Our last foster felines left our home before New Year’s (our trip to visit my mom over that holiday) and have since all been adopted into loving homes! Given that it’s winter here, kittens aren’t pretty common this time of year so we didn’t expect to have more fosters very soon. But in early February we received our next assignment and on February 10th, I picked up our newest fosters. Number 99 and 100!! (I should figure out a way to celebrate that! Anyways…)
Interestingly we went from a mama cat and her 8 kittens to now… a mama cat and her single 4.5 week old kitten. My how the pendulum swings!
I don’t have much backstory on these two, just that they were relinquished to an area shelter and that Richmond Animal League pulled them right away.
Shortly upon arriving at our home, they were assigned the names Coach Broccoli (mama) and Banana (baby) by our 3.5 year old daughter, Willa. I didn’t get a say in the matter, clearly. But hey – it’s food themed at least? And you know I love a good theme for naming a litter (can I still call it a litter if it’s just one kitten?).
Coach Broccoli presented as a very shy cat and her kitten was equally shy. To their credit, neither of them ever hissed, spit, or tried to strike or bite at me. They were just very clearly unsocialized, unaccustomed to any human interaction.
After a week or two in our care, Coach Broccoli started to purr for me during petting sessions and would come towards me for attention very occasionally – progress!! Banana was still completely uninterested in me.
A few weeks ago, it was Coach Broccoli’s time to be spayed so that she could officially enter retirement. Predictably, this set things back with Coach Broccoli, can’t say that I blame her!
However, in an interesting turn of events Banana’s personality essentially flipped a switch while her mom was away for the day. She was immediately more outgoing, running around the room, and showing tons of curiosity when normally she was content to nap and cuddle with her mama all day long.
Because of this, about a week later we decided to move Coach Broccoli to an open space at RAL so that Banana could be on her own for a bit and we could work on her socialization a lot more.
In just one week Banana had COMPLETELY come out of her shell – purring so loud when anyone pet her, running around at full speed, chasing toys (and shadows, and specks of dirt on the walls), and just being a proper, well-rounded kitten. She especially had a blast when we had visitors last weekend!
Since I am off to NYC for a work trip next week, it was time for Banana to move on to her next stop this week. Since she is still on the smaller side, she transferred to another foster home where she can continue to grow a bit then be spayed and readied for adoption. I can’t imagine that she takes more than a day or two to get adopted once listed on the RAL website!
I’ve already received updates (and GORGEOUS pictures!) from her new foster family – she’s doing great of course. She’s settling in well and already exploring all the new toys.
We miss her already and Willa is already asking for our next foster kittens – “1 red kitten and 1 green kitten”. Good luck to the foster coordinator on that one! I don’t know when we’ll take in our next fosters, but I’m sure it won’t be too long as Kitten Season is just around the corner.
I still haven’t figured out a way to celebrate reaching 100 foster pets. I’m open to suggestions!
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