Did i ever tell you about how much the Wee-b and I suck at fostering animals?
We let these pointies into our home and love on them and try to prepare them for the big bad world….And then we just go right ahead and fail in fabulous style.
Meet the newest member of our household:
Count Sterling: Nommer of Evil
This is my view almost every morning when I leave the Strewth house…
These two have now formed the local neighbourhood watch group. Luckily they don’t have opposable thumbs or we’d all be in trouble..
For the last two and a bit weeks we have had the privilege of fostering a slightly older gentleman in our house…
Sterling
I’m almost convinced that’s him smiling for the camera..
I know I have mentioned before that the Wee-b and I do a lot of fostering with a local rescue group, Tails High, and we truly love it. Sterling is one of the funniest little lovebugs we’ve had in our home for a long time. He is about 10, has no teeth, clipped fur and a bottlebrush for a tail (due to his fur being covered in oil and grease when he was found). He has fallen in love with the Giz and follows him around the house, chases Lady Georgia and wrestles with her (this is Georgia’s dream come true!) and cuddles with the humans.
Sterling would make such a fantastic companion, he’s such a friendly little man..and he’s absolutely gorgeous. I can’t wait to see the rest of his coat grow back in.
Some of our previous fosters..
We have two new kitties in the house for the next two weeks, courtesy of Tails High
Sally
&
Jasper
Sally is a complete goose and she has already made friends with Lady Georgia. In fact, last night they spent the night running the American Gladiator course throughout our entire house. Apparently the Wee-b was an integral part of this course as most of the leaping and pouncing involved his body.
Jasper (or Jaspurr as his last foster mum called him) has taken up residence under our bed. He is slowly spending less and less time under there, but he is a little bit of a scaredy cat. He spent quite a lot of time last night watching our backyard….so fingers crossed I may be able to get out the brush tonight and hear some of that much talked about purring 
Both of them are absolutely gorgeous…and somewhat silly. It’s still a little unnerving to be laying in bed and have two cat eyes peering at you at an angle from the bathroom sink!
I have to say, having foster kitties in the house is fun, rewarding, difficult and slightly heartbreaking all at the same time. I guess its kind of like being a foster parent to children on about 1/1903089745 of the scale.
Every week or so we get an email from our contact at Tails High, who lets us know about the current kitties they have and who she thinks might be a good fit for our house. The way Tails High works, is that they rely completely on foster homes. All the cats that come in and out of Tails High are loved by one family or even several (they get moved around every couple of weeks to keep them socialized and happy with different situations). We do have some kitties that are kept at a local Petco where we have weekly adoption events, but for the most part every single cat is having an extended sleep over at someones home until they find their forever family.
When we first started fostering with Tails High, we were doing it for two reasons. One – to see if the littleb was able to live with kitties full time (he has slight allergies) without causing him too much discomfort. And two – to be able to volunteer with an organization of some sort that still fit in with our crazy homelife and work schedule. Tails High fit both of those needs. And then….two and a half cats in, we found Lady Georgia.
Wee-b and I talked about it a lot and we decided that even though we wanted to keep Lady G, we still wanted to be able to foster cats. And so we did….and its been a blast so far! At the moment we have two of the MOST ADORABLE kittens ever.
Err…oops…i mean Holly and Kendra
Right. Thats the picture.
We have a new lady in the house this week – Little Kitty.
I got home from work early yesterday afternoon and went straight to the pantry, where she had been hanging out…but no Little Kitty. A quick survey of the rest of the house left me empty handed too…until i spied a corner of the sink cabinet slightly ajar..
We have a new foster in the house – a little girl who goes by the name of Missouri
She thinks that the Giz is the bees knees and spends a lot of time with him. She has some form of upper respiratory infection that, while non-contagious, has not been diagnosed as of yet (she is on medication!). She mostly just walks around the house wheezing like a little old man suffering from emphysema, but she is truly adorable.
Lady Georgia – still as sassy as ever. Some things never change!
And my little man. The one in charge..kind of. You know, when a cat is not trying to beat him up He has a hard life.
Introducing…
Tessa
She has chosen the top of the fridge as her observation point, however this photo was taken as she was perched on top of the door leading to the pantry. It allows for additional mobility as we open and close the door. She is apparently training for the new season of American Gladiators.
&
Thomasina
This is the sassy kitty. Thomasina is constantly coming up and rubbing herself against you but then swatting you when you try and pat her. I’m not sure she’s grasping the whole cause and effect thing yet…but we’re working on her.
I must say, even Gizmo has taken these kitties in his stride. He’s really not all that bothered by them…and he’s also not complaining that he has to spend more time in the room with the bed.
Oh the sacrifices we make..
We have been talking back and forth about the idea of getting a cat for a long time. The biggest obstacle is the littleb as he has pretty huge feline allergies. However, this summer he spent some time with his mom and she had two cats living indoors. He said that he didn’t really have any strong allergy attacks, so the thought of having a cat in the house again has become a little bit more of a reality.
The Wee-b and i discussed the idea some more and we went to a few adoption events to look at pointies. We decided that a smart thing to do, might be to foster with one of the adoption agencies for a while to see how everyone would get along with a cat in the house – littleb, the adults and of course…the Giz. So i did a little research to see what local rescue groups were around here and found one that was pretty close by that worked on a completely foster-home basis as opposed to a shelter facility. I contacted the foster co-ordinator and spoke with her at length about our family and the overall process of fostering with the group. Honestly, I really liked what I heard. I like their practices and I love the idea that all the cats are housed in foster homes (and moved often) so that they have constant stimulation and interaction with humans.
So….this is Walter..
He is an absolute charmer. He was so brave the first night he was at the house, he knew Giz was around somewhere (we had him closed in the bedroom) but was still happy to have a low hunt around the house to see what he could see. On the suggestion of the foster co-ordinator, we ran out to Target to grab a baby gate so that Giz and Walter could be separated but still see and smell each other. It really worked very well! We kept them separated for the first night and last night I pulled the gate down and let them do their thing. After living with Belle for a few years, Giz has learnt that cats rule and he does not. It appears he did not forget this rule….he saw Walter, but definitely kept his distance which was perfect as it allowed Walter to deal with another change in the house in a very calm way. My favourite part was this morning, when Gizmo was eating breakfast….Walter took the advantage of a distracted puppy and snuck up behind him to give him a great big sniff! The dog was never the wiser.
Apparently there is already an application in on Walter and if the application is approved he would be heading home in a few weeks. I’m really enjoying having a pointy in the house again and i’m surprising myself at how comfortable i am with the idea of fostering. It may be a different situation when it comes time for Walter to go home, but at this stage I really don’t think so. I have it well and truly stuck in my head that he will not be staying here and we are just helping him along his way.
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