Fostering

Become a Hero: Join Our Foster Family!

Fostering saves lives! If you have a little extra space, an hour a day, and a big heart, we’d love to have you on our team.

Guidelines: The to-do's and not to-do's of handling foster cats and kittens
Supplies: The rescue supplies all housing accommodations (playpens, crates), bedding, food, litter and supplies, and vet care. Fosters can choose to purchase their own supplies if they have the ability to do so.
Training: Our experienced fosters can teach you about diet, safety, socializing, medical care, giving medications, bottle feeding kittens, etc. We all start as beginners!
Support: Our foster team is here to answer any questions you have. We are available 24/7 for emergencies.
Adoption facilitation: When your fosters are ready for adoption, we handle all incoming applications and processing.

A clean, space in your home with a closed door to separate fosters from your own pets. This could be as small as a 48 inch by 48 inch pop-up playpen for short-term fosters. In emergency rescue situations, they just need somewhere safe to be.
Socialization and medical support for the cat(s).
Frequent communication with our Foster Coordinators about changes in your foster cat(s) behavior, medical status or needs.
Cute photos for our Petfinder, Adopt-A-Pet, and social media campaigns.
For the protection of your own pets, they must be up-to-date on their FVRCP (feline distemper) and rabies vaccines.
The ability to bring cat(s) to vet appointments or coordination with other volunteers to get the cat(s) to/from appointments.
Optional: the ability for potential adopters to visit your home and foster kitties for meet & greets.
Preferred: the ability to administer oral medications. Often kitties coming into our care need basic medications.

Common Hesitations:

"I don't have enough space." In a lot of cases, a bathroom or a playpen/crate works just fine. In emergency rescue situations, they just need somewhere safe to be for a short period.
"My animals wouldn't like it." It's preferred that your foster pets and resident pets don't interact with each other.
"I work all day." All of our fosters have full time jobs. You don't need to be home 24/7 to foster cat(s). You need enough time to feed them, change their water, scoop their litter, and check-in on them.
"I would get too attached." You might. You love them enough to help them get a forever home. To be blunt, if fosters don't save them, the alternative is commonly their demise and they have no chance at life.

Fostering doesn't have to be perfect.

For shy cats who need socialization: Having a cat in foster is sometimes the best way for them to become socialized with humans. We ask that our fosters spend a minimum of 30 mins to an hour a day with their shy fosters to help them come out of their shells.

For friendly cats: Sometimes we just need space to hold a friendly cat until we can get it into our adoption room. In this situation, potential adopters may visit a cat in the foster home.

For cats who hate other cats: We have some rescue cats that love humans, but hate other cats. They do not do well or show well in our adoption room - it's too stressful of a situation for them. In this situation, potential adopters visit a cat in the foster home.

For mom cats & their babies: We keep mom & babies together until around 8 weeks old. Sometimes, mom is feral. Commonly, mom does all of the work (phew!) until babies are around 5 weeks old and ready to eat solid food. When the babies are 8 weeks old, we take get mom fixed and moved to a different foster home (this is beneficial to her). If she is feral, we may TNR her.

For orphaned kittens: This requires bottle feeding as often as every 2 hours for kittens 3 weeks old and younger. It becomes less intensive when the kittens are 4-5 weeks old and eating solid food on their own. Bottle feeding is best for those who are retired, work from home or are not currently working. Kittens 4-5 weeks old and older can be free-fed and left alone in a safe playpen while you are working or out of the home.

For those needing quarantine: When taking cats off of the streets or from municipal shelters, we quarantine them in an easily-cleaned environment for 14 days before moving them to our adoption room. 14 days is the period for which any infectious illness would appear. Sometimes nothing appears, sometimes these cats turn into medically needy cats (see below).

For the medically needy: For those who have experience handling medically needy cats or would like to learn. This can include acutely ill cats that require supportive care such as temperature taking, syringe feeding, subcutaneous fluid administration, injections, eye-antibiotics, oral medications, etc. This may also include recovering a cat from surgery and monitoring them.

For cats with ringworm: Ringworm doesn't have to be scary. Our fosters can teach you how to care for cats with ringworm in a safe way that minimizes risk to you and other animals in your home. Cats with ringworm are very likely to be euthanized in shelters - it's only a topical skin infection, it doesn't have to be a death sentence.

For hospice cases: We come across cats who have terminal conditions but are not ready to cross the rainbow bridge just yet. These cats are not able to be adopted. Hospice fosters are needed to help give them their golden weeks/months/years.

Fostering cats provides extra opportunities for cats and kittens to be saved. We get emails every single day of people asking for our help, but the truth is we just do not have the space or resources to help as many as we'd like to.
Fostering provides the ability for animals in distressing situations to recover and become ready for adoption.
Fostering can be extremely rewarding. It is so fulfilling when a cat you have fostered and rehabilitated gets adopted into their forever home.