Fostering saves lives. Without a foster home, helpless cats and kittens don’t have access to specialized individual care. In many cases, without enough foster homes for cats and kittens, many of them are euthanized. Signing up to foster for local rescue groups and municipal shelters provides support to the animals, the shelter staff, and the overall cycle of animal rescue.

Fostering Saves Lives

When you make the decision to foster animals in need, you save more than one life. You save the life of your foster animal by giving them a chance to be adopted, and you save the life of the next rescued animal that can take your foster’s empty spot in the shelter.

Fostering is not just about getting animals ready for adoption, nor is it solely about freeing up space in shelters. It is about saving the life of an animal who might otherwise never have a chance at life. 

In particular, orphaned kittens under 8 weeks old are the most likely to be euthanized in shelters. Kittens this age require care around the clock, and not many shelters can provide that amount of care. If care cannot be provided in the shelter where the kittens were rescued or surrendered, the motherless kittens will be euthanized. Their only chance for survival is to be placed in a foster home. 

Foster Homes Provide Comfort and Specialized Care

Foster homes are safe havens for animals. Cats and kittens in particular are more susceptible to contracting illnesses in crowded, stressful shelters. Instead of living in a small cage in a crowded shelter, they can spend time in a calm home environment with a decreased likelihood of contracting illnesses. Foster homes also provide plenty of one-on-one care and affection that shelter staff are not always able to provide.  

If a cat or kitten becomes ill in the shelter, some shelters don’t have the staff to carefully attend to each animal’s medical needs. In foster care, cats and kittens with special needs or specific medical needs can thrive. Feline foster parents are trained in simple preventative care strategies and medication administration. They can devote their time and energy to their specific foster(s), monitor them closely, and ensure that they stay calm and healthy. 

For the feline population, here are some common fostering scenarios:

• Cats who need a calm, cozy place to recover from a medical procedure. 
• Kittens younger than 8 weeks who were unknowingly taken from their mother.
• Kittens younger than 5 weeks who were found without a mother and can’t eat solid food yet.
• Orphaned neonatal kittens (ages 0-3 weeks) 
• Kittens who need a place to become socialized to humans. 
• Mother cats who were rescued with their babies and need a place to safely raise them. 

Neonatal kittens, also referred to as “bottle babies,” are the group that needs foster homes the most. Kittens are extremely fragile during the first 3 weeks of life, especially when they’re living without their mother. Because of their fragility and orphaned status, they require frequent care and monitoring. This is why kittens this age rarely make it out of shelters without foster homes. 

Fostering Helps Shelters and Rescue Organizations

Very few shelters have the staff, physical space, or resources to care for kittens (especially neonatal kittens) without foster homes. I share this not to speak negatively about shelters, but to highlight a serious area of need. 

The job of a municipal shelter is to take in every animal that they’re asked to take. Unfortunately, this means that their resources can be more limited than private rescue groups’, so shelters are the most successful when they’re able to make space for animals who are the most easily adopted. Typically, this includes animals who are healthy, socialized, and at least 8 weeks old. Animals who are unhealthy, undersocialized, or are younger than 8 weeks old are considered unadoptable.

By opening up a part of your home and sharing a bit of your time, you’re giving a chance to an otherwise unadoptable animal. 

Fostering is an Essential Part of the Rescue Cycle

Rescue, foster, adopt, and repeat. 

Ultimately, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, fostering is a short-term commitment that allows you to save lives. Without animal rescuers, animals would never receive the care they need. Without foster homes, rescued animals would have nowhere to go, so rescuers would have to significantly limit how many animals they can save. Without adopters, animals wouldn’t have forever homes, and foster homes wouldn’t be able to help with future cases. 

Please consider signing up to become a feline foster parent!

How to Get Started Fostering

In How to Get Started on Your Fostering Journey, you can follow the steps to become a feline foster parent! I also recommend doing your research to answer some of the questions you might have about fostering, such as what to do if you already have cats at home and how to quarantine your animals.

Click here to find more resources for getting started on your fostering journey. 

Why I Became a Feline Foster Parent

I spent one summer learning about cat health and behavior. Minnie was in need of a confidence-boost and needed to lose some weight, so I watched quite a few Jackson Galaxy YouTube videos. Suddenly a video by Kitten Lady appeared on my YouTube feed. Who’s Kitten Lady? I wondered. What is she doing with all of those kittens and tiny bottles? 

Several dozen videos later…I was hooked. “Obsessed” might be more accurate. Hannah Shaw, the Kitten Lady, is very involved in animal welfare. Her content sent memories flooding to my brain; memories of rescuing stray dogs and of stressing about how many animals were euthanized in shelters. I wanted to learn everything I could about fostering kittens. I had an entire spare bedroom and bathroom, so who was I to say that I couldn’t help? I couldn’t stand by now that I knew kittens were being brought to shelters that rarely have the resources and help to care for them. 

I signed up to foster with the private rescue organization that I adopted my first cat, Minnie, from. Within a couple weeks, I was officially set up to foster kittens for the first time. 

But that was just the beginning. Even though I had already decided this was an important issue I wanted to help with, it wasn’t until I officially became a feline foster parent that I began to understand the true severity of the issue. For instance, over half of the groups I’ve fostered so far have come from shelters and rescue groups in other states. While it’s amazing that organizations are able to partner with each other and transfer animals to places where there are available foster homes, why aren’t there more foster homes in the city or town where the animals were originally found? 

I also began to learn about community cats and the general stereotypes we have about what cats need from us. Cats did not ask to be domesticated, yet we’ve done so, and many are suffering for it.

I still have a lot to learn. I’m sure there are many animal welfare issues that I’m not even aware of yet. Thankfully, because of this amazing feline fostering journey, I have the time and space to explore.

I sincerely hope that you consider becoming a feline foster parent if you aren’t already. If you are, please share these resources in the hopes that at least one more person signs up to foster animals in need. 🙂 

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References: Tiny But Mighty and Kitten Lady’s neonatal kitten webinar 

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Exploring animal welfare one foster kitten at a time