Every spring, the shelter welcomes up to 450 kittens. The shelter isn’t the best place for a newborn kitten to grow up, though, so kitten families spend some quality time in a home where they’re able to play with humans and each other.

Our current foster volunteers absolutely love their work! Food and toys are provided by the shelter, and our animal health experts are on hand at all times to answer questions and provide medicine if necessary. So really, a foster’s job is just to play with kittens a whole lot, and what could be better than that?

Since the kittens need time to get their immune systems working, and ideally time with their moms before being weaned and adopted, our fosters get to help out at that crucial transition time. This is when the kittens are learning all about the world, and they go from tiny lumps of fuzz to racing, playing, purring balls of energy in just a few weeks. The kittens learn social skills around each other, people, and sometimes around other animals. And the fosters are able to give potential adopters all sorts of information about the kittens’ personalities and what they like and dislike.

Fostering kittens only takes a few weeks out of your time at the most, and brings so many rewards. It can definitely be tough to bring them to the shelter after fostering them to find their forever homes, but knowing that there’s a new group of adorable, feisty kittens who need your love helps the transition. As foster mom Cindy Miller says, “I cry the whole way to the shelter” to bring the kittens to be adopted, “but I know in my heart that the FAMD crew is going to find them a happy home,” so it’s easier to bear. Plus, she says, “I think what the next batch will look like.”

If you are interested in learning more about being a foster, you can find out more information here. The kitties (and we) thank you!