"These kittens are brother and sister. We had them, there 4 littermates and their mother in foster care."
Will and his wife, Kathy, from California have volunteered for SPCALA for almost a decade. “This is our 9th year in the foster program and more than 300 of our fosters have been adopted. Besides fostering at home we spend a lot of time at the shelter helping to get the cats and kittens adopted.”
“SPCALA makes it easy for us to help save animals and provide people with companions and family members. They have the best adoption facility in Southern California and a very helpful staff. They have an educational department that provides classes for almost everything that us volunteers do.”
“This is primarily my wife’s hobby. We have turned three spare bedrooms in our home into kitten rooms. The most fosters that we have had at one time in our home is 19. We back up each other in these efforts. For example the last set of 7 that we took back to the shelter several weeks ago were primarily my babies because my wife had just too many other things going on. We had them from 3 weeks old (bottle babies) to more than 3 months old. I was lucky that I did not have any serious illness to deal with, not like the group before them.”
"These came into the shelter on New Year's Eve and we took them into foster care as bottle babies. They have all since been adopted."
"This white foster kitten is showing us that he has clean paws."
“We have had quite a number of polydactyls over the years. At the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 we had a polydactyl calico mother and all her 6 kittens were polydactyl. She had a red tabby and white, a cream colored tabby, a blue, two black and whites and tortie. Later that year we got a group of three kittens without a mother cat. Three of the 4 were polydactyl, an orange and white, a calico, and a black and white. There was another black and white that was not polydactyl. I have many many more photos of these polydactyl than I have posted on flickr. There is a photo of a blue polydactyl that I have posted on flickr that was the only polydactyl kitten in a litter of 5.”
Pixie and Dixie dancing
“At the Long Beach facility where we volunteer, Long Beach animal control takes in the animals and handles a variety of animal control services. SPCALA runs the adoption center. SPCALA staff routinely gove over to the Long Beach side and chose the most adoptable animals that we have room fore to come over to the adoption center. There are other organizations that take some of the animals that we cannot. Kittens that are too young to be put up for adoption go into the foster program if there is room. We are rarely told anything about how any of the animals come to be in the facility. I assure people that all of our kittens originally come from mother cats.”
This is foster kitten Rusty.
“I am alergic to cats and an asthematic. I told my wife before we got married absolutely no cats and in my marriage I rule. But yes we have cats. One of our cats we found on our front porch during a rain storm and we have been trying to find him a home for the past ten years with no success. Of course he has been like a brother to our other male cat, the kitten my daughter brought home from college. the hardest part of fostering is having to give them up but because of the other cats we know that we cannot keep them. We look upon adoption as a form of graduation. Photography helps to keep them in our memory.”
Photos courtesy of Will (flickr: ©whaas987)
Cricket
"Some kittens know how to smile for the camera."
"These are kittens that we had in foster care. They are doing the 'High 4'."
"Here are two of our foster kittens examining one of my shoes at the shelter."
"This is one of our foster kittens on a bed playing with a ball. In foster care the kittens get a very carefree early kittenhood."
"Here is a mother cat and one of her kittens, both sleeping. We had them both in foster care. The kitten is one of four."
"These are three of Evie's kittens. You can see Evie in the background at the left edge of the photograph."
"This foster kitten is asleep but still on the ball."
"Hai it's very nice to meet you. Let's shake our paws!" - This is a polydactyl kitten in foster care. His front paw has two extra toes.
"Tuffy is one of a group of foster kittens we refer to as the New Year's Eve fosters. They were dropped of at the shelter one New Year's Eve and we took them into foster care."
"This foster kitten named Jackson appears to be break dancing."
Polydactyl Brothers Sleeping
"I have many toes too, can you see?" | This kitten has extra toes on all four paws.
"This foster kitten is in a boxing stance."
"This is foster kitten Quin taking it easy."
This is little foster kitten, Amy
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Oh my gosh, what sweet baby faces!
Thank You so much! When I get back to my home, I hope that I can do exactly what you have done for the kitties!
beautiful… made me smile so much xxx
They are all so very beautiful, and what a totally beautiful couple doing amazing things for the kitties!
Thanks for taking care of all these babies!
thank you for your caring……..too cute
Having kittens all the time would be like a dream come true for me!
giving them away will be the only hard part.
What a bunch of beautiful, adorable kittens! I love them all!
Only god can repay your kindness. Plus, each and everyone of them are adorable.
I love all the pictures of your kittens they are so cute
Awww….CUTEEEEE…..!!!!
Thanks for taking care of them!
What an amazing couple!!! Thankyou for looking after all those kitties and getting them into homes. They are just gorgeous.
Where would all those baby kitties be without that wonderful couple. Thank you for helping them on their start in life.
Very amazing! Such cute kitties! Awesome people to do this, we need more people like these.
You know, allergists and asthma doctors routinely tell patients that they can't have cats, saying it will cause problems with their breathing. Unless they actually do the allergy screening for cat allergies, and you show a strong allergy to them, it really isn't a problem. I speak from experience. This story also demonstrates that.
This reinforces my convictions to one day foster lots and lots of kitties
Great site! Added to my favorites! Just love it!
great pictures! how can i help or volunteer?
If you want to help or volunteer first find out what rescue groups and humane societies in your area. Then contact them and find out if they might have any volunteer and or fostering oportunities that you mught apply for. Some organizations like SPCALA have web sites with such information available.
Just fantastic!
what a great story- these are the cutest bunch of photos! i love the smiling kitties, the breakdancing kitty, the kitties in the shoe, the kitty sleeping on the ball, kitties with extra toes. way too many adorable kittens!
These afe definitely the cutest kittrn pics I've ever seen. And, these wonderful ppl deserve so much credit. But, I think that every time they pick up a aoft, warm kitten that is their reward.
I have three rescued cars abd I thank their foster parents. Thank you.
Thanks to Will and Kathy for all the love and care they provide for fostering all these special lives. I work with Texas Cares Cat Rescue in Dallas, Texas and understand the dedication and love required to make this kind of commitment to the kitties.
God bless you for all you are doing! Wish there were many more people just like you willing to sacrifice their time and efforts! They are all beautiful!
I livein Canada and i am 11 years old and I love how caring you two are I love animals and when i grow up I wanna be a vet.I have one cat a dog and a turtlebut i love my cat i think hes four
Wow that couple is surely a godsend!!!
Keep up the good work, you're an amazing couple. Bravo!
All your cats are cuties ♥
I'm surprised by all the polydactyl cats you had…
Thank you all for reading and commenting. Over a 9 year period we have had 14 polydactyl cats in foster care and 10 of those were over a one year period. In that one year we had a mother cat and her 6 kittens, all of which were polydactyl and then a 4 kitten litter wherer three of the kittens were polydactyl.
Once back at the shelter the mother cat, a very affectionate calico, took only 3 hours to get adopted.
How long did it take them to get back to you about the foster parenting?
I turned in an application about a week ago and I want to know if that's a normal amount of time.
It was so long ago I do not remember. At that time there was not a separate fostering application. My wife attended the beginning volunteer class and they asked for a show of hands as to who might be interedted in fostering. She was about the only one who raised their hand and she thought it was just to receive information about fostering at the end of the class. She did not realize that they had fosters for her to take home that night. She called me and I said "OK" and that is how we got started in the program. They offer a foster class about every month or so. I can only imagine that they would try to get back to you before the next class is to be held.
A black (and white?) foster kitten named *Jackson* break-dancing?? That's almost perfect! =) Was he named *before* or *after* that pic was taken? LOL. *hums Billie Jean*… Too much!
My wife names most of the kittens when they first come into our home so Jackson got his name well before this photo was taken. I believe he may have had a little white on his underside but for the most part he was a black cat. We also had the mother cat and she was black and white. Was he really "break-dancing" ? Probably not but that is what it looks like in the photo. The photo was taken in our kitten room number 1.
Will, you and your wife are heroes!!!!!
300 kitties fostered = 300 x 2* = 600 good karma deeds !!!! thank u & may u continue giving kitties & their hoomans great joy ^_^
* happy hoomans too, dun forget
Thank you for fostering so many cats/kittens and giving them a chance at finding a loving and forever home!! My husband is allergic too. He said no cats too!! We have cats now too!! HAHAHA. Although he did go get allergy shots for over 2 years and is much better now. He can at least tolerate being in the same room as them. Our 3 cats are his world now. He loves them sometimes, I think even more than I do!!!
Wonderful, wonderful pictures! Bless your hearts for fostering so many kitties. You truly have kind souls. I have adopted 2 orange older cats so when I see the pictures of little Quin and Tuffy I imagined my Teddy and Charlie looking like that when they were babies.
Thank you.
God bless you all!! Animals are much like children, they have absolutely no say, and it is so good to hear a story like this!! You are very exceptional people