Venting here and sadness. I am currently fostering 4 precious kittens around 5 weeks old. With this litter I will have fostered 57 kittens in total. This has been my hardest three weeks ever fostering. I picked them up from our animal shelter and they all required bottle feeding(which I love) but within an hour of having them all had diarrhea. I immediately started with protocols that have helped over the years with other kittens but was fairly certain they had coccidia which the shelter vet confirmed from a stool sample. They have been on Albon and fortiflora as I transitioned them from formula, to slurry, to wet food , and now mixed wet/dry per the vets instructions. I am certain that they will need at least a second round as there is still lots diarrhea and crying out when using the litter boxes.
2 of the kittens had injured genitalia from nursing on each other and required topical meds and cones and separation and are healing. They also came with fleas that have been treated with baths and combing as they are too little for flea meds. It’s been round the clock for 3 + weeks now and it’s been tough. I can’t seem to get ahead of cleaning the four litter boxes every few hours, butt baths and paw washing, feeding 4 times a day, meds and water, changing puppy pads out as they walk thru the mess as they use the litter box, heating pads turning off each hour(it’s freezing tonight). They remain adorable and sweet and I Kiss them after their baths and they play with their toys and are trying to become lions in cutest ways possible.
Sigh. And tonight during a bath my black foster kitten was flaking skin when I brushed a spot with the flea comb. I got into my supplies and got my black light and his little face and a spot on his shoulder lit up green. I then looked at all the kittens with the black light and they ALL have green glowing spots on their noses and some hairs. So I’m fairly certain these sweet babies have ring worm as well .
I don’t think I can physically add one more treatment or condition and I feel I will have to give up and take them back to the shelter. I have had fosters with giardia, with coccidia, with ear mites, with tics, with fleas, with ringworm, with abuse injuries and myself and my family have handled it. But this time, it’s proving too much and my heart is sad. And I will have to take them back and hope someone will help them so they don’t get put down. 😞

I start to raise a kitten. But this is my first time.

Please give me some advice, what things I should prepare for my kitten?

Thank you so much!

I picked up my newest foster case earlier this week, she’s 10 weeks old and needs to gain weight in order to get her surgery. One of her eyes is already past saving and will need to be removed, however, the shelter said in the next week the other one will most likely deteriorate as well and it will be a bilateral.

How can I best support her post op? This is the first case out of several I have taken where a surgery besides the typical spay/neuter is involved and I honestly don’t know what to expect, but I want to make her as comfortable as possible.

This case has been more difficult for me than the others as it makes me so sad that she is so young, affectionate, and playful, though I know this procedure will drastically improve her quality of life. I just want to know that she will still be able to live a fulfilling kitten life full of play and affection.

All advice welcome, all positive stories of those who’ve had kittens continue to be playful, chaotic, and affectionate are even more so :)

I have been fostering for 3 days. I'm in college living in apartments. I thought I wouldn't get too attached but I have fallen in love with this dog. He is a puppy and has separation anxiety and due to that he's been rather destructive at times, like tearing up the blinds in the spare bedroom when I left. He's my best friend and helps me feel a feeling of connection with another dog that I lost a decade ago and haven't been able to find in another dog since- other than this stray I picked up that turned out to have an owner so we returned him.

His destruction has led one of my roommates to want to return him asap. I also have to go back home this weekend and next weekend and my family isn't letting me take him with me. At home I already have 3 dogs and 2 of them are troublemakers, and at my apartment I find it hard to take care of him for a few reasons- because he gets into stuff and chews, I have a hard time finding the energy to take him out on walks and I don't wake up easily. The reason that I'm gonn hace to return him is his seperation anxiety and destructive behavior especially when he's left alone/ I leave the house.

The idea of returning him especially now that we're so attached to each other breaks my heart. I can't stop crying and I don't want to let him go. How do I return him to the shelter (spca so he won't get euthd for time/space) when he looks at me like I've hung the moon? I want to keep him but its not practical and I'm absolutely heartbroken.

I need help, I need tips or advice or comfort or something because I'm not strong enough to do this (return him) on my own.

I love you Goose.

I picked up Koa and Khloe from the shelter a few days ago. They were a little shy and underweight, but so so cute.

They tested positive for feline panleukopenia today and the shelter decided it would be best to humanely euthanize them. The only symptom I noticed they had was decreased appetite. The shelter gave me cleaning instructions and I’m unable to foster for 6 months. I’m so sad for these sweet babies and I just wanted to share their picture.

I have six, 7 week old kittens. They've been great, I've had them from 1 week old. They went into the clinic to get snipped a week ago, ever since then 2 of them throw up every afternoon/evening. They have been into the clinic, they did stool samples, blood panel and everything came back good. They checked their incisions, checked for hernias. They gave the two that throw up a nausea shot, but they still threw up that evening!!

They had diarrhea too, but they put them on science diet ID and prebiotic and that cleared up.

They act perfectly fine, running around playing and still gaining weight (slowly).

Has anyone dealt with this? The clinic told me to wait 5 days to see how they do, but that means I'm cleaning up puke every evening. (They each puke 3x each)

Hello - we have a senior cat who we did foster to adopt through a rescue. Before we got him, he was with the rescue owner as a foster for several months trying to get healthy. He is an absolute gem of a cat and I know she liked him a lot.

Since we got him in April 2025, he has continued to have health issues. It took us a while to figure it out, but we now know he has intestinal small cell lymphoma and FIV, with a prognosis of 1-3 years. He is responding well to chemo and has a good quality of life at the moment, but it is terminal.

If you were the former foster, would you want to know before he passes, so that you can come say goodbye while he is still doing well? Or would you just want an update when he passes, or once it seems like he is starting to decline? I occasionally send her pictures of him on Instagram, which she seems to enjoy.

Thanks for your advice ❤️

We captured this little girl in front of our home under one of our cars on Sunday and were taking care of her as best we could. We started calling her Cynder since she had those little orange spots. We took her to the vet on Monday where she got dewormed but she was just so little (353 grams at approx. 6 weeks) they couldn't do anything about her fleas and told us to give her a bath. We did and they took a stool sample to see if she needed another dewormer.

Yesterday we left to get her additional dewormer immediately after they called to tell us and we came back home with a bed and more food bowls to find her unable to stand, cold and barely breathing. We rushed her to the emergency vet where they told us she was extremely dehydrated to the point they couldnt find a vein for ivs and malnourished and when we told them about the worms they said that essentially the worms had just been sucking the life out of her. So we had to make the decision to put her down so she wouldn't suffer any longer.

This is the first time we've ever had a kitten pass and I'm just so haunted by thinking if there was anything I could've done to stop it. At the first vet visit they advised we add kitten milk to her wet food to help her bulk up which we did but she didn't seem to gain anything.

Hi! I have a foster kitten that has an adoption inquiry and my shelter allows me to have the final say on if the potential adopter will be a good match.

Someone reached out and is asking if the fact they work from home will compensate for her being a solo.

I know it is recommended for kittens to be in pairs so I am reluctant to say yes to her, but has anyone had experience with WFH and solo kitten dynamics?

Naria is about 9-10 weeks old and such a little sweetheart, and I’ve noticed that while she will play with her foster sister, she will sometimes get irritated with her and go off and sleep in her own area. She will sleep on the foot of my bed, but also isn’t a Velcro kitty and is on the softer side with her personality.

Based on their behavior, I don’t consider them to be a bonded pair and her foster sister will be going to a home with another active cat this weekend.

Let me know your experience, thanks!

For me it is solid poop. Nothing makes me happier than a perfect little solid turd.

Hi everyone,

I currently am fostering a mama and kitten family. This is my second time fostering ever, and my first time was with weaned and litter box trained kittens.

The kittens are a month old (born four weeks and a few days ago), but have not started to use the litter box I set out for them. Their current situation is a mesh playpen that is open to a full room. There is a litter box, dry kibble, and mamas wet food in the playpen, and some litter boxes, water, and dry kibble outside the playpen. The litter box in the playpen is low sided. They have walked in the litter box, played in it, and even eaten the litter (non-clumping), but have not used it to go potty. I have not seen any poop accidents in or out of the playpen as well. Mama is super attentive to her kittens and will groom and stimulate them still. Should I be worried that they haven’t started using the litter box yet? If not, at what point should I be worried? They also have not shown interest in mamas food yet if that is important information, just the occasional sniff or stare.

I apologize if I seem worried over nothing, I just want to do right by them!

Has anyone else experienced a kitten not liking wet food or churu? He's around 8 weeks old and the other kittens in his litter are crazy for wet food and churu. He refuses to eat it and even does the cover up like its poop when presented with it. He does love dry kitten food and eats a lot of that, but i've never experienced a cat or kitten turn down wet food or especially a churu?

She's getting her second round of shots tomorrow. She loves her hippo siblings. She's definitely found her forever home.

Picture for cat tax! I just got in this single kitten and realized I have yet to foster a single kitten this young before. Does anyone have any tips? She's eating well, the only problem I'm seeing is she hasn't quite figured out the litterbox, which I expected, and every time I feed her she'll eat for about a minute, then wander around crying until I hold her for a few minutes then eat again when I put her back.

Again, just making sure that I am not missing something big as far as having a single vs a whole litter.

Edit for Update:

As I talking to people I got an email from the shelter about another single and it looks like she's going to get a friend!! Hopefully that will help her be less lonely. I also ordered a warming stuffie with a heartbeat and some non-clumping litter.

Guess who has finally made it past 300grams. Dustmite Dustin the Tiny Grey Guy, that’s who! I haven’t weighed yet for today, yesterday he was 315grams.

He’s always been fairly opinionated but he’s gotten quite a bit more expressive over the past week. Think the enema he had really helped oddly enough. They said he didn’t really feel constipated, but he was much more active the following day.
He’s on medication for Coccidia, he’s eating so much better lately, and he’s playful and silly. Everything you want a kitten to be.

Keeping an eye on his breathing and behavior a lot. A grade four heart murmur isn’t something to measure around with, but a lot of kittens do grow out of them. (Heck, Kiwi managed to grow out of hers!) Without going to specialty, there isn’t much more I can pursue for his medical care. We’ll just have to see what the future has in store.

He likes to sleep in my bed now and when I’m at my desk he makes his way across the room to curl up in the little dog bed next to me.

I scheduled mom and his four siblings for their spay and neuter appointments. Everyone else is right around that 2lb mark so I gotta get them ready to leave. Dustmite can tag along with me and Kiwi a while longer, he’s making progress.

Some weeks ago I was shocked this little guy was still alive. I’m so glad I get to keep making updates that he’s proved me wrong yet another week.

I’m hopeful that someday this Dustmite will be a proper cat.

Hello all! I am about to be taking in my first foster cat tomorrow. My friend’s neighbor had a cat arrive on their porch 2 weeks ago and they have been taking care of her since then. A week ago they took her to the vet and she had ear worms (which I am assuming is also mites). They started treatment and she has been on it for a week. Unfortunately they are no longer able to take care of her, and while I have no desire for a 3rd cat, I also cannot stand the thought of her going to the shelter when I can help.

I have 2 cats of my own that I obviously do not to contract mites. My plan is to have her quarantined in another room in the house that my resident cats will not have access to, for both the mites and introductions of it all. My questions are:

1) is there anyway my resident cats can contract ear mites from her if strictly quarantined? To follow up, will I need to clean/disinfect (??) the room once she is done with treatment?

2) how long should I keep her quarantined for - from a mite transmission standpoint?

Thank you in advance for answers and advice!

Hi all, wanted to see if anyone had ideas what caused this in some kittens I’m fostering and what I can do, if anything, to help. The kittens are somewhere between 2 to 3 weeks old, they weigh on average 400 g. I also have the mom who is extremely skinny, but eating very well and on her way to recovery. All four kittens have these scabs on their tails, most have them on their paws, and one has it on his ear. The mom has no symptoms at all, but she does have some healing scratches that the shelter believes she may have been attacked and was defending her kittens. Her scratches look nothing like what is on the kittens and I do not think it is related. The kittens have no other symptoms at all - no runny noses or eyes and no evidence of fleas. Shelter already confirmed, not ringworm.

ETA Update instead of replying individually. Thank you all for the responses, I love all the animal lovers here! With your encouragement I reached out to shelter and they agreed we should retest them again for ringworm, taking in tomorrow morning!

I’m pretty new to fostering. A young cat (1 year-ish) that I adopted out, let’s call her Penny, was returned back to me after a month. The adopter’s resident cat wouldn’t accept the newcomer.

Penny is a great cat that fits my household and I adore her. She’s been back for two weeks and is settled in and de-stressed from that whole situation. She’s so happy to be back and relaxed. Now I need to decide if I list her for adoption again or keep her. She would do great in most households and won’t be hard to adopt out. She’s not the most confident of cats and is the sort to hide a lot. She was found stray either with kittens, but she was clearly a pet previously.
If it matters, i had her two months, then she was gone for a month, now back two weeks.

I guess what I’m wanting is to hear from others is how they would decide on this.
I don’t want to cause behavioral issues or separation anxiety. But she also may be fine. I know there’s no guideline as to how many times they can be rehomed before you cause emotional damage. My coordinator was too busy to advise me other than I can keep her or list her again. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I would be very appreciative for any wisdom shared to help my decision. TIA.

My partner (23M) and I (23F) decided to foster a dog. We worked with a foster organization that brings dogs from outside the EU in for adoption, and chose our “Z” (1F, spayed) because she had been described as calm, confident, comfortable home alone, good around kids, etc. Pretty much your dream dog - the hope was that she would be a good introduction of what having a dog is like for my partner (who has not had one in the past). I have had 4 dogs in the past - one who was medically complex and a rescue who had been trained as an attack dog.

I had been confident in my dog knowledge, but am struggling with Z. 10 days after she was brought to us (by truck from Eastern Europe over 5 days in a crate) she has completely warmed up to me but is showing aggression toward my partner and strangers in our home.

We avoided having anyone over for the first week to give her time to decompress. We worked on having a clear routine (same wake up time, food times, short (5-10 minute) training sessions, attempting walks 3-4 times per day) and lots of cuddles/bonding. She does not show any food agression and has not shown any aggression toward me (I work from home and have spent pretty much every second with her, expect for night when she sleeps in the living room and I’m in my bedroom)

We’ve worked on getting her comfortable on a harness (progress, but imperfect) and short walks. She is now fully comfortable in our apartment and does not want to leave, but can tolerate ~15 minute walks as long as the streets are generally quiet (early morning and evening/night walks). She eats and drinks in front of me, plays with toys, and is starting to get the zoomiez. She is really loosening up.

However she has started to growl at my partner when he is walking around the house early in the morning before work and when he comes home. I can verbally correct the behavior, but she peed inside this weekend and my partner tried to pick her up to put her outside and she snapped at him.

Then yesterday, I had an event to attend in the evening so I asked a friend to come and watch her. My friend is knowledgeable about dogs (pet sitter) and planned for an hour long introduction before I left. It was going well for ~15 minutes (taking treats, allowing little pets), but my friend stood up to walk to the kitchen and Z jumped from the couch and attacked from behind (no blood, and she stopped when I yelled). I was able to pick her up and put her outside in our closed garden for her to calm down and have space to herself.

She also has quite bad separation anxiety, and is not relaxed when I leave even for short (30 second) exposure therapy out the front door.

Looking for help and recommendations on getting her comfortable with people other than me, as well as with the separation anxiety.

I think we need to muzzle train her if she has now tried to bite two people. I do believe that she is fearful and defensive, and she is a cuddly goop with me. She’s eating and drinking normally, is active and playful during the day, and is well behaved for me. But I cannot be this little lady’s only human, especially since we will eventually be introducing her to people for potential adoption.

Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks!