Fostering cats/kittens

[Georgey :)]

Hello
I'm new here (have introduced myself elsewhere)
I'm looking into fostering cats and kittens ad wondered if anyone had any advice
I have 3 cats and a dog an some bunnys :P
all but one of them is friendly (the ginger ninja cat asshe is known here) but she tends to stay away from everyone else anyway.
So who here has fostered while having other animals?
What does it entail?

[Elaine]

I haven't, personally, but there are quite a few members here who do. I am sure they will give you the advice you need and point you in the right direction.
Good luck xxx

[RFM]

My DH and I have fostered while having other pets....we have 6 cats and 2 dogs. I have to say, it isn't easy sometimes but well worth it.

You def. need a 'special' room for your fosters as they integrate into your home. And they, depending upon their level of socialization need, can take quite a bit of your time.
We have typically fostered feral kittens that have required an immense amount of time and work for us. The 'normal' kittens and cats we have fostered didn't require the same level of commitment.

When you have other pets, you need to be very diligent in your introductions....don't expect to just plop the fosters down into the middle of the living room floor and everyone fend for themself....it won't work.

One thing to constantly tell yourself though is that you are getting them ready for their 'forever' home....they are not in their forever home while in your house and if you start thinking of them as 'yours', you will become much more attached and find it very difficult to let them go. I actually had a woman that adopted one of my fosters say "Thank you so much for fostering her while I was deciding that I was ready." and that spoke volumes to me about fostering.

If you do it, good luck. It is extremely rewarding!

[Georgey :)]

what room did you use? we have a study, or my bedroom. My bedroom smells of the other animals, so I was thinking this would get the foster cats used to the smells of the others before meeting them?

How did you go about introducing your exsisting pets to the foster's?

thankyou

[RFM]

We have a spare bedroom that we use. It too smells of the other cats. We typically leave them in there with the door closed for a couple of days, just to suss out their personality then, we put baby gates all the way up the opening and open the door so they can all see and smell each other without having access to each other. We have a bully cat and he is especially difficult during this stage as he will climb the gates and generally make a nuisance of himseld....it's always quite funny when a feral kitten can back him off the gates.

Once we are comfortable and notice one or two of our calmer, more accepting kitties has moved on and lost interest, usually a day or two, we start allowing those kitties into the room with the fosters. Along with the dogs. Our dogs have been trained that they are the lowest in the pack so even with fosters, they accept they are higher and are very calm and submissive to them....this helps ALOT.

Once the kitties have a couple of allie's, we let them out into the house on their own, but only when we are home. We have had fosters that could not be left out when we weren't home.

It can take a week or so to get everyone integrated. Sometimes longer. We took in an 18 year old cat last year and he and the bully cat have never been able to settle their differences so they are always kept seperated. THat is a risk with fosters as well. And fostering doesn't always go as expected....my sister also fosters and has 2 kitties that she has been 'fostering' for 3 years now....occasionally you get left with one, so be prepared.

Hope that helps.

[Georgey :)]

do you think a room that smells more of the cats (a bedroom) would be better than the occasionally used study?
thankyou for the tips im not sure ill complain about them staying