Cats, along with a lot of other animals, live without homes on the street. Luckily, people welcome them into their homes to keep them safe while they wait for a forever family. This process is otherwise known as cat fostering.
Since 50-75% of the shelter population is cats, the demand is higher for people to foster cats.
When cats are living in a shelter, the environment can be very scary for them because they are often surrounded by people they don’t know and other animals which can be very loud. This is why fostering cats is often preferred over shelters. When fostering a cat, the cat will live in your home for as long as needed until the organization you are working with finds them a permanent home. Sometimes it is just for a short period, while other times they live with you for a while.
On December 11, 2021, Christy George got involved with cat fostering by welcoming two cats into her home as a way to help. The first cat she fostered was Tanner, and then she decided to also take in his brother Simba. She already had one cat before fostering, so adjusting from one to three was a challenge.
Animals live all different lives before going into foster homes, so they all react differently. Some animals could have been abused or lived on the streets which can make it hard for them to adjust to new homes. When first arriving they may seem timid, closed off and maybe even scared. It was a major challenge for the cat Tanner when he entered George’s home; he hid behind a shelf in the corner of the cold basement behind boxes to feel safe. She believes Tanner lived on the streets so being in the cold basement reminded him of his life before coming into her home. He would only come out about once a day to eat. To make him feel safer, George spent a lot of time in the basement sitting on the floor near the shelf. Fortunately, Tanner made progress by coming out of his hiding spot after about a week of care.
“Tanner went from hiding in the farthest and coldest corner of my basement to now sleeping with me at night in just 2 months,” said George.
Although Tanner came out of hiding for George, he has not warmed up to George’s kids nearly as much as he has to her. The kids were not home as much as George so they didn’t spend as much time with Tanner, therefore he doesn’t trust them as much. In addition, teenagers tend to make a lot of noise, which commonly foster animals are scared of; they stayed calm and quiet, so they wouldn’t frighten him. George ended up falling in love with Tanner and decided to adopt him.
Simba, Tanner’s brother, was adopted by another family after just a few weeks of coming to her home. Like Tanner, Simba was timid and gravitated towards the basement shelf.
The non-profit rescue George gets the cats from is called Monkeys Pack. They don’t just work with cats but with dogs too and occasionally animals such as turtles, rabbits, and guinea pigs; unfortunately they don’t have monkeys, the name originated from the dog of the founder, whose name happened to be Monkey. Within their organization they have just over 100 animals.
Cathy Bacon, a board member of Monkey’s Pack said, “We have relationships with some of our local animal control officers and they call us when they have dogs or cats that they need help with, we also partner with a couple of out of state high kill shelters to save some of those animals when we can.”
In addition, Monkeys Pack takes in a lot of special needs animals so it is harder finding a good home for them, keeping them in foster care longer.
Fostering animals is a notable thing to do. Too many animals have were forced to live through difficult times and experienced more mistreatment than they should. Monkeys Pack isn’t the only organization, almost all of them need help from the communities and anything will help.
“There is a huge need for fosters,” stated Cathy Bacon. “Each year approximately 920,000 shelter animals are euthanized so we try to help as many as we can.”
