Wanna Be a Cat Foster Mama

The other day I was walking from the college to the bus station. It was sunny, and I saw a cat sitting in a windowsill.
He ignored me when I said hello to him, so I went on my way, but then suddenly he ran over meowing and let me pet him. Then he got up and walked off again as if to say he'd been heading somewhere and just happened to run into me on the way there. It was so cute... xD

Then I saw another cat sunning himself in a basement window. He didn't seem to notice me, but it made me happy just to see him so comfy in the sun.

I recently started following a Facebook page called Pet Pardons. The people who run it find out what pets are going to be put down at shelters and try to spread the word around facebook so that someone in the area can rescue or adopt the animals. They've saved many lives, but are unable to save so many more because of how so many people can't or won't adopt, while others don't spay or neuter their pets or abandon them at the shelter because they didn't make a real commitment to that animal. It's really sad. Before I left for Christmas Break, Danielle and I stopped in at the pet store downtown (HOHL/Clark's Feed & Seed) to look at the showroom they set aside for Whatcom Voice of the Animals, which is a local nonprofit organization which fosters unwanted pets until they have homes. The pet store set aside a room for WVOA to put some of their cats in cages during the day so people can come and take a look at them and hopefully want to adopt. There were four adolescent cats, all female, not really kittens anymore, who were all siblings and had been there for two months already. We were especially charmed by the black one because she reminded us of Nina. At that time we thought, well, maybe when I get a job and am in a secure enough position to adopt a cat, we can adopt a cat. I went back to that show room again recently and there were three of the four left still, including the black one.

This pretty girl was being really friendly though.

My thinking has started to shift, so that now I am pondering fostering cats rather than adopting them, since I don't know where I'll be for the next few years. How sad it would be for those three beautiful cats if they hadn't been taken in by a no-kill foster organization, but instead had been left at a shelter where they might have been euthanized because they weren't adopted quickly enough. I would like to volunteer for WVOA sometime soon.

Meanwhile, I also wish I had land so that I could rescue farm animals, but that is something that will have to wait until I can afford it. Until then, once I have a job I will just have to be content with donating to those who can rescue for me, like Farm Sanctuary and The Gentle Barn.