Dexter

The shelter policy haunted me. So, in 2002, when I finally was in a position to help, I contacted Bert Smith at the JPAS offering to foster some of these orphans. He referred me to Friends of the Jefferson Animal Shelter, a new organization started to address this very issue of orphaned kittens under six weeks old and pregnant cats who come to the shelter. Through this model program, fosterers provide this formerly lost segment of the animal population vet care, good food, spay/neuter and adoption. I immediately began fostering full time – I have bottle fed and helped birth literally hundreds of kittens.

I then learned about Spaymart when I rescued a litter of kittens not eligible for the Friends program. I was told by someone that Spaymart rescued and fostered kittens. When I contacted them, I learned that they did often try to help people who call, but did not have the resources or official programs in place.

So I ended up fostering the kittens myself and volunteered to help Spaymart. I liked the balance between the two organizations – one was committed to prevention through spay/neuter, the other to save those born anyway. I knew I couldn’t help them all, but this seemed to cover a significant part of the spectrum.

I soon discovered from Spaymart’s “hotline” that the public, like me, was uninformed or misinformed about where to go for the appropriate help. Spaymart’s hotline is inundated daily with calls for rescues, sick cats, orphaned kittens, and other emergencies they are simply unable to handle.

Typical Spaymart Hotline calls:
“I found a stray that had 3 kittens. I’m just wondering what I could do to help them get good homes.”
“I would like assistance with pet food. I’m a low-income person, unemployed since July of last year. I have 4 cats that I’ve taken care of for 10 years. I could use some pet food for them. Thank you.”
“I found a very small kitten yesterday. It looks like it’s starving. I don’t know how old it is. I tried giving it milk. I’m trying to find out if you have room for it.”
“I was calling about some adoption assistance. I have a dog that needs help and a home. We found him on the street, covered with fleas and ticks. He’s blind. He needs several hundred dollars worth of surgery and needs to have one eye removed. I need help with that. I also have lots of animals and problems.”

There are hundreds of pleas for help like these, and they put an untold strain on organizations and individuals who often spend time and effort trying to help in ways that range from simply giving advice to actually trying to assist in an area for which they don’t have the resources or which is outside their mission statement.

Let’s be real – when someone calls with a plea for helping orphaned 2-day old kittens, it’s hard to say no. But we also must be realistic – you can’t fix every problem thrown your way.

So instead of saying “no” and feeling guilty about turning someone in need away because you don’t have the resources, or “yes” and trying to help, and thereby diverting resources earmarked for spay/neuter or another mission, what if you could say…

“No, but I can tell you who can.”

CHAPTER 2

In 2004, when this picture was taken, I had just rescued little Grover from under a house in my neighborhood. My neighbor called saying a stray dog had gone under a house and killed a mama and her babies, but she thought one baby was still alive. So I came over and we headed to the back of the house. I wasn’t expecting to find anything. As we were almost to the back of the house, peering under, a little fluff ball came running out saying “here I am!” He was dirty and covered in fleas and all alone for at least a day. I scooped him up and headed home where he got a bath and food. He was about 4 weeks old but was ready to eat anything I put in front of him. It was rough going for a few weeks, but he soon began to thrive.

Now, here is the important part of the story. By this time I’d been fostering for about 2 years, and I had set up a special rule for myself that I would not keep any kitten that was male or looked like any of my other cats. This was mostly an arbitrary way for me to avoid ending up with 27 cats. I frequently fell in love with the kittens I fostered, but so far had not kept any, partly because of this rule.

Yet Grover immediately became my own. As I bottle fed other foster kittens, he was mine. I’d rescued other kittens before, but this was different. He was different.

Remember, Grover broke both of my rules – he was male and he looked exactly like one of my other cats. So why wasn’t I fighting myself on keeping him.

Because suddenly I realized I had discovered the secret to fostering – if you have to ask yourself whether you should keep a kitten, or even say to yourself that you want a kitten, then that is NOT the kitten or puppy for you. This was a completely different feeling – almost a non-feeling. It was as if he had always been there. There was no question. I figured out that you only need one rule for keeping a kitten – if it IS it just IS. Grover belonged with me. I never ever asked myself “should I keep him.” He just WAS. 

CHAPTER 3

Here is where it gets really weird – when the picture of Dexter and Grover was taken, what I didn’t know was Dexter had cancer. About a month later I found a tumor in his side and he was gone by November.

The universe had sent me a replacement.

CHAPTER 4

Katrina, August 29, 2005

Life stopped when Katrina hit. I evacuated and came back right away. I volunteered with Noah’s Ark in Slidell, LA, while I helped my mom shovel the swamp out of her house for 5 weeks before they “let” us back into New Orleans and I was able to check on my own house. It was flooded too. So I began working on that.

By spring the Friends kitten fostering program restarted with only a few volunteers. Over the next months I found myself inundated with kittens. I didn’t have time for much else, and unfortunately the directory had been put on the back burner.

Chapter 5

2009

Life is finally feeling like it’s getting back to normal. It’s been a very very long hard schlog out of the Katrina swamp mud, but I have repositioned myself and repriortized some things. Only a few Katrina vestiges remain. I am finally able to turn to the directory and have begun to map out a new plan, this time bigger and better than the first version. I have better tools, a better handle on what I want and can do with the directory, and I’m excited to restart this important resource.

2010

watch this space for updates