Fostering always brings mixed feelings.

Today I don't know whether to be discouraged or excited. 
It is Saturday morning.  I haven't even packed up the crates and supplies for PetSmart yet, much less loaded any animals into the car, and already I'm trying to figure out how to fit in not only all the current fosters, but also leave room for the two new cats I will be bringing home with me.  Yep, sadly it appears I will be coming home with two more animals than I started with.  This is a bad start for a day where I am trying to get animals adopted! 

But as discouraging as that is to start off with, I must admit I am very excited about the two cats I'm bringing home.  That's because one is a Persian and the other is a Himalayan.  My first real purebred cat fosters!   The Persian is Babette, the cat I posted about a few days ago.  She was adopted into a home with other cats, and her new mom thinks that she will be better off in a home with no other cats.  So she'll probably go back to her original foster home in a few days, but at least for now I get to keep her at my house.  The other cat is a Himalayan.  Himalayans are actually also Persian cats - in fact, they're the most popular type of Persian cat.  So I don't expect to have him long either - but I'm very excited to foster my first Himalayan cat. 

In spite of my ongoing fascination with purebred cats, I am the proud owner of a Domestic Medium Hair cat, and wouldn't trade him for anything in the world.  This is my cat Merlin.  He came from a shelter.  He wasn't born in a fancy house or cattery.  He's just a stray who spent the first six weeks of his life as another unwanted kitten, and the next four weeks of his life living in a small cage at a city shelter.  And then I discovered him there and quickly fell in love.  I only lasted a couple of weeks as his foster home before I gave up and adopted him.  He never even made it to an adoption event, which is probably why whenever I load the cats up for adoption, the rest of the cats try to hide, while he tries to climb into the carrier.  I love this cat. 

Persian Cats

In rescue, every dog we get is identified by its breed. If we don’t know what breed it is, we guess. The most popular breed guesses are Shepherd, Lab, and Pit Bull Terrier mixes. But we never just say “mixed breed” without including at least one identified breed. That’s because if we want to identify them on PetFinder.com or other adoption websites, they usually require a breed category to place them into.

Cats are different. The majority of cats are identified simply as “Domestic Short Hair” or “Domestic Long Hair”, which I believe is another way of saying they don’t have any specific identifiable breed. And other than my one experience with some Pixie Bob/Desert Lynx cats, which turned out to look just like Domestic Short Hair cats, I have never fostered any type of purebred cats.

So I was excited when a friend fostered a purebred Persian cat. This cat definitely does not look like the majority of the cats we see. I have to admit I am not exactly a fan of the Persian look – but it was interesting to see a cat that looked so different from the rest.

Babette is a seven year old Persian cat. It was no surprise that she was adopted almost immediately after being placed on the PetFinder.com website. Persians are the number one cat breed in popularity, according to the Cat Fancier’s Association.  Persians are one of the oldest cat breeds, and they are known for their easy-going personalities.  I'll have to take their word for it, since in my brief encounter with Babette the only thing she ever did was glare at me.