Yesterday, I diaried about a contest in which a shelter recieves up to one million dollars for a "makeover". The voting lasts one week so this is my daily reminder for you to vote if you haven't done so.
Details on how to register and how to vote can be found in the link provided. And if you're a Kossack from one of the other shelters in the contest, you go! We're all in this together and while I'd dearly love to see the Central Missouri Humane Society, all of us could use the money and all of us are doing good things so here's hoping for the best!
Today, a happy shelter story to bring some light onto the whole experience.
Mrs grog is a shelter volunteer. Shortly after she started, we began to foster cats. Our first experience was with a mother cat and six 4-5 week old kittens. They were found in a wrecked car in the back of somebody's lot by two pit bulls. The mother cat was clearly smart and had moved her babies to a safe place...that is until they were old enough to start moving around.
Fortunately, the pits's owners found her and the babies. That was Fortunate Event #1. #2 was the fact that the mother wasn't wild or even remotely wild. So, the folks bring her and the kittens into the shelter.
Here's something you probably don't know: in most situations like this, if the mother cat is too wild to handle, the shelter will euthanize her and the litter. Why? The kittens need a mother for a variety of obvious reasons and most shelters don't have the staff to handle the manpower-intensive job of hand-raising small kittens. As such, the kittens are also usually euthanized as well.
In this instance, enter Mrs grog. She agreed to bring momma and the kittens home, a task made easier all around by the friendly nature of the female. Thus began six weeks of sheer joy and fun as we got them better (they were all skin and bones and sneezy when they arrived) and more importantly, found them homes.
Their first night:
Their momma:
I documented over at C&J how they grew, got better and developed personalities. In little time, the tenseness that all of them had melted away:
We weren't concerned about finding homes for the kittens although we ended up being very proactive in that regard. What worried us most was finding a home for the momma. Plain ole brown tabbies are, well, numerous and despite have some of the best personalities you'll find among cats, that's a subject only known to real die hard cat people.
So, I went to the C&J community who came forth in a way I'd never imagined. One woman in Austin Texas took the female, by now named Mrs Brown. Another woman put us in touch with somebody who took two of Siamese mixes. We kept them until just before xmas so she could suprise her kids on xmas morning:
Out of six kittens, a pair of each went to three homes, that never happens so this story has a happy ending. Tomorrow, I'll relate a few not-so-happy stories of other fosters since that underscore what most shelters are up against these days.
Enjoy the photos and don't forget to vote! It doesn't cost you anything, you won't get spammed and you'll help put some great creatures in Forever Homes.