Every spring, shelters get overwhelmed with cats during kitten season and the plea goes out for foster families to take care of them, until permanent homes can be found. Foster families save the lives of cats and kittens that might otherwise meet their demise in a kill shelter. This year, NBC10's Deanna Durante decided it was time to become a foster parent. She's blogging about her experience.
I have always loved cats. And for you to understand why I have taken up such a cause please take a moment to understand it’s a family thing! My mom grew up with cats and she wanted me and my sister to as well.
Growing up, we had one cat for years named Pandora -- a calico kitty who loved sleeping on the couch with my Dad, who denied he had any affection for the animal, but the pair always were nestled together on sleepy Sunday afternoons.
In fourth grade, I snuck a gray tiger kitty into the house. He was a male kitten that I was going to give my mom for Christmas, but Pandora found him first and it was an ugly fight compounded by the fact that my father (I think he may have told me I couldn’t have another cat!) was the one who discovered the standoff between Pandora and the scared little kitten my sister named Smokey cowering in her bedroom closet!
Our "Save These Cats" gallery to the left explains how you can be a foster parent or adopt a cat.
The two cats eventually began to live together and that was the start of my life with multiple cats.
Pandora, who'd been around since I was seven years old, died when I was in college. Smokey passed just a few years ago.
While I was in college, I was given the gift of Rembrandt, a wonderful orange cat. But when I moved out west, my mom was already in love with Rembrandt and determined not to give him up!
I haven’t had a pet in my house since!
Last year my mother began volunteering at PALS - Pet Adoption Life Care society. PALS are rescue organization that help give cats and kittens loving, safe homes.
Every year during kitten season, shelters all over the county are overrun with animals and need good foster homes -- people willing to use some space in their home to "hold on to an expectant mother and babies until they are able to go into the adoption areas."
Now that I am settled and not moving from city to city, I was ready to bring a cat (or CATS!) into our home. Both my husband and I have demanding schedules and my niece and in-laws are allergic, so we figured "fostering" would be perfect. We adopted a pregnant cat and brought her home
It hasn't been an easy week and let me tell you, experiencing the miracle of life as our mama cat gave birth late Tuesday night was a little scary! Thank goodness my neighbor, a vet, was there to help.
The problem we had was our little kitty -- we refer to her as "Mamma Kitty" -- was scared. We know very little about the young, gray tiger cat, only that she was a stray. In the last week, her little life has had some big changes. She was pulled from a Delaware County street, placed in our home with two strangers and she became a mom of six. She hisses and growls as we get close, except when I put food or water in her bowls and when my husband took the picture of her nestled with her six little babies.
We haven’t touched the kittens, but go in and talk to their mom in the hopes she’ll warm up to us. She is in a very large pen because at first, when she had full roam of our guest room, she hid and we feared for the safety of the kittens if she gave birth behind furniture.
Although I’m sure I will miss this bunch, hisses, growls and all, I certainly am enjoying having the group in our home if only for a little while.
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I hope you’ll follow along in the next few weeks as we share pictures of Mamma and her babies as they grow and hopefully become more comfortable with us!
Here's more information on adopting or fostering a pet: Pals Pets
