And then there was one...

I hate to start my blog off on this note, but I feel compelled to share this. The sad reality about fostering kittens is that they have a very high mortality rate. That being said, I started out with 2 foster kittens, Lucy and Pig Pen (Charlie Brown- how clever). They both were severely underweight and had Upper Respiratory Infections. And even though she was taking medicine for her illness, unfortunately, little Lucy didn't make it. It was very sad. I just tell myself that if she couldn’t make it after the first week in my care, she probably wouldn’t have made it more than a couple of days at the shelter. I find peace in knowing that I gave her plenty of love and attention during her last days. I wanted to share this story on the blog because I can only hope that I inspire you to foster though my stories. If we had more fosters in the world, we could help these kittens sooner and hopefully they can avoid the same fate as Lucy.

Here’s a pic of the late Lucy. She was 12oz when I brought her home. She was a cutie!

Step One: Get Inspired

Welcome to my blog! I'm so excited to get this thing up and running to share the stories of my two foster kitties. I wanted to kick off my first post by explaining to you exactly how I got involved with the Portsmouth Humane Society and ended up with two kittens in my bathroom. Here goes...

Landon and I were in the market to adopt a new cat. We checked out a couple of local shelters but when we arrived at Portsmouth Humane Society we knew immediately that this shelter was in much more disrepair then the others. However, despite that, the staff was significantly friendlier and were much more excited to see us then the other places. We decided that we're adopting from this shelter regardless, whether it was today or on a future visit. These kitties were at such a disadvantage because the facilities were the worst that we’ve seen. The “Cat Room” was actually quite intense; it was really loud because all of the cats- sick and healthy- were in the same room. The cats weren’t able to leave their cages and socialize (like the other shelters) so it was really hard to get a good gauge of the cats’ personality. However, despite those factors, we found "Dole" a cute tabby that just stood out from the rest. Long story short, we adopted him and renamed him Caldeeze. What a great choice.

I wanted to help so I asked PHS what I could do. Besides donating a cool half a mil ($500,000) to complete the construction on their new facility down the road, fostering seemed like the best option.

I soon found out that the air quality at PHS (and a lot of other shelters) is very poor and the air handler does not do a good job of filtering so the same nasty air is pumped throughout the shelter. Not only does it smell really bad, it gives the animals, especially kittens, an upper respiratory infection AKA a cold. This is why fostering is so important. They want to get the kitties out of their facility and raised in a cleaner environment and then place them in the adoption centers at the local PetsMart.

I turned in my volunteer and foster applications and went to the orientation on a Sunday. Monday morning I got a call to see if I was ready to take the kittens. That afternoon I picked up my two foster kittens from PHS. This was going to be an interesting experience.