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Problem: Bringing Foster Ferals Back to the Shelter

1K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  Nuliajuk 
#1 ·
I am trying to come up with a solution for this problem:

As reported previously, I have been working with feral cats. The younger ones in particular we seen to be able to get socialized. Then they go to foster. Then they become normal, happy cats.

So now the fosters get returned to the shelter and everything is undone.

I previously described B who was a young feral. His mother was TNRed. At the shelter B was the nastiest cat I have seen there. I brought him home and he quickly became a loverboy. B is ready to be adopted. I returned him to the shelter and he was nasty again. I took him home and he was instantly a loverboy again. How does he get adopted?

A sad case is two kittens I have known since they were 4-weeks old. They are hissy and growly. So no one adopted them. They were sent out for foster and they were happy. I saw videos of them being lovers. So they came back to the shelter for adoption. And they are hissy and growly again. But now they are six months old and not cute little kittens any more that will get adopted in spite of hissing.

I've seen this problem repeatedly to varying degrees. What's the solution?
 
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#2 ·
That is a sad story. Recently, we adopted a rescue Han from a shelter. His shelter's organization was different from what you are describing. It seems to be made up of a number people who foster them and these rescues are adopted directly from the foster homes.
 
#3 ·
When I took B back to the shelter, I took C home to take is place. Then I had to had to take B home again (going from 4 to 5 cats). Once again, he is as nice a cat as you can imagine.

C then reformed after about a month so I took him back to the shelter—and then I got a call from the shelter "TAKE HIM BACK!" He was a monster upon return. I bring hm back home and he it a nice cat again.

We are trying to adopt B and C from my home. However, (1) this is difficult because they are not on the shelf and (2) there are many cats that need home socialization that I cannot take in because I am full.

In the case of the kittens I described, one of them died of an infection when he was about six months old. That was highly unusual as I had only seen very young, newly arrived kitttens and FeLV/FIV cats die at the shelter. His brother was adopted.
 
#6 ·
There are A LOT of stressed out shelter animals. The amount of stress varies by animal. Today I saw an 8-year-old that was surrendered because her servant went into assisted living. You could tell she was ill at easy but I could call her name and she would come. That's the low end of agitation. The ones I have were vicious in the shelter and went bananas when they came back. We are trying to adopt them from my house.

If you slept on a bed with an electric blanket and had free roaming in a house, how would you feel going into a free roam room in a shelter?
 
#7 ·
Still, there must be something wrong with the design of a shelter that has that many severely stressed out animals. We got Sandy from a conventional SPCA shelter and only saw one or two cats in the whole place that seemed as anxious as what you're describing. The cats were kept in a separate room, away from dogs and noise, so even though it's not a great environment for the long term, they seemed fairly relaxed on the whole. Sandy started purring the minute we picked her up.
 
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