Weeks with current fosters: 12, 6
Days without being hissed at: 2 (unintentionally menaced him during a nap)
Days without being sneezed on: 0 (these colds have staying power)
(Royal, Marlo looming)
It’s been another exhausting week with the kittens. Indiana has figured out how to fully escape the baby gate, so the bedroom door, when she’s up and about and feeling like a jailbreak, has to be double baby gated, a second one installed upside down above the main baby gate to keep her from summiting the lower one and launching herself overtop it to freedom. She used to clamber to the top of the main gate and perch atop it, waiting for someone to fetch her; now she makes it to the top, launches herself down on the other side, and runs for it. No one else has shown any interest in attempting such feats, though Marlo will dart through the door if given the smallest chance. Yesterday evening Kas gave each kitten a personal tour of the apartment, carrying them in the hood of a hoodie worn backward, so they were nestled against his chest. “Sidney, this is an apple.” (pause for sniffing.) “This is the office, Royal.” (pause for sniffing.) I think they appreciated the individual attention and chance to explore, though who can say, they’re kittens.
On Tuesday they go for their spay/neuter, somewhere in Queens at 7 in the morning, which should make for an exciting day. At least they’ll be dropped off afterward so Kas doesn’t have to make the round-trip twice. I worry because Marlo’s still a bit stuffed up, Sidney’s still pretty stuffed up, and both of them and Royal still have sneezing fits. But, as I think I’ve said before, the mucus is clear, which means whatever lingering symptoms aren’t serious and won’t prevent them from undergoing surgery. So to surgery they go, and then Little Wanderers will make them available for adoption and the next thing you know they’ll be gone. Hopefully quickly. We’d like to make December plans and it’s impossible to do when you’ve got seven cats to plan around, four of whom take lunch.
(four kittens, sprawled)
Of course, it’d be equally pleasing if Buster took his leave of us before the end of the year. When he and Loko (his brother, since separated and now living with two cats and two humans elsewhere in Brooklyn) were new, I’d say, despairingly, threateningly, that we’d have them for Thanksgiving; I didn’t want to be right, though now it’s due to lack of interest rather than the impossibility of socializing them, which I was convinced of until their separation and Buster became a cat who likes people. Mostly.
Kas, who runs our cats’ Instagram, has taken a darker outlook on adopting out kittens. “How is anyone supposed to market cats in addition to rescuing and fostering them?” he says with some frequency lately. He partly means us, the individual foster families, as few of us have big social media platforms from which to advertise their adoptable cats, and even Kitten Lady has had trouble with adoptions, and partly the rescues, which are usually better known and have more followers, but may not have the resources to put toward selling their audiences on the cats in addition to doing all the work of saving the cats. And like I said, even Kitten Lady has had trouble with adoptions. But at least she gets eyes on her kittens. The rest of us have to rely on people 1. living in our area and 2. using the right pet adoption site, and 3. your having pleasing enough photos of the animals that people at least click through to what’s hopefully 4. a well-written and winning profile. Honestly, with all that, I don’t wonder anymore that it took six months to find a home for two of our previous fosters. For a while that rescue didn’t even have the right photos on Petfinder. Like one blurry picture of a fresh-off-the-street kitten is going to win out against a sea of equally deserving kittens who’ve been bathed and fluffed and crisply photographed.
I don’t know that I have any solutions, as I don’t know anything about running an animal rescue, or marketing. I do know how we found Clementine, and the process we were using to look for cats before we found Jenny, and there are so many cats we might’ve adopted who weren’t them who might’ve been right for us — there are just too many adoptable cats and too many ways to look for them. I don’t even remember how I found out Flatbush Cats existed in the first place, and there are so many rescues we could have applied to foster for. But it seems to me like there are as many uncontrollable elements as controllable ones in the rescue-to-adoption process, and that can make it hard even if you’re doing everything right. Assuming there even is a “right” you can always do. How many people who follow the rescues we foster for, I wonder, live in the area and are looking to adopt a cat or cats at any given time? How many aren’t but would refer a friend who is to a pair of adoptable kittens? I recognize social media can be very useful for raising awareness and money, but as far as actual adoption is concerned? You have to guess rather less so.
(a soft boi) (his nose looks like a heart how can you stand it?)
Speaking of Jenny, she’s been very needy lately, demanding excesses of lap time from both of us no matter how (in)convenient, and we had to move a litter box into the bathroom because she — we suspect, can’t prove a thing — was peeing very tidily in the shower. We suspect it was her doing because Buster likes the other kittens and Clem just doesn’t seem like the type to alter her behavior in any way that inconveniences anyone but herself. An all-Lemon post is coming, but for now I’ll note that though she is vocal in her displeasure, she’s only ever put herself out. Not that I’m saying peeing in an unapproved area is a direct result of Jenny’s unhappiness with our current fostering situation (read: that there is a current fostering situation); not that I’m not saying it, either.
As November bears down, and it’s dark in our apartment by 4:30 (thanks, northern exposure), and the weeks with the kittens roll on, I find myself staring into my sun lamp in the mornings with increasing desperation — it can be hard to be cheerful or hopeful about the cat adoption situation generally, and ours particularly. So I’d hope that if, say, someone reading this knew anyone in the NYC area who was looking to adopt a single kitten into their be-catted household, or a pair of kittens at all, you’d let them know that there are some exceptional kittens in Brooklyn waiting for good people to find them. There’s a sign in our lobby for another pair of deserving kittens looking for their forever home, with tear-away info should anyone be interested. I saw it yesterday and laughed. Of course we’re not the only ones in the building fostering kittens. There are too many out there who need it.