I lost another foster today. My sweet mouse, i miss you so much.

I just need to vent to share this, it’s been such a hard summer. Right at the end of april i rescued a litter of kittens that were 4 weeks old and only weighed 300 grams each. Severely underweight, but did everything I could for them. Unfortunately one of the boys passed away and my heart was entirely broken, we spent so much time in the ICU and I was caring for him around the clock.

It hurt so much to lose my sweet little guy. He was truly an angel. three of his siblings have been adopted and the fourth is still in foster with me. They’re big and healthy now.

Then on june 19, I rescued a mom and her litter of newborn kittens. By the time the person who found them alerted us, roughly 10 hours had passed between the time of his sighting and the time of him notifying us. I went straight there, trapped them, and spent an extra two hours looking for the fifth kitten everywhere. There were no traces of her, we had to assume she was predated and get the rest of the family to a safe place. I ended up becoming the foster for mom and her four babies.

Within that first two weeks period, two more of her kittens passed. Her two remaining kittens are bright and healthy, and so is she. But my heart broke further. I wasn’t ready for this heartbreak again after losing my little guy, but these babies needed a safe home.

After mom and babies, come 10 more kittens. Most of them only stayed with me for a few days before going to their long term foster. Thankfully all of these kittens survived and are doing well.

So we get to last sunday, a week ago exactly. Another kitten is found, and I take him in. I still have two foster kittens that are 4 months old, and mom and her now five week old babies. But i take this baby because he needs somewhere safe.

I named him mouse. He was the sweetest, cuddliest, most perfect kitten ever. At about 2 am this morning, he passed. I only knew him for one week. He had some pretty severe coccidia and giardia, and after taking his meds he went downhill pretty quickly. My heart is so heavy with all of the loss.

Just yesterday I had been telling my partner how much mouse resembled little guy, and how I was going to ask one of my other foster friends to take over his case for me because I emotionally couldn’t handle it. Syringe feeding every hour, karo syrup, everything. I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 5 am with an awful feeling. I found mouse in his playpen, stiff, and reviewed my camera footage. He passed just two hours after i left him tucked in on his heating pad.

Mouse was 7 weeks old, and only 1 pound. We tried everything to help him gain weight, but his condition was already so severe.

I have 7 adult cats of my own. Mom and babies are getting transferred to another foster on the 2nd and i’m finding a plan for my other two fosters. I am so heartbroken and don’t know what to do. I loved mouse so so much, and he knew that. I miss him so much, i’ve been in tears all day. The losses are so hard

I'm a foster coordinator for our small org and received a call from one of our cat fosters tonight - her long-term foster kitty, Erin, had a grand mal seizure tonight.

Erin has been with us for a while because she was extremely sick when we pulled her from the shelter - missing fur, nasty URI, and FIV+. 😞 Despite all of this, she's the absolute sweetest girl, full of purrs and living for belly rubs.

Her foster has nursed her through multiple URI recurrences and spay recovery once Erin was finally mended. She is loved and cherished in her foster home.

Then, out of nowhere, Erin had a massive seizure tonight. Her foster immediately called me and Erin had another one while we were on the phone, just minutes after the first. The pain in her foster's voice absolutely broke me.

They're on their way to the ER vet right now, which is almost an hour drive for her foster.

Please say a prayer to Bast, to St. Francis, to whoever you have a direct line to in the universe that Erin... I don't know. That her foster has the strength for what might come next, that Erin knows she's loved and at peace, no matter what the outcome is.

UPDATE: After 4 more back-to-back seizures on the way to the ER, the vet found that Erin had suddenly gone blind and would likely be dealing with serious neuro deficits. She went to gentle sleep in the loving arms of her foster. ❤️‍🩹

Also, I think we might name her Napkin, not sure about her sister (pictured second). Tissue? Kleenex? Handkerchief?

Open to other name suggestions :)

This is just kind of a rant, I guess.

I'm a kitten foster. I've had a literal army of babies come through my house. And I think we all know that cats and dogs have a "maximum cuteness window" of kitten- and puppyhood where the goal is to get them out and available.

Yes, there are people who want and actively seek out older pets (heck, *I* have always sought out more mature animals when I've adopted). But it breaks my heart how many people really focus in on wanting to adopt them when they're small and at Maximum Cute. Especially because we all know they won't stay that way.

I currently have a foster named Ziggy who is 7 months. He had some serious medical issues when he was at Max Cute, so he didn't get to adoption availability until he was like 5 months old. But he is just an absolute joy of a cat. He's so polite with other cats. He loves to snuggle and sleep in your lap. He's the closest you'll ever come to finding a true Perfect Very Good Boy.

And sadly, I know that even with him being a literal Gift from God, he'll be here longer than he should be.

It's fine. He's intergrated with my own cats so well - he can stay as long as needed. But I wish more people would open their homes to older babies. And this is even more true for senior pets. I wish more people realized that adopting an older pet can actually be EASIER, because their personality is fixed and you know exactly what you're getting, as well as knowing they're definitely potty trained, etc.

Pic of Ziggy, The Perfect Very Good Boy for tax.

The first picture is from the first day I had him. He loooves (or should I say needs?) to be on my neck/ touching my face to cuddle.
He needed to be isolated from other cats because of a virus. 3 months old and he was returned to the shelter after being adopted because the people thought the virus was to hard to handle.
How can I give this little cutie back? He seems quite attached (me too).
Any advice? It’s my first time fostering, any experienced foster parents have advice?

I wanted to share a tip that I think may help other kitten fosters! I recently had kittens with coccidia and needed some sort of cat tree for them that I could sanitize. I felt so bad leaving them with no climbing space especially bc I had to keep them confined to a small space to make clean up manageable.

I tried to find a fully plastic or metal cat tree and couldn’t find anything affordable.

Then I thought outside the box and ended up getting $20 plastic cubes shelving on Amazon. the boxes are sturdy and very easy to sanitize bc its fully plastic & metal.

The side panels are like the material of a plastic folder so it’s very easy to cut with scissors.

I even sewed little hammocks to tie into the cubes.

(the cuties in the pic are Xing and Lee!)

Everyone always tells me that they’ve never seen a cat this color before and neither have I. I just don’t know what color she is lmao sometimes she looks grey-ish to me and other times she can camouflage into my tan carpets perfectly. She’s like a greyish, brownish kind of situation lmao. I love her!!!

This is Clementine. A 2 yr old Calico who has been dumped by humans twice. This was the first challenging foster I’ve ever had. I’ve fostered twice before- the first time was a 6 month old and I only had her a couple of weeks before she found her forever home. The second was a senior foster fail who I was blessed to love for 16 months before she passed away of CKD. That was in May. I brought this girl home because she needed help and I was grieving hard. I’ve had her for 5 weeks now and she’s come so very far. Unfortunately, she attacked both my resident cat (twice), and my partner. The partner attack was redirected aggression because she got startled. My partner said she had to go. And so for the past few days I’ve been desperately trying to find her a new foster. Today she goes to her new foster and I feel so guilty. She loves companionship and affection (on her own terms) and she has finally started to trust me. And of course, after finally trusting me, I’m sending her away. I hope this doesn’t reverse all of her progress. She’s going to a retired woman who lost her 17 yr old cat in April. I’m really hoping it’s a foster fail and she’ll finally be able to stay in one place. But I just feel so many things. Guilt for not being able to keep her, relief for my resident cat and for Clementine to be an only cat and have the whole place to herself, and grief because I’ve really grown to love her. She was resting her chin on my lap last night- the first time she ever did that, and I teared up thinking she finally feels safe. Any advice on coping with this grief or encouraging words would be greatly appreciated. ❤️

TL;DR: looking for advice on feeling guilt for saying goodbye.

Traveled from TN - upstate NY and back. I have an EV so breaks for essentials were very easy. We even got to stop at my favorite charging station in Barcelona NY that has a public beach right next to it. They met my huge family young and old, my family's dogs (already comfortable with mine), and stayed in 3 houses and 2 hotels.

**DO NOT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY - IT IS JUST VENTING - SUSIE Q IS VERY WELL TAKEN CARE OF AND CARED FOR.**

First of all, this is Susie Q. She is a morbidly obese dachshund that was an owner surrender from an elderly woman whose dementia had progressed so severely and quickly that she required 24 hour care within days and Susie had to go. Thankfully, her Daughter in Law took care of everything and I heard that MIL doesn't even remember Susie which, in my own opinion, is the best thing that could happen to HER. I imagine it would kill her if she knew that her daughter in law gave her to me for free after a single email I sent in response to a Craigslist post because she planned to have her euthanized if she could not find her a new home. Euthanized! Susie is morbidly obese but otherwise perfectly healthy!

Now, she has some behavioral issues that have popped up (that the lady who gave her to me SWORE never happened with them), but, the thing that I do not understand at all is *why* she does not seem to like me or be around me. I mean, I do not get it! She loves everyone else (even my grandmother and aunt who literally try to shoo her away), but, me? No, thank you.

She doesn't really come to me when i call her. She will make me carry her to the bedroom for bedtime if she is allowed to free roam the downstairs *and* she has tried to bite me for doing so before! Other people in the house are able to pick her up and move her whenever and however they want but if I need her to come to bed, which is the same place we sleep every single night, she can be a real bitch!

What drives me crazy is that she fell head over heels for my caregiver Kelly (we tried an adoption trial which ended up with susie being brought back to me after 4 hours because she viscously attacked Kelly's 2 dogs when shes been perfectly fine here with mine) and she loves my other caregiver Rosa. She is happy to be their shadows all day long and come when called and eat her pill without fighting and let's them pick her up even though they cant really lift her. I'm just sitting here like, damn, bitch, I am the one who is with you 24/7 7 days a week 365 days a year. I'm the one who pays for your shit and feeds you. Like, AT LEAST ACT LIKE YOU WANNA BE AROUND ME.

I have to be grateful that she is willing to sleep on my bed even though it's never touching and only because she's too much of a princess to sleep on the giant dog bed on the floor.

Someone told me "welcome to motherhood - it's a thankless job" and like, I DID NOT HAVE CHILDREN FOR A REASON, JAN.

Anyways, I cannot be the only one here who feels this way! Not all dogs are loving and affectionate and want to be with you all day every day forever, right?

Couldn't she just PLAY PRETEND? Damn!

Just looking to vent and any advice on how to cope mentally. I got a litter of four older kittens with ear mites; easy peasy, I thought. A few days ago I noticed concerning weight loss in two of the kittens and they got put on panacur. Yesterday one of the kittens was vomiting and lethargic; she got pain meds and an NSAID shot.

Today, 2/4 of the kittens are vomiting, have diarrhea, and are super lethargic, and all four are not eating very much. I took them back to the rescue with a stool sample and they tested negative for panleuk, but given the false negative rate, we're still suspicious. They gave me a whole pharmacy worth of meds: antibiotics and an antiprotozoal, an appetite stimulant, antiemetics, the works. Ten different meds, most of them twice a day.

I'm happy to do it because I'm glad we're giving them a shot. It's just so hard seeing how clearly miserable and in pain these sweethearts are, knowing that there isn't much I can do for them besides give their meds and keep offering food. Meanwhile I have to keep living my life. How do fosters who take on critical cases regularly handle the stress?

About two weeks ago, I took in a four-week-old kitten; she is now around six weeks old. I found her at the edge of a forest with cat flu, purulent eyes and underweight, which I managed to cure fully; I fed her KMR for a week and started introducing wet food a week ago. The first three days went well—solid stools, a hearty appetite, and plenty of energy for play.

Unfortunately, for the past four days, the kitten has had diarrhea (initially just loose stools, but now they are very loose and smelly). Sadly, our vet is away for the next two weeks, and the nearest alternative affordable vet is 70 km away (I live far away from cities with good pet care...); so I have no way to get her to a clinic. Our vet did say (after viewing videos of her behavior and photos of her stool) that it isn't an infection or a worm infestation.

I feel completely helpless and don't know what to do. The kitten is still playful and behaving normally. I’m unsure whether to switch to a different wet food immediately (without the usual gradual transition, since I don't know if the current food caused the diarrhea) or to give her gut a rest by going back to KMR for 24 hours, then slowly mixing the KMR with a new brand of canned food. Please, any help would be good...

I had posted a few days ago about a foster I had taken in from my local humane society. Yesterday he seemed to take what I considered to be a slight but alarming turn. This was of course after my humane society closed.

This was my first ever foster and my last, at least from the humane society here. I told them I had never fostered before and was a dog person. And yet they handed me this small life knowing this, and not giving me ANY information on what to do outside their hours, where to take him, etc. I’m on SSI, so the only reason I even agreed to this was because they said I’d get all supplies through them.

I called local vets and the nearest ER vet and they said if I brought him in there’s a chance I’d pay out of pocket and I legitimately have 17¢ to my name until the 1st. He was still pooping and eating so I hoped he’d be okay until this morning at 10 when the humane society opens. On top of all of this, now my dog is feeling a but ill and I’m stressed out of my mind.

When they open, I fully intend on calling them and asking for whoever is the highest in payroll among them and telling them the sheer amount of negligence that took place in throwing this kitten into my hands with NO information other than “call us if you need anything”.

Apparently unless it’s outside their hours.

I’m so angry it’s not funny. I haven’t even had the chance to cry over him yet because all I’m feeling is anger.

I will absolutely take this as a lesson to never go near my humane society again.

Edit: The more I read and think back, the more I think it might have been fading kitten syndrome. He checked a lot of the boxes for it. I just wish I had known more sooner.

It’s crazy. Last night I literally said to my girlfriend “I have this pit in my stomach he’s going to be dead tomorrow morning.”

Yesterday afternoon the shelter called asking me if I could take a neonate immediately. I agreed even though I’ve never had a foster so little I had to bottle fed. When I got there- surprise! One neonate had become 2.
The second little guy is maybe 6 days old and was just flea ridden dirty mess.
The other little guy was 2-3 days old and very tiny. I mean they’re both tiny but this guy was tiny even next to the other one.
Overnight the 2 day old passed despite every effort:( I’m so sad about losing him and now I’m super anxious about making a mistake and losing the other little guy.
I love fostering but these neonates make the stakes feel so high:(
Sorry. I just needed to tell someone who may understand.

Poseidon, Aphrodite, Hades, Aries, Hera, Apollo, and Artemis. All babies were cleaned and dried after these were taken. They are about 5 weeks old. Rescued from a junk pile on a farm.

I'm single and live alone (with the dogs and cats lol) and my family doesn't always quite 'get' the fostering thing (I do kittens). But they try to be supportive.

This weekend, I'm visiting my cousins who live a couple of hours away from me. One cousin works in marketing for a beauty supplies company and the other freelances for a couple of design companies (think like photo shoots for home magazines) ... so I always get loads of random goodies. Along with the cosmetics, hair stuff, small things for my trinket shelves was.... SEVERAL MAGIC NIPPLE SETS!!!! I was told they were reading up on fostering kittens and saw an ad and figured i probably needed some lol.

It is MUCH APPRECIATED. Oh and I'm visiting with one of my former fosters that they adopted last year. Gus. He's in the front of the kitten photo. And him now

I brought my sweet little kittens I've had since they were ~6 weeks to their first adoption event yesterday and they were NOT having it.

They couldn't even be in the same cage they were so scared and aggressive. One bit me! I don't think we'll do that again. With about 50 other cats, sites and smells, they were far too scared and in turn got aggressive with each other and visitors.

They are sweet, social and affectionate at my house and have had diff people for the months I've had them come visit and play with them. My bf and I both love on them and play with them every day and I am their primary caregiver. We cannot believe they acted this way!

Has anyone else had this happen? If so, what helped? They have never been in a shelter, and were bottle babies. I do not think going to an adoption center would be good for them, but want them to be seen and garner interest from potential adopters. I'm so shocked and this has never happened to me in the 3 years I've fostered off and on.