Our cats will spend the holidays surrounded by those who love them, in a warm home, with full tummies and plenty of toys. That’s quite a contrast to how shelter cats will spend their holidays. For them, they’re not going to be any different from any other day spent waiting for that one human who will rescue them and give them a forever home.
To help make the holidays brighter for some of these shelter cats, Petfinder.com is sponsoring its annual Foster A Lonely Pet For The holidays program, and asks you to open your heart and home to a cat from a shelter or rescue group this holiday season. For a lot more information and a list of participating shelters and rescue groups, please check out Petfinder.com. staff and volunteers at each organization will be available to answer questions about the fostering process and help select a pet who will be a good match for the foster family’s lifestyle.
First created in 2009, the Foster A Lonely Pet For The holidays program was inspired by Greg Kincaid’s book and movie, A pet dog named Christmas, about a young man who sets out to convince his community to participate in a local animal shelter’s inaugural “Adopt a pet dog for Christmas Program.” Kincaid just released a sequel to this immensely popular book, A Christmas Home, which picks up the story when Todd, the hero of the first book, is twenty-four years old and working at a local animal shelter.
Would you consider fostering a cat for the holidays?
If fostering is not an option for you, I’ll have information for you next week on other ways you can help brighten the holidays for shelter cats.
Ingrid King
You might also like:
Foster a lonely cat for the holidays
The conscious cat 2012 holiday gift guide
How to help Homeless Cats during the holidays
« finding a cat-friendly vet
Exclusive discount on Neko Flies toys »
15 comments on holiday 2012: Can you foster a lonely cat for the holidays?
Ashlea Felty says:
November 26, 2012 at 10:13 am
I would adopt A KITTY!!! but my mommy thinks we have “too many”. and I don’t have any money! (: c)
Reply
Fisher says:
November 22, 2012 at 5:10 am
Fostering for the holidays is a terrific idea!
Reply
Nicole says:
November 21, 2012 at 12:43 pm
I would love to do this, but I’m terrified I wouldn’t give it back!! plus my person Diego is very much “this is my house”. So regrettably I can not be a foster parent. but I do donate to my local shelters!
Reply
lisa richman says:
November 21, 2012 at 10:39 am
I absolutely understand Rose’s position … but we’ve observed that even a furlough of a week can help out with kennel anxiety in some cats. typically the volunteers at our shelter will do this and the cat comes back less irritable and with a better chance of finding that permanent forever home.
Reply
Rose says:
November 21, 2012 at 12:10 pm
I absolutely agree with you, Lisa, which is why I used to rotate my cats in and out of the Petsmart adoptions area. As Ingrid said, it absolutely depends on the personality of the individual cat, and the rescue group must know which cats would do well with a break and which ones would not.
Reply
Cathy Keisha says:
November 20, 2012 at 10:52 pm
We would love to but I’m the jealous kind and we don’t have room to keep a foster separate from me. I nearly ripped the last cat that came in her apart. My aunt fosters up to 20 cats at a time.
Reply
Rose says:
November 20, 2012 at 2:07 pm
As someone who has been in cat rescue a long time, and who currently has 20 foster felines (17 kittens and the 3 mama cats who gave birth to them), I am not sure that a lot of cats would benefit from being fostered for the holidays, not like dogs would. Dogs are a whole different energy, social, adaptable, comfortable nearly anywhere. Not true of cats. They take time to depend on and adjust, for the most part. maybe the hope is that the foster family will adopt the cat, of COURSE, but I would only recommend you “foster a lonely cat for the holidays” if the fostering can to continue AFTER the holidays and until the cat gets adopted into its forever home. I mean, how would a cat feel after being freed from his display cage and getting to take pleasure in a home, starting to feel like he was adopted, and then being “rejected” and returned to the cage?
Back when I was with a rescue group who had space in one of the Petsmart adoption areas, I rotated my cats out frequently, and none of my cats stayed in Petsmart a lot more than 9 days (Saturday through the following Sunday to give them 2 weekends and one work week to get adopted). As a group, each member had access to at a lot of two cages, so it was easy to do, and better for the cats. The short-termers got adopted, and the long termers knew they would come “home” in a week or so, plus their foster mommies (us) were there frequently, so they did not feel abandoned. and some of them came home to us and stayed forevernull