Aurora was adopted; Featured Foster: Andy

My foster kitten Aurora was adopted last night to a wonderful family. They have adopted from Heartland before, and are experienced pet owners, so I know Aurora is in great hands. I love her new name. They've renamed her Cammi, because with her tortie/tabby markings she looks like she is camouflaged.

This next story is partly featuring a new Heartland dog, Andy, but it's also featuring a Heartland volunteer. Angie C. is a relatively new volunteer who's become a great asset to Heartland. She volunteers with the dogs, helps with transporting and vet runs and all sorts of things. Earlier this week she was driving down the road in a rural area and found a little dog in the middle of the highway. He was shaking, had a swollen eye like he'd been in a fight, and he wouldn't move from the road. He let Angie walk right up to him and pick him up without moving. The poor little guy was so skinny and covered in ticks. Angie couldn't leave him behind. That area doesn't have any sort of shelter or animal control so there was no one else to help him. He had no tags, and no way to identify where he came from. So Angie took him to the Emergency Vet in O'Fallon to see what he needed. They pulled about 200 ticks off of him. Angie said he never flinched or yelped or anything - he was so worn out. The vet did some bloodwork and an exam, and fortunately found no serious medical problems. Angie not only paid his bill which was several hundred dollars, but she then found a family member willing to provide a foster home for him and nurse him back to health until he can be made ready for adoption. Andy came from a bad situation but he's become a very lucky dog to have been rescued by Angie! Here's a picture of Andy in his new foster home, finally able to relax in a safe, comfortable place.

Gator was adopted; Introducing Rowdy, Solara, and Raven

Somehow announcing the adoption of one and introducing three new ones doesn't seem quite right - the numbers don't quite add up. And since I can't find the cord for my camera, I can't post pictures yet, but I thought I'd better introduce some of my new fosters even without pictures before they are adopted! (Update on 7/2/09: found the camera cord, and added pictures below!)
Gator, my shepherd mix puppy, was adopted this past Saturday. He had moved to another foster home since I took in Raven, another puppy, and I was out of room and time to care for another puppy. One of our new volunteers offered to take Gator so we could save Raven, so he went to her house temporarily before being adopted this weekend.

Rowdy is a six-month old Boggle, aka Boglen Terrier. That's a mix of a Boston Terrier and a Beagle. He's about 10 months old and weighs 20 pounds. He is very sweet - he's learned that if he jumps on my lap I will pet him, so now I randomly find this little dog in my lap while I'm sitting at my computer. He loves to play with tennis balls, and gets along great with the other dogs. He hates going in his crate, but once he's there, he is very quiet. He is doing very well with house-training and will hopefully be ready for adoption by early next week.

Solara is the mother of Venus, Mercury and Sedna. Originally the family who called us to turn them in said they were keeping the mother, but they recently called and asked us to take her also. So since she was my kitten's mother, I couldn't say no. She is a beautiful cat - a dilute calico. She's a mixture of white, the same gray color as Mercury and the same buff color as Venus. Right now she's staying in a cat playpen in the same room as Mercury and Venus. At first they spent all their time hissing at each other, but now they're starting to adjust. I'm hoping to be able to let her have free run of the room with Mercury and Venus soon.

Raven is the puppy who was turned into one of our Heartland volunteers recently. She's a mixture of Labrador Retriever/Shepherd/Golden Retriever. I expect her to enjoy retrieving a ball once she's a little bigger. :-) She's only about 9 weeks old, and all black and very soft and so sweet. She follows me around and makes cute little puppy noises.

Aurora, my little tortoiseshell kitten from the Disney litter, is back and available for adoption. When she was adopted she came down with a cold, so we kept her and treated her, and then the adopter decided now wasn't the right time to bring her home after all. So she's back up at PetSmart living with her sister Anastasia and two other kittens from a different litter.

Corvette Show; Aurora was adopted!

You may wonder what a Corvette show has to do with rescue. The answer is the Route 66 Corvette Club chose Heartland Humane Society as their charity to support during their annual Corvette Show this year. So several volunteers went to the Corvette show this past Sunday, and we brought some adoptable dogs and cats, and gave out information about Heartland. Everyone had a great time, and we received several donations and inquiries on adoptable animals. Since we were outside and the cars can be kind of loud, we debated on whether or not we should bring cats, or only dogs. It can be very scary for cats especially. We didn't want the cats to not be represented though - people need to know that Heartland rescues dogs and cats! So I brought Marco, my deaf cat, to the event. What a great fit - no loud noises to bother him, and he's such an easy-going cat anyway that it worked out great. Who knew that deaf cats could come in so handy? We also brought several dogs - my foster puppy Gator got to go, thanks to Angie C., one of our volunteers who brought him. She ended up taking care of him all day - even carrying him around when he was too tired to walk (it was all just an act, I think!) But he's a cute puppy who's fun to spoil, and he got a lot of attention. Also Frazier, the hound dog who is recovering from surgery, was there. And to round out the group, we brought Dash the Cattle Dog mix who loves everyone, and Luke, a gorgeous Australian Shepherd mix who wants nothing more than to sit in your lap and be petted. We met a lot of nice people, and one family dropped off some donations of dog toys that had been made by some day campers - the dogs love them! Here are a few photos from the event:

The little white blob on the table is Marco, my foster cat. In the back is Lori and Sue, trying to keep control of Dash, who had plenty of energy in spite of the warm day, and on the right is Donna with Frazier, Sue's foster dog.


Here's a close-up of Frazier, the wonderdog. He does swim therapy and walks on a treadmill while he recovers from his surgery to repair a broken leg.


Here is Gator pretending to be tired. :-)


Also Aurora was adopted this week, which just leaves Anastasia (Stasi) from my Disney litter. I thought she'd be the first of the litter to go since she has rather unique coloring, and instead she will be the last!

Pictures of fosters

Finally took some quick photos of my fosters. Here are the four Disney kittens. Aurora, the tortoiseshell, is the biggest cuddler of the group. Ariel, the gray tabby with a white face, is the most outgoing, and possibly the fastest of the group. Anastasia is the loudest. She always cries out like she's being killed when I pick her up. But she's really very sweet most of the time - she cuddles up with me for naps. Aladdin, the only boy, is the best climber of the bunch - he can climb up on anything. This morning one of the kittens (I forget which one) climbed onto Emma's face. Fortunately she didn't mind... but that might be where the cut under her eye came from (and here I've been blaming Noelle or Remi).

Here are some new pictures of Emma. She's been shaved so she looks kind of silly, but her hair is starting to grow out, so she doesn't look as silly as she did at first. Or maybe I'm just getting used to the way she looks.

Here are Emma and Noelle playing. They love to wrestle and chase each other. In the second picture, Noelle is rolling over after Emma knocked her down and ran away. They really love each other. :-)

I met some semi-feral kittens last night. They're the opposite of my kittens, who've been bottle fed and are used to humans. These guys were not happy about being touched, and even though they weigh less than a pound, they were still scary! It makes me appreciate my super-affectionate kittens even more. It also makes me appreciate those cat foster homes who take on scary semi-feral kittens and turn them into loving affectionate kittens. Give me a fear-aggressive dog over a feral cat any day! You may laugh at the thought of being scared of a 1-pound kitten, but they can be pretty ferocious! Here's an example from Anastasia, who doesn't like being photographed...

Shiro and Una were adopted!!

I'm excited to report that two of my foster cats were adopted. Shiro and Una are brother and sister - Pixie Bob/Desert Lynx mix. They went home last night with a great new family - a mom and two children who are so excited to have two new family members.

I'm also cautiously hopeful that Whisper will be going home tomorrow. I am planning to meet her new mom at PetSmart to do the adoption tomorrow afternoon, and I hate to announce it before it actually happens, but I've talked with her new mom several times and she is very excited to come get her and take her home. Whisper has been waiting such a long time in foster care (well over a year) and I really hope this works out for her!

Updates on my other fosters:
Scribbles is my tortie cat who has an attitude and doesn't like other cats, or dogs, or being at PetSmart, which is where she is currently living. If anyone knows of a single adult who has no other pets, Scribbles will be a wonderful pet - she is loving and affectionate and a purring lap kitty who is very sweet when she's not unhappy. The problem is she doesn't show well at PetSmart because she is unhappy, and yet she is also very unhappy living in foster care with other dogs and cats. I try not to take in animals who are going to be unhappy in foster care, but the person who gave me Scribbles said she was good with other cats and okay with dogs. Oh well - at least she has somewhere safe to live until the right home comes along. And if anyone who doesn't have dogs is interested in fostering Scribbles, please let me know. You get a free cat with free food and medical care - not a bad deal. ;-)

Marco and Polo are my two long-haired all white beautiful cats. They shed EVERYWHERE but they're so friendly and affectionate that its a small price to pay for their company. Marco has been getting Clavamox (an antibiotic) since he had a dental and he's finally done with that - good thing since he hated it! At least he's deaf so he couldn't hear me coming with the medicine. ;-)

My four Disney kittens are almost ready for adoption. They were supposed to be ready last Saturday but had coccidia, so they're getting daily medication for that. Hopefully they'll be ready in another week. I want them to have a chance to get adopted while they're so small - but I have to admit, I love having them around. They are so cute! And everytime I go anywhere near them, they immediately start purring.

Noelle is doing good - with her typical happy-go-lucky attitude. She gets into everything, and nothing ever bothers her. If I take away the sock she's chewing on, she just walks over and gets a book to chew. I take that away, and she walks over to find a pillow to chew on. Each time I give her a dog toy to chew on instead, but she just looks at me like "why would I want that?" and finds something else that's forbidden to chew on. She's impossible, and yet so funny that you can't help but laugh at her. Her funniest thing, which I keep meaning to videotape, is when I put down a bowl of food, she'll run from the food dish back to me, wagging her tail and licking me, then turn and run back to the food, take a few bites, then back to me. I've never had another dog do that, and I can't figure out why she does it. She does it with Dave too whenever he feeds her. Maybe she just wants us to know how grateful she is for the food!

Emma is improving every day. She's doing very well with housetraining. I am always leery of saying any dog is house-trained, at least until they've gone a couple of months without an accident, but so far she hasn't had any accidents in the past couple weeks, so she seems to be getting the idea. She's also stopped jumping up on me as much, although I think Noelle taught her how to put her paws up on countertops and find good things that way, so we still have some work to do. She's going to PetSmart this weekend and several people are supposed to come meet her so I am hopeful that she'll be adopted soon!

Artemis was adopted!; Introducing Ariel, Anastasia, Aurora & Aladdin

I didn't post it earlier, but my foster cat Artie was adopted a couple weeks ago. I visited him in his new home a few days ago, and he is doing great! He has a wonderful family, and another cat named Louie to play with. He has been renamed Luckee, and I think it fits him, since he was lucky to find such a great family.

With the help of some other Heartland volunteers, I've named my new kittens after Disney princesses and princes. Here are some pictures of my newest fosters:

Aurora is a tortoiseshell. I joke about how I am not a fan of tortie's, due to some of them being known for a "tortie attitude", but so far I have to admit that Aurora is my favorite of the bunch!

Ariel is a gray tabby with a white face. She is usually the first one to find the food dish. All of the kittens are eating very well now - they are incredibly messy, but oh so cute!

This is Anastasia - she is the only one that dives headfirst into the food dish and lays in it while she eats. Yuck!

The only boy in the group - this is Aladdin. He is the climber of the bunch - he is the first to climb up to the top of the cat playpen, and often the only one to go up there and sleep on the top shelf while his sisters stay safely on the bottom floor.

Once the kittens are done making such a huge mess while they eat, Lucy, one of my foster dogs, is happy to step in and help with the cleanup. She'll lick the kittens faces through the bars, and they'll push their faces against her tongue to make sure they get all clean. Then everyone is happy!

Boo was adopted!

I miss her a lot, but I'm really glad that Boo found a home with a wonderful family and another dog to play with. They were originally hoping to adopt Noelle, so I took her to meet them on Friday. However, Noelle decided she wasn't crazy about their current dog, so we decided that perhaps Boo would be a better fit. We were all sad that Noelle didn't work out, but it is a great home for any dog so I'm glad that they decided to give Boo a chance instead. And Boo did great with their other dog, so hopefully it will be a perfect fit.

While I was at PetSmart, a family came by and asked if we could help with some kittens they were caring for. The kittens' mother had been killed, so they had been bottle feeding the kittens, and they were finally old enough to begin eating on their own. It's been a long time since I fostered kittens, so of course I had to take them! I will post pictures of them tomorrow!