Pitbulls & Paints: Fostering kittens.. a super easy way to SAVE LIVES!

Those that know my husband and I know we are very much dog people. There's such thing as cat people, as dog people, and the rarity....... those that are equally obsessed with both species and can be a crazy cat and dog person at the same time. As someone obsessed with dogs, I've never been a cat person (and I may never become one!) BUT I impulsively offered to bring home a litter of foster kittens at our local shelter we volunteer at last week and am in no way regretting it. Quite the opposite actually. I want to share my experience.. how easy it is, how satisfying.. and how I'm finally able to be a foster and am in no way set up for failure (like with several of our foster failure dogs). As much as kittens are cute, I have no desire to keep them and can't wait to see them go.. so I can go bring home another litter and save an additional handful of lives. Keep on reading if you need to be convinced to give fostering a try.

We began fostering almost two years ago when we wanted to take our volunteering at Alachua County Animals one step further and directly impact the life of dogs that were too scared to live at the shelter, or had nowhere to go when the shelter was overcrowded. With the 7 dogs we short-term fostered, we only failed with 2 (pretty good track record, eh??) increasing our dog children to 4 and limiting our space and sanity to keep bringing home more on a regular basis. Not fostering for a while though has been bugging me.. especially with the shelter having over 100 adoptable dogs NOT getting adopted, and "kitten season" in full swing, bringing in litters and litters of underaged (kittens under 8 weeks of age that cannot be spayed/neutered or adopted yet) kittens faster than they can move them out. Our dogs have a prey drive and consider cats in the category as "prey", I'm allergic, and although I don't "dislike cats" I also don't want one, so fostering them seemed like a no-brainer.... it's temporary, it's free, it's easy.. and it's directly saving lives. OH.. and there's no way we can fail. After all, this time of year kittens are at risk of euthanasia the more that come in and with limited space and resources at the shelter there are not many other options... besides fostering! With that being said I'll tell you how we manage, with 4 overly-curious dogs I wouldn't trust within ten feet of a cat, other intensive hobbies and responsibilities, regular care of our several other rescue animals, and with a busy schedule of my husband being a full-time PhD student and me juggling about four jobs.

It's fairly simple. Stick em in a large dog crate, spare room, or bathroom. Set up a litter pan (more if you have several kittens), food dishes (more for multiple kittens) and water dishes (more for multiple kittens). Give them towels or a bed to sleep in. Check on and feed/water/clean litter 2x a day. Join them for play and give love whenever you have time (with our schedule it may be for 20 minutes once a day, or longer multiple times a day if we have the time, as long as they're getting some socialization). If you don't have a lot of time for play, foster more than one kitten so they can play with each other. Provide and make them toys to keep them busy. The shelter provides all supplies and vet care. Fostering is fun AND free! I feel bad if a day goes by that we don't have much time for kitten play, but the designated time I spend cleaning their cage and feeding them each day turns into some extra pets, snuggles, purring, meowing, climbing on me and that all transfers into love that I know they'll bring with them to their future homes with their little outgoing and adventurous personalities.

Meet my current foster kittens currently at about 5.5 weeks of age. These guys will be ready for their new forever families in a few weeks: