Ella was adopted; Noah is renamed; Training begins; Supply Drives

Ella, the first cat I ever fostered, has finally found a home! I guess as foster cats go, it really hasn't been that long, but as a relatively new person to the rescue world, four months seemed like a very long time for such a wonderful animal to be without a home. Especially since she's spent the last two months of her life in a little cage at Petsmart. I hated leaving her there all the time, but it was the best way for her to meet the most potential adopters, and she was much better off there than at my house since she wasn't crazy about all the noise and excitement and other animals. She had a lot of people, volunteers and employees alike, stop by and visit her every day, and she was well cared for. Her time there finally paid off, as she went to a wonderful new home yesterday! I am so happy for her!

I hate to do it, because my mom will get mad at me, but I'm doing it anyway. I'm changing Noah's name. My mom hates it when my foster animals names change, because she gets confused enough with all the different animals going into and out of my life - changing the names of the animals is even more confusing, she says. And generally, if we know what name the pet already had, we never change it. But Noah is a special case. Noah, my shepherd/hound foster dog, is very skittish and shy. If anyone in the house raises a voice, whether its directed at him or not, he cringes and runs away to hide. The problem is that in order to get the attention of Remi or Jade, a loud voice is usually required. One day something made me realize that I spent a lot of time saying "Remi, NO!" or "Jade, NO!", and each time, NOah acted like I was yelling at him. I thought, NO! does sound similar to NOah!, and could make it very confusing for him. I could have started saying "Remi, QUIT" or Jade, QUIT", but NO is a common English word, so I thought it'd be easier for him to just change his name. So now Noah is Elvis! It started out as a nickname, but now I'm so used to calling him that, that I keep confusing the names when I talk to people. He might take awhile to get adopted because he is so skittish and shy, so until we find the right home for him, I might as well at least change his name in my blog to match his name in real life. He answers to Elvis all the time now - and I think he's doing much better at accepting the loud voices and noises around him in the house. Although, if anyone has a nice quiet house and wants to foster one of the best dogs in the world, let me know and we'll talk. :-)

All the dogs have started obedience training, courtesy of my amateur attempts at training. We have nightly "classes", and each dog is working on a different skill. Granted, it'd be easier to teach them all the same thing at the same time - but not as interesting! Elvis is working on "sit" - he has finally figured it out, so we're in the "practicing stage". Reese can sit and is working on "down" - she almost has it figured out. And Jade can sit and is working on "stay" - this is really hard for her because she has never had to learn self-control before. But she desparately needs to be taught this because she has so much energy and enthusiasm and hasn't learned many manners yet. All in all, I'm very proud of my dogs and the progress they've made. I hope with additional training this will help them to find good homes, since all three of my fosters are likely going to be harder to place than cute puppies or small dogs. Reese is still a puppy, but she is, and looks like, a pit bull, so that scares some people away. Elvis can climb fences and is very skittish, so that limits the homes that will be right for him. And Jade is a wonderful dog, but she's big, black, and high energy, so that automatically is three strikes against her in most people's eyes. The more they can learn over time, the easier it will be to find them homes, so I will hopefully be able to keep up their new training schedule and they will learn a lot!

The girl scouts have been holding supply drives for the past couple Saturday's at PetSmart, and we have received several donations from people. Someone donated a big package of liver treats that the dogs LOVE - they work great for training - so if you made a donation of supplies - THANK YOU! You are helping to care for the dogs and cats that don't have homes, and you're also helping to prepare them to find new homes! If you are interested in sponoring a supply drive at your school or workplace, please contact me for more information at dogfostermom@aol.com. Our group is 100% volunteer run, and all of the foster homes provide their own supplies, crates, dog/cat beds, cat litter, etc - this quickly adds up and we can always use help. Our biggest needs are cat litter, canned (wet) cat and dog food, cat climbing trees/scratching posts (okay, this is my biggest need - not sure about others) ;-), and of course we can always use cat/dog treats, collars, leashes, toys, dog bones, paper towels, bleach, old blankets, cat/dog beds, and anything else that cats or dogs use! We are in a program where we are provided dry cat and dog food, so that's about the only thing we can't use - everything else would greatly help our foster homes care for their foster dogs and cats. If you have any items to donate, you don't need to wait for a supply drive - just drop them off with Heartland Humane Society volunteers at Petsmart on Highway K on any Saturday between 11am and 4pm, or contact me and we'll make other arrangements. Thanks!

Kitten Pictures

I took more pictures of all my kittens to get them added to the website, so I'll share them here also. Here are my cat-napped kittens...

This is Monkee - she has such a cute little face, and her fur is soooo soft!

This is Taffy - she's my favorite - she always wants to jump up on my shoulders, and just stays there while I walk around the house doing chores.


This is Blaze. He's the only boy of this litter, and he is very friendly. I found him yesterday walking on Remi's back. Remi is my 150 lb Great Dane. Remi just looked at him like "Huh?! What's going on?!".


This is Ella - she's the mom of the first three kittens I fostered a couple months ago. She is still up at Petsmart and hasn't been adopted yet. :-(


Here is a picture of Ace - he's one of my flood kittens. He loves to play with feather toys, and will growl and play tug with it!


This is Apollo. He came back from the vet with this cute little bandana, and I can't bear to take it off of him! It has little mice and cheese on it.


This is Astro - he is my attack kitten. He loves to sneak up on and attack a small stuffed dog in the kitten's playroom. (Yes, my kittens have their own playroom -- they're a little bit spoiled.)

This is Avalanche. He's the tough guy kitten - he growls at the other kittens if they try to eat while he's eating canned food. Its a good thing he's so cute - its very hard to take him seriously with his little kitten growl!




Okay, back to dog news. We went to the Rascal's baseball game last night - it was one of their "Take your Dog to the Ballpark" nights. It was a lot of fun. My husband went with me, and we took Samantha and Vala. Then he decided to go back home and bring Remi up also. All the dogs had fun. Noah wanted to go, but we thought he might change his mind once he got there. He doesn't like all the people and noise, so he stayed home and watched over the kittens while we were gone. Vala and Sam got lots of attention. We had set up a table on the concourse, where we were able to talk to many people about Heartland, and met several people who had adopted their pets from Heartland in the past! Samantha collected donations in her "Donation Dog Vest" and we made around $40 in donations. All the dogs did great at meeting the people and even the other dogs. The only difficult part was that Samantha doesn't like the mascots. She would go crazy every time one came by -- and they have several mascots at that ballpark! But in spite of that, it was overall a very nice night. Their next game where you can bring your dog to the ballpark will be on Sunday, July 13th.

Daisy was adopted! and other news

Daisy has been adopted, after only her second week at PetSmart. I am sad that she left so quickly - she was a great dog. But she went to a family with three boys who are very excited to have a dog to play with, and are willing to work with her to overcome her fears.

Since Daisy left on Monday, and Murphy went back to his home on Monday, the house is much quieter. It has left me with just Remi, Vala, Kiya, Bailey, Whiskey, Brandy, Ginny, Scout, George, and Ella to take care of. Normally that wouldn't be too bad, and I'm anxious to get Samantha back to foster now that I have room again. However, since I'm going on vacation soon, and since the puppies are starting to need more care, I'm going to wait a few more weeks before I get Sam, unless she gets adopted first of course.

Ella was supposed to go up for adoption at PetSmart last week, but they found a mass in her abdomen during surgery and now we're waiting until the end of this week to find out the results of the biopsy and make sure she can be put up for adoption. She's fully recovered from her spay surgery though, and is even getting braver around the dogs now. So this extra time at my house might help her get adopted since she'll have more options if she is a dog-friendly cat.

Kiya and the puppies went to the vet yesterday for a follow-up exam and they think they might have ringworm (mother and puppies). So now the poor dogs have to stay quarantined for even longer, and start on some medication to treat it. The battle to keep Kiya in the exercise-pen with her puppies has been won - by Kiya, that is. After covering the top with chicken wire and spending a lot of time and money trying to keep her from getting out, I've finally admitted defeat. The puppies need to stay in the ex-pen because there are too many things in the basement that could hurt them -but Kiya is now climbing out of the pen whenever she wants. My biggest concern is I've never seen her climb back in, and her puppies are hungry without her there to feed them. They're starting to eat puppy food now, but they're still trying to nurse, so I need to find out if they'll be okay without her now. They're all continuing to grow - the biggest one (Ginny) is 6 pounds now, and the smallest one (Brandy) is 4.25 pounds. They're walking around really well, and playing all the time - they've even started growling and giving these baby puppy barks more often. They love to be held and be allowed to get out and explore their world. It's always fun to let them out and then try to round them all back up again. They're easier to round up than the kittens I fostered were - which is good, because there were only three kittens and there are five puppies!! Either way, puppies and kittens seem to have an instinctive knack for getting into trouble, but they're so cute that they can get away with it!

Introducing Daisy, and other news

It's been a busy few days! Saturday was a bit slow for dog adoptions, and once again neither Vala or Sam were picked. There was one dog returned due to her owner having medical issues. Daisy is a German Shepherd/Husky mix who was adopted out last December (she was named Elkie then). She's only about 7 months old now, and is a beautiful dog. I haven't had a chance to take her picture yet, so hopefully I'll get that and post it in the next day or two. She was very shy and overwhelmed by the other dogs, so I offered to take her to my house and help her get used to her new surroundings. To keep from having too many fosters, I let Sam go back to the main foster home. It was hard to let her go, but I went and visited on Sunday and saw that she was very happy and settled in immediately. Sam loves to play and isn't shy at all, so she loves having other new dogs to play with now. Daisy has quickly become a model dog - anyone thinking about fostering should sign up for her - she's practically perfect! :-) She likes to play with Vala, although she's still not sure about Remi. She's quiet and obedient and house-trained and affectionate. I am really enjoying having her around.

In other news, its been a long week with Kiya and the puppies. One of the puppies has an ear infection, but other than that they're all doing great. They've started sitting up, and walking around a little bit. They're very wobbly and fall over sometimes, or they'll nudge each other and knock each other over. It's so cute to watch. Kiya has been a bit of a challenge, as she needs to eat a lot to feed her puppies, and therefore needs to be taken outside a lot more often than other dogs. Since this isn't always possible to take her out every few hours, she has become an escape artist at getting out of her kennel to go as far away as possible. I can't blame her, I would want the smell as far from me as possible too! But instead of using the puppy pads that I've strategically placed around the basement in case she does get out, she prefers to find more interesting places to do her business. My husband's working on finishing our basement, so there's a lot of tools and construction items lying around. The tools are a favorite spot of hers. Also in boxes of spooled wire, inside a bookshelf that he built into the wall, and even on top of the extra-large container of Nature's Miracle stain/odor remover that was sitting on the floor (guess she told me!). It's been a losing battle on my part to keep her in her exercise-pen where she's staying with the puppies. First, she squeezed between the door and the side of the kennel. I blocked that off, and she managed to get under the kennel by pushing it into a corner and squeezing underneath. I blocked it in so she couldn't move it around, and she somehow lifted the whole thing straight into the air and got out underneath. I tied it down with bungee cords, and she started climbing over the top. I tried a blanket over the top yesterday, which didn't work, and this morning I tried a fitted sheet which will hold better than the blanket. If that fails, my husband offered to find me a piece of plywood to try next. Hopefully that will work!! It'd be funny if she didn't make such a big mess everytime she got out. :-)

In happier news, Murphy is coming back! Murphy, who used to be called Coal, is my favorite previous foster dog. Every now and then I get to dog-sit for him while his owners are gone, and this weekend is one of those times. I am so glad that his owners kept in touch and let me be his honorary aunt. I generally don't have favorite fosters - or actually, I tend to think of each one as my favorite whenever I'm around them. But Coal somehow snuck in and stole favorite dog forever spot in my heart. So I'm really looking forward to seeing him again.

And finally, there's Ella. She's the mother of the kittens that I fostered, and she's finally almost ready to be put up for adoption. She goes in to the vet tomorrow to get her vaccinations and be spayed, and then on Saturday she'll be moving up to PetSmart to find a home. There are some cats that live at Petsmart 24/7, and volunteers come in during the week to care for them. Ella will become one of those cats, and hopefully someone will see her during the week and fall in love with her and adopt her. She's a great cat, and I hope she finds a home quickly, although I hear it will be challenging during "kitten season".

Kittens were Adopted!

It was a good weekend for my foster kittens, as they were all adopted and went home to new families. I will miss them, but I'm glad they have new families and can get the love and attention they deserve. Now I just have Ella, the mother cat left. She'll be ready for adoption in two or three weeks.

The dogs didn't have so much luck this week in finding new homes. We took seven dogs up to Petsmart, and none of them were adopted. My two foster dogs, Sam and Vala, are at the vet today being spayed and getting their rabies and tests to get ready for adoption. I will be taking them to PetSmart next weekend for adoptions.

Foster Cat Update

The kittens went to the vet yesterday to get ready for adoption on Saturday. They were neutered and microchipped and given shots. They also all received clean bills of health, including testing negative for FIV and FeLV. I was very relieved! Now the hard part - I have to keep them separated from the mother cat. I feel so cruel doing that! But I know its in their best interests. First, the mother cat needs it so they stop nursing, because she can't be spayed and get ready to get adopted for a few weeks after that. Also, since the new kittens could be going to a new home as soon as this weekend, they need to get used to being without their mom. I still let them "visit" when I can watch them, but I think this will be a more gradual way for them to get used to being on their own. My little boys are growing up! :-) I am glad they will be adopted soon though because they need more human contact than I can give them. Since I have to keep them quarantined from my animals, and since I don't want Remi to eat them, they stay in an extra bedroom. The cats are all glad to see me when I come in, but especially the mother cat. I like to think its because they like me - not just because I sometimes bring them canned food when I come in.

Here is their latest picture, which will be added to the Heartland website soon:

And here's one of Ella. I have put in several different cat beds, in addition to the regular bed in the room, but she prefers to lay in the middle of the floor on the carpet. :-)
Here are the kittens right after they woke up one morning.
And here they are during one of their "play sessions" that they have whenever they aren't sleeping!

Dog and Cat Update

First, an update on the cats. Since I'm new to fostering cats, I am turning into an overprotective mom who always thinks they're about to "kick the bucket". :-) I've heard a lot about the dangers facing kittens, and naturally assume that my kittens are facing all of those dangers! So this morning I took the kittens and Ella (mother cat) up to the vet to get them checked out. They didn't have an appointment for another week, but I was concerned about them having something called "coccidia" which can potentially be fatal for kittens. The vets office fit me in right away and did some tests to make sure my cats were healthy. They didn't have any deadly parasites, although they did find ear mites and are now on medicine for that. So I'm glad I took them in, and relieved they're going to survive. :-) The kittens are glad to be back home, and although they aren't crazy about the medicine they're getting, I am sure they'll feel much better once those icky ear mites are gone. Yet another reason to get your cat from a rescue group instead of a "free to good home" ad -- the rescue volunteers already take care of all the icky and dangerous problems that many kittens start out with!

On to the dogs - well, dog, in this case. I didn't bring home another foster last week - I decided it would be nice to have a week off. It has nothing to do with the cats I'm fostering, but I've been planning to get back down to only one dog foster at a time for awhile. My own dog Remi has had some behavioral issues lately and I want to focus more on working with him. Also, Selena is such a high energy dog, she requires more exercise and attention, which is harder to provide with another foster in the house. So since I promised her a long walk last night, and was feeling lazy, I decided to compromise with a trip to the dog park instead. I was surprised there were not more people there, but it was probably a good thing since Selena decided she wanted to be "dominant dog" at the dog park. Maybe she is starting to gain confidence from being at our house - I'm not sure why - but when another dog tried to dominate her, she refused to put up with it. So, to prevent any fights from breaking out, we left the park and went for a hike instead. She still got the long walk I promised her, and I got an opportunity to enjoy the beautiful weather and work a lot on her "sit-stay" commands during the walk.

When I left my house this morning to go to work, I saw a dog trotting along the sidewalk. I expected a person to be following close behind, but there was no one there! I walked out to the sidewalk and called the dog, but he didn't seem to hear me and just kept right on going. He was a beautiful dog - probably a Chow Chow mix - and looked a little like a bear. He also looked in bad shape - his tail looked mangled and he looked as though he may have been in a fight or been abused. I tried to circle around in front of him to see if he just couldn't hear and didn't know I was there. He looked at me then but didn't slow down or come over to me. So, since I couldn't just let him go, I tried to circle around widely in front of him to see if he'd come to me. He just headed off in another direction, so I gave up. I briefly considered trying to catch him - he seemed hurt and I hated to let him go - but even though he didn't appear aggressive, I knew that could turn out to be a very bad idea, so I didn't try. I went in and called the police Animal Control unit, then grabbed some treats and went back out in my car to try to find him. I didn't have any luck finding him though, and I doubt Animal Control did either. I finally gave up and headed to work, after leaving out a water dish and some treats in case he happened to come back. I have been worried about him all day. I checked for lost pet ads online and looked for posted signs on my way to work but haven't found anyone who is looking for him. I hope someone is able to find him and help him.

Kitten Names, Update on Ernie

I named the kittens last night. My niece Darby came up with the name for the mother cat - her name is Ella. The dark-brown kitten looks a little like a fuzzy bear. I named him Ewok, after the little brown bear-like creatures from Star Wars. The gray kitten doesn't look anything like a donkey, but he is the same color as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, so he is named Eeyore. And the jet black kitten is named Eclipse. They'll probably not learn these names, and get new names when they get adopted - but I wanted to give them names other than Cat1, Cat2, and Cat3 , which is what my husband was voting for.

I'll get a better family photo later, but here's a picture that at least has all four cats in it. That's Eeyore and Eclipse in the front, with Ella behind them and Ewok way back in the corner. They are sooo soft and fuzzy!

And since this is a DOG foster blog, I have to add something about my dogs. :-) We're hating all this rain, since it turns the yard into a big mud puddle, and the dogs stay cooped up inside most of the time. But Selena and Ernie are both handling it well - patiently waiting for the weather to get better. Selena loves the outdoors, and can happily spend hours outside on her own. Even the rain doesn't bother her much. Ernie doesn't like the rain, and when he gets wet, his hair all gets spiked up - he looks like he has a full body Mohawk. Last night Ernie spent the night sleeping in our bed. Usually he stays in his crate at night because we're still working on housebreaking, but I wanted some company last night, and he is like having a giant teddy bear to sleep with. He curled up next to me to keep me warm, and stayed there all night. He is such a sweet dog - he's definitely a foster dog I selfishly don't want to get adopted.

A trip to the dark side...

Yesterday, one of the Heartland volunteers took me on a tour of many of the area animal shelters. It was very interesting to see the difference between a good shelter and a not-so-good shelter, and the different ways that animal shelters and rescues work. Some of them take great care of their animals, and work hard to get them good homes with adopters or rescues. Others are simply warehouses, holding the animals for the required number of days before they can be euthanized. You may think that “A trip to the dark side” refers to visiting these animal shelters – but it actually refers to the cat and three kittens I brought home with me at the end of the day. I’m a dog foster mom, not a cat foster mom! But who could resist such fluffy cute little kittens?! The animal shelter wanted us to take them – apparently kittens often don’t do as well in a shelter, where they have a greater possibility of getting diseases from other animals. The other volunteer agreed to take them, but wasn’t sure who would be able to foster them. Well, I have an empty room in my house – and the cats are really not much work. So I brought them home with me. They’re living in my daughter’s bedroom now – quarantined from my own cat and the dogs. They’ll stay there for a few weeks until they’re ready to be adopted.

So now I’m the proud foster mom of a beautiful tortoiseshell mama cat and her three kittens. The kittens are all boys, and none of them look like their mom. One is all grey, very fluffy and soft. The second one is a dark brown, almost black color. He’s just as fluffy and soft as his brother, and he loves to play the most. He’ll play with a feather toy, or other toys, and if no toys can be found, he’ll pounce on his mom’s tail! The third one is all black, and not quite as fluffy as the others. He is the least likely to play, and is happy just laying next to his mom and watching his brothers. He is adorable – when he gets scared, he’ll bare his teeth like he’s hissing at me – but he never tried to claw or bite me. And he doesn’t make any sound – just this funny face that is supposed to be mean but looks silly on such a cute little kitten. The mama cat is so sweet – even when she was hiding under the bed and I pulled her out, she growled a little but didn’t scratch me or try to bite me. My cat would’ve been fighting to get away, but she didn’t fight at all. She is very friendly and purrs a lot. Now that she knows me, she’ll come up to me and wrap around my legs to get attention. I need to come up with names for them soon!

As for the dogs, they know there are a few more cats in the house, but they’re blocked by doors and baby gates, so they can’t get close enough to meet each other. The kittens will probably be adopted before they ever meet the dogs, but if the mama cat is not adopted right away, once her kittens are gone and she’s been tested and processed, I may introduce her to my cat and the dogs. In the meantime, the dogs just hear the cats now and then, and watch me disappear into the hallway occasionally. As much as I love playing with the kittens, I don’t want to take time away from the dogs – they need me the most. Selena and Ernie are both doing great. They love to play together, and will do almost anything for a treat-filled Kong toy. They’ve become good friends, and I know they’ll really miss each other when one of them is adopted.

PICTURES OF THE CATS:

The gray kitten...

The dark brown kitten...

The black kitten...

Mamma cat


Play time...