Foster kittens at the North American Animal Shelter!

Art by Afreen Majumdar

As soon as I get home everyday, I am greeted by two cats who eagerly await my arrival. This wouldn’t be the case if I didn’t choose to volunteer at the North Central Animal Shelter two years ago! Let me explain all of the in between to you. As I entered the shelter last spring, I headed straight to the area dedicated to cats. When I’d volunteered a couple weeks before the area had been practically unoccupied so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was full of playful, rowdy kittens. Besides this being super cute, I could immediately tell how crowded they were with 3-4 kittens in each cage. After talking to the employee, I learned that this was peak kitten season and they were overwhelmed by the influx of kittens. This doesn’t make the fact that, like many shelters, they are over their capacity of animals any easier. However, the employee also told me about how I (and any of you!) could help through their kitten fostering program!

The program is at its peak between spring and summer but there are opportunities year round. I’m sure you’re wondering what you have to go through before getting your kitten. It’s surprisingly simple. You first fill out a form on their website which will get you in contact with a shelter employee. From there you’ll go to an informational meeting and set the time when you’ll pick up your kitten(s). It’s that easy! We registered for the program and soon we were taking our two kittens (for the next 6 weeks) home! We were given a brother and a sister: one black, and one mixed colors. Although they were only four weeks old and under one pound each, we could immediately tell that they were full of personality! At the time they were only four weeks old and were the tiniest kittens I’d ever seen, under one pound each. 

The idea of the program is that you foster the cats until they’re two months old but depending on the circumstances it can be a longer amount of time. In our case we ended up being “foster failures” which means we decided that the bond they’d made with us over the month and a half was too strong and we couldn’t possibly let them go so they became a part of our family!

Fostering is the perfect option for anyone who wants the fun and love that a pet will bring into your life without the fear of commitment hanging over you. And don’t forget, if fostering a kitten isn’t right for you, the shelter always has plenty of dogs in need of being fostered as well.