out of ACC is crucial too because she stands a chance of getting sick or put down if she stays. Part of the reason all of Zelda's kittens were so healthy is that she was taken out of the shelter and brought to a quiet, safe environment to give birth to her kittens. Basically, what the foster coordinator was asking me was would I trade in my healthy guys to take on a new mom and her future babies. I thought about it for a day or so, and kind of freaked myself out. On one hand, I could not bare to get rid of my guys early, but on the other hand that new mom and her unborn babies needed my help.

It was a really difficult decision to make, and I will not lie, I shed a few tears over it. In the end I had to say no because I could not commit to another 8-10 weeks with cats in my bathroom. Summer is coming and I will start being away from the house more often, we have no air conditioning in the bathroom, and my cats deserve a break from the extra house guests. Those are the excuses I used anyway. The bottom line is that right now I am too scared to take another pregnant cat. A few weeks ago when we had the four sick mothers and their kittens at work I think it was just too much for me. Every one of those litters had been in a foster home when the mother cats came down with their upper respiratory infections, and most of the kittens were too tiny to fight it. We ended up losing all but two kittens. It was really hard on me. A few weeks ago we had another mother cat give birth in a foster home. Everything should have been cool, but she got sick and this week she lost three of her kittens. The litter I fostered before Zelda was sick and we lost a kitten there too. It was the first time we had lost one and I think I took it very well (for me). Right now I think I just need a break from fostering. I have to build myself back up and we will try another litter again maybe in the fall, even though I hate that there will be kittens that need my help in the meantime.

That is not to say that we will not be fostering cats at all this summer. Oh no! We still have our little Snurfle! Yep, thats right folks, she is still ours! Snurfle went in for another check up on Wednesday. Recently she started sneezing all over the place again, so the vet recommended another culture of the mucus in her nose (they're going to study her boogers!) and a month on an antibiotic with several vet checks and cultures in-between. They really want to beat this thing, or at least get her to a point where she can be adopted out without freaking out her new family. We have her for at least another 20 days, which I don't mind at all. Last summer we fostered kittens sporadically too. Usually over the summer I will try to take kittens who are a little older and maybe just need socialization. It is easier that way with no quarantine to the bathroom and it is better for the kittens to be able to learn by example of my cats.

Well that about wraps up what has been going on this week. Right now the kittens are having a run of the house so it is pretty difficult to keep typing, but I still have to post the zoo pictures from last week! I'll try to get that in and get some video of the kittens doing cute stuff.