Two-Legged Foster Parents Give Kittens Chance to Live

It’s kitten season, and that means two things: Lots of cats will be born during the next several months, and many that wind up at a local animal shelter will die without special care.

Kittens--especially those without mothers--are very susceptible to illness during their first few weeks of life. If they have not been cared for in a clean, protected environment and still survive, they have less of a chance of being adopted and so are more likely to be put to sleep by animal control officials.

Because the mortality rate for newborn kittens is so high, animal shelters are stepping up their efforts to find foster parents--humans, not felines--to help give the young cats a fighting chance at survival.

Santa Ana’s shelter recently became the latest animal care facility in Southern California to create a foster program, in which families care for kittens for two to eight weeks until they are healthy. The cats are then returned to the shelter, where officials say they have a much better chance of being adopted.

“It’s very rare that an animal comes out of foster care that doesn’t make it,” said Marissa Miller, spokeswoman for the Marin Humane Society.

Safe, Peaceful Homes Provided

Foster parents provide what shelters cannot: a safe, peaceful home environment where the animals get used to human contact and are prepared for adoption. The noise and chaos in shelters can cause enough stress in newborns that they get sick and die.

“We have lower euthanasia rates when kittens can be raised [in a home] rather than be kept in a shelter environment,” said Dolores Keyes, animal services director of a shelter in San Clemente.

Many shelters also have foster programs for dogs and animals that need short-term special care before they can be put up for adoption. The kittens, however, are more numerous and more fragile, so that’s usually where most of the shelters’ efforts go.

Sometimes, the foster parents’ attachment to the kittens leads to adoption.

“We have quite a few flunked foster parents who keep the kittens. I’m one of them,” said Cindi Kane, who works at Coastal Animal Services Authority in San Clemente.

Coastal Animal Services, which also serves Dana Point, has had a foster program since the shelter opened in 1995, but this year it added five volunteers who take calls from foster parents when something goes wrong, which is often.

Orange County Animal Shelter, which serves 20 cities, plans to expand its program by opening it to the public. Right now, it has about 20 in-house volunteers who serve as foster parents. But with 13,000 cats impounded by the shelter last year, the need for foster homes is overwhelming.

Caring for newborn kittens without a mother is “messy, time-consuming and emotionally draining,” said Eliza Rubenstein, coordinator of the foster program at Irvine Animal Care Center.

Special Care for Delicate Animals

The kittens have to be tube-fed or bottle-fed special formula every few hours the first two weeks. The foster parents have to clean them after every feeding and gently rub their genital area to help them eliminate waste.

They don’t generate much body heat on their own, so they must be kept on a covered heating pad that’s turned to the lowest setting.

During those first critical weeks, foster parents have to watch for signs of illness such as diarrhea, weight loss or discharge from the eyes or nose.

Sometimes even the best care is not enough.

Kylie Wiggins of Irvine, a foster parent many times over, recalled a 4-week-old kitten that had started to go blind, a sign that other ailments are at work. But she had kept others in the same condition alive before, so she just kept feeding her, hoping for the best.

“She died with me nursing her one night,” Wiggins said.

It Can Be Hard to Give Them Back

Diane Craig of Laguna Niguel, a veterinary surgeon with a practice in Tustin, is caring for two 7-week-old litters, each with a mother. But the mother of one litter was not vaccinated and had a contagious virus that she passed on to the kittens. Four of her seven offspring died.

Volunteers often have their own informal support group to get through those times.

“You go [to the shelter] and cry together and talk about it. And deep down you know there’s nothing you can do,” Wiggins said.

The most difficult part is returning the kittens.

Even adult cats that are coaxed to be foster parents to a litter will push the young away after about seven weeks.

“It’s us humans that want to hold on to them,” Wiggins said.