When Matt Ableidinger joined the Humane Society for Southwest Washington’s board of directors last fall, he asked how his family could get involved and volunteer for the animal shelter.
Soon, the Ableidingers’ east Vancouver home was crawling with kittens.
So far this year, the family of four has fostered a total of 16 kittens from five different litters. The Ableidingers are among the 195 foster families that temporarily care for local Humane Society animals that don’t thrive in a shelter environment.
“We absolutely plan to keep it up. We’re hooked,” said Ableidinger, 40, a brand manager at Tyndale Advisors marketing firm and owner of Leonardo’s Pizzeria in Vancouver.
His wife, Nicolle, daughter Allison, 13, and son Jacob, 11, pitch in with feeding their tiny charges, cleaning the litterbox and sanitizing the house before each new animal arrives. Even the family’s mini Australian shepherd, Beamer, gets involved when his herding instincts kick in.
“When there’s five kittens running around the house, he doesn’t know what to do, because he can’t keep track of everything,” Ableidinger said.
They’ve observed kittens’ different growth stages: They start to explore at 5 to 6 weeks. By 7 to 8 weeks, “They just become the crazy teenagers,” he said. “They’re racing around the house and getting into all kinds of mischief.”
The family has fallen in love with their current pair of foster kittens, Killian and Emma Swan, so much that they’ve toyed with adopting them. But remembering their mission, they’re holding firm — they’re a foster family. And the Ableidingers just learned that a nice family with two little girls has arranged to adopt Killian and Emma Swan.
Saying goodbye will be tough, but the family knows their job is to raise the kittens so they can give them away.
“You get attached,” Ableidinger said. “They really are sweet and they really are part of the family. And that’s kind of the point.”
Old program, new structure
The Humane Society for Southwest Washington has always had a foster program, but it wasn’t well organized until last year, when the program was formalized and given a designated coordinator, said Lisa Feder, vice-president and director of shelter operations.
The newly structured program includes a pre-adoption program, premie kittens and bottle babies, and a mentor program.
To help take the pressure off the shelter’s medical and animal care staff, the Humane Society has five mentors assigned to help five to eight kitten foster families and be their first line of contact. The mentors, who have years of experience as foster parents, help the families with behavioral issues and teach them how to bottle feed and administer medicine and subcutaneous fluids.
“It really gives them an experienced person to show them the ropes and tell them, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be OK, this is totally normal,’ or ‘This is not normal, and they need to be seen by a veterinarian,’ ” Feder said. “That’s such a huge help to us.”
The mentors vaccinate, deworm and de-flea the kittens at their foster home, eliminating the need for the kittens to be brought to the shelter every two weeks for exams and shots.
When kittens are 7 weeks old, they’re cleared for pre-adoption and listed on the Humane Society’s website with a description. People interested in adopting the kittens can email the foster coordinator, who connects them with the foster parents. The adoption is arranged in advance so the adopter can pick up the kittens as soon as they’re ready. The advantage is that the kittens don’t have to come to the shelter except for their spay/neuter surgery, which means they’re not exposed to highly contagious upper respiratory infections that can kill very young animals, said Stacey Graham, Humane Society president.
Since implementing the mentorship and pre-adoption programs, the number of upper respiratory infections at the shelter has decreased, she said.
At the end of “kitten season,” the shelter usually has 20 to 30 kittens available at once. Foster parents bring in their litters to the shelter for a pre-adoption event where potential adopters can meet them, and foster parents have the ability to see who’s interested in their kittens.
“They definitely tell us what they think about the adopters,” Feder said.
So far this year, the agency’s 49 foster families have cared for 560 kittens, and 700 kittens have been adopted.
The agency is talking about adding a similar puppy foster program, she said.
The agency also has an ongoing foster program for cats and dogs that are undersocialized, nervous, medically fragile or sick. It has specialty foster programs, too.
For geriatric dogs that may have just a few months to live, the Humane Society has a “fospice” program — the dogs stay with a foster family and their medical treatment is covered by the Humane Society. The agency’s Safe Haven program temporarily housed 49 pets last year taken from domestic violence situations or from people entering hospice or drug rehab. In addition, the Humane Society has an arrangement with Larch Corrections Facility in which inmates at the low-security prison in Yacolt foster cats to socialize them for adoption.
Foster animals “is a great way for families to get involved and for young kids to learn about caring for animals … without the commitment of owning a pet,” Feder said.
