A brief history of our foster cats: Part 2

During the last week that we had Oreo and Mouse, we also added a kitten to the mix.

Patty the kitten was found by a friend's daughter, all alone on a tree lawn in front of her apartment. She was brought to the shelter and I called and offered to foster her, if needed.

She tested negative for FIV and FeLV, and after a six-day mandatory stray hold, she was released to us for fostering. She was estimated to be five weeks, and needed to get up to roughly eight weeks when she would reach the two-pound mark.

She wasn't eating much at first. She probably hadn't had the chance to be properly weaned, just got left behind or wandered off from her litter and ended up going cold turkey off of nursing.

We gave her dry food in a shallow dish and added wet food on top, as an incentive to eventually eat both. I also supplemented with some kitten milk, just to make sure. This was my first experience with syringe-feeding a kitten. I did some reading to find out that in order to feed a kitten, they should be in a standing position (not held on their backs like human babies) to help avoid aspirating (breathing in) the liquid and suffocating. Also, we needed to feed a little bit at a time so she had time to swallow. She did quite well, and after a few days was fine eating dry food.

We introduced her to our girls and let her spend the remaining two or so weeks being socialized among adult cats.

We wrote a personality sheet on Patty, to let prospective adopters know about her personality. In my experience, pets are never quite themselves at shelters, and you can never be quite sure what you are getting when you adopt. So, I thought, anything I can do to help give a prospective adopter more solid evidence of a genuinely great cat, as observed over several days or weeks, could only help the cat's chances.

Again, saying goodbye was a challenge. I cried, but was so pleased that she was adopted within 3 days of being returned to the shelter to go up for adoption. I don't know if the personality sheet helped or not—she was so cute, it would be hard to pass her up.