My Motley Crew

A friend reminded me recently that I used to say that when I finally bought a home and settled down (I used to live a peripatetic existence), I would start filling my house with animals.

Well, I bought a home just over 2 years ago–and, lo, I have filled it with animals!

In May, I adopted two cats from the Cat Adoption Team (CAT), a small local volunteer group which rescues cats and kittens from kill shelters and from the streets, and then fosters them (including providing all necessary medical care, spaying/neutering them, and getting them microchipped) until they’re adopted. (For those who are interested, CAT is a registered 501(c)(3) charity which accepts tax deductible donations. They also always need fosters, volunteers, sponsors, and, of course, people interested in adopting a cat and giving it a permanent, safe, loving home.) You can follow them on Facebook or Twitter, or visit their website.

When researching adoption, I was shocked to read about the plight of black cats, who are much less likely to be adopted and much more likely to be abused, abandoned, and euthanized than other cats. (And most shelters will not adopt out a black cat during October, because there are people who use them in horrific ways to “celebrate” Halloween.)

So I adopted two black cats from CAT in May 2014. We assume they’re brothers. They had turned up together at a rural kill shelter months earlier, after surviving for a few months on their own during an unusually bitter winter here. They seemed like heroic little fellows to me, so I named them after two of the most immortal heroes of all time, Hector and Achilles from Homer’s Iliad. In the story, of course, Achilles kills Hector in combat; but in this household, Hector & Achilles are inseparably close, the best of pals, and do everything together. They’re also very friendly and social, as well as very food-motivated, so it’s a lot like having two tiny labradors in the house, but with less mud or drool.

Hector & Achilles, occupying my writing chair.

Right around the time I adopted them, I got very interested in a hard-luck case at CAT. Rescued from the streets as a youngster, he was an extremely shy black-and-white tuxedo cat named Poe (a name I kept, since it suits him perfectly). Because Poe was too fearful to come to adoption events and too feral even to be visited in his foster home (where he mostly lived in hiding), there seemed little hope of his being adopted. But I somehow felt that this super-shy fellow, named after a writer, belonged here, along with my two well-adjusted, gregarious young cats (Poe is terrified of people but very cat-oriented, so he needed an adoptive home with cats who would befriend him). It took his foster a while to catch him and get him into a carrier, but eventually, 2-3 months after I adopted the brothers, Poe moved in here and I adopted him, too. Since then his progress has been slow, and I think he’ll always be a shy, anxious cat who hides from most people, but he has been making strides and settling in well. He’s great pals with Hector & Achilles, he now hides under the bed only part of the day, and he plays with his toys and enjoys his meals. As you can see, he is also quite a handsome fellow.

Poe

Well, by then, I was really interested in CAT and the work they were doing. This small, well-run group with a tight budget is placing over 200 cats per year in adoptive homes–which is a lot of feline lives for a few volunteers to save. They also vet adopters carefully to make sure the cats they’ve rescued really are going to safe, loving, permanent homes. So when a couple of tiny kittens turned up in a rural kill shelter which had little ability to care for them, at a time when CAT volunteer homes were full-up with recent fosters, I decided to foster these two for CAT. Although a bit of work at times, since the kittens were sick when they arrived and didn’t recover fully for about 6 weeks, it was a great experience–including the support I got from CAT, which provides the food, toys, medicine, and medical care, as well as plenty of constructive advice and moral support. The kittens were little charmers who fit in well here, and who were adopted by a wonderful family soon after getting fully healthy and being spayed. Saying goodbye was hard, but it’s great to see cats who were abandoned and destined for an early death instead go home with a loving family one fine day.

My foster kittens on their first day here.

Now growing up in their forever home.

MEANWHILE…. a little over a year ago, before I ever brought any cats into the house, I started fostering puppies for a service dog organization, 4 Paws For Ability, which focuses primarily on providing service dogs to children with a variety of disabilities, including epilepsy, diabetes (seizures), hearing impairments, autism, fetal alcohol syndrome, mobility issues, and more. Fostering a service puppy is a big commitment, and (people always ask this, so let’s cut to the case), yes, giving them up is hard. But it’s worth it when you see your puppy graduate from training as a confident, skilled adult dog, and you meet the child and family whose lives this dog is completely changing.

My first foster was Snap, a male golden retriever puppy who lived here for about six months. About a week before I adopted Hector & Achilles, Snap returned to 4 Paws for his adult training. Snap was trained as a seizure alert dog, and he partners a little girl in Florida. He did very well in his training and, at last report, is doing great with his family, who love him and value the independence and security he brings to their daughter’s life.

Snap at 6 months.

During the months after Snap left, I adopted Hector, Achilles, & Poe. Then I fostered my second service puppy, Riona, a female golden retriever–and Snap’s younger half-sister.

Riona at about 5 months.

 Riona recently also went back to 4 Paws. She’s currently doing some additional training, and I’ll check on her in a couple of weeks. At present, it sounds like she will go into the breeding program rather than into service. Dogs in the breeding program live as family pets, and they have 2-3 litters to provide 4 Paws with more service puppies, before being sprayed and living out the rest of their lives with their families. In fact, although Riona is a very gentle dog who loved training and was good with kids, I think this is a good choice for her future, since Riona will make an excellent mother. While she was living here, my foster kittens moved in with us for two months–and Riona adored them. She played with them, napped with them, hung out with them. Although she was more than 10 times their size, she was a terrific playmate for them, gentle and patient. She also came along to adoption events with us and did a great job of comforting and calming them, since being in a carrier in a public place surrounded by strangers is scary for kittens.

Riona hanging out with the kittens.

With the kittens adopted and Riona back at 4 Paws now, there are currently just three 4-legged beings in residence here–the permanent ones: Hector, Achilles, & Poe. But for a while there, I had 6 animals in my small 2-bedroom townhouse, all of them very young and active (the eldest, Poe, is estimated to be only about 18 months old as of this writing), and 3 of them sick and requiring medications, extra cleaning (vomit, diarrhea, and bladder problems), and extra care. (The kittens arrived with multiple infections, and Riona got very sick as a puppy and needed medication for a couple of months.) And, as a neighbor pointed out when discovering me in a frazzled, babbling state outside my home one day, I had gone from 0 to 6 pretty quickly, without much time to adjust.

So while I enjoyed it all, and it was worthwhile, I’m rather glad to have a break now, with just me and the 3 lads at home. I will foster again for CAT and for 4 Paws, but not immediately–and I think I will try to avoid fostering for them both again at the exact same time...