January through June 2000 - foster animals

June 22, 2000 - July 7, 2000

#'s 25322, 25324 and 25325
Sydney - dilute tortie, ~ 7 wks old, F, stray?, shorthair
Boomerang - orange w/white, ~ 7 wks old, M, stray?, shorthair
Melbourne - buff, ~ 7 wks old, M, stray?, shorthair

These kittens are the healthy kittens from a previous foster. She had 6 kittens and had to go on vacation. The other three were suffering pretty badly from a cold so they stayed at the shelter. These three managed to stay pretty healthy, but we are giving them antibiotics just in case. Sydney is a little lovebug, Boomer is a busy trouble kitten, and Mel is a shy guy.

June 10, 2000 - July 18, 2000

#24270 Chowdy aka Captain Chowdy - Brown tabby w/ white, 11 yrs old, M, surrender (allergies), shorthair

Chowdy spent a month or so at mounds middleton where I volunteer. He is a sweet laid back guy that I really grew attached to. I was sad to see that he was in vet treatment at the shelter for not eating. I decided to foster him for awhile till he felt better. He was downstairs with Dovey. Dovey loves him. She'd headbutt him and parks up against him.

Update: 9/1/00 Chowdy is still waiting for a home in the adoption center. They found a semimoist cat food only available at the vet office that he loves, so at least he is eating. 10/00 Chowdy was adopted on Labor Day and is doing great. His new people are thrilled with him and he has a new best buddy, a cocker spaniel!

June 8, 2000 - June 22, 2000

#none Mr. Edinburgh - grey tuxedo, kitten ~ 7 wks old, M, stray?, shorthair
#none Hale-Bopp - grey, kitten ~ 7 wks old, F, stray?, shorthair
#none Elsbet - grey, kitten ~ 7 wks old, M, stray?, shorthair

These are three scared little kittens (I love grey kittens so I couldn't resist) that needed lots of socialization. For the first three days I couldn't even handle them, but now they've learned people were ok, Hale-Bopp now squeaks at me if I ignore her and the others are starting to jump into my lap.

April 22, 2000 - November 27, 2000

#24153 Dovey - grey classic tabby w/ some peach mixed in, adult, F, stray?, shorthair

We are keeping Dovey longer to tame her. She was spayed on June 8th and is currently recovering. We are keeping her in the basement for now. Hopefully she will be able to mix with our cats eventually since this may take a while. She likes her roommate Chowdy a lot and LOVES the basement.
Update 10/00: Dovey is doing great. I can now clip her nails without too much trouble, so she has the run of the house. She gets along fine with the other cats, even playing with some of them. She is very playful and friendly and loves attention. We tried a trial visit to Mounds and it went great. She is now on the waiting list to go there and find her home. She is really in love with my husband and follows him everywhere cooing! She's made remarkable progress and gets friendlier every week.
11/27/00 Dovey went down to Mounds tonight. 12/3/00 Dovey was adopted already. That is really quick for an adult. We only got to visit her one time and she seemed happy down there. The volunteer that night said she would go right up to the window and court the visitors.

April 22, 2000 - May 26, 2000 (Dovey stayed longer...see above)

#24153 Dovey - grey tabby w/ some peach, adult (mom), F, stray?, shorthair
#none Dandelion - grey tabby, kitten born ~ March 18th, M, stray?, shorthair
#none Daphne - grey tabby w/ peach, kitten born ~ March 18th, F, stray?, shorthair
#none Deja Vu (aka DJ) - grey tabby, kitten born ~ March 18th, M, stray?, shorthair
#none Dalila (aka Dolly) - grey tabby, kitten born ~ March 18th, F, stray?, shorthair

   This litter was one I met earlier while picking up Yoshie from the shelter. The mama was caring for her little ones in a dog kennel back in the vet care area. Mama Dovey was a feral cat (i.e. wild, not seeming to know about humans), but a very good mom.

When Jake and Elwood were ready to go back we decided to foster Dovey and her kittens. We at least hoped to socialize the kittens a lot and see about saving mom, since feral cats are generally euthanized at the shelter. Plus we wanted a little older litter since we've been very busy at work and these kittens were already 5 weeks old and thriving.

We decided to name them all "D" names after I started with Deja Vu, named because he reminds me of Grey Grey whom we fostered last July for a week. Little Daphne was the bravest and has lately been diving off the table into the litter boxes! Dandelion was unnamed until he started eating kitten food first and almost immediately doubled in size, i.e. growing like a weed. Dalila (dah-LEE-lah) is an African name meaning gentle, which little 'Dolly' is. She spends a lot of time napping and snuggling with her siblings.

Dovey surprised us by allowing us to pet her after a few weeks. She now not only allows us to pet and scratch her, but if we DON'T when she wants to she growls at us! This is pretty funny to see. She is growling with those lovey squinty eyes and a greeting tail and posture. We see progress with her every day. This morning she let me pet her while she was nursing and I was sitting nearby.

Even before she let us pet her we had decided to keep her longer and save her from euthanasia. We will get her spayed and keep her for awhile. If she becomes adoptable great, if not we'll find someone with barn cats or a managed feral colony and place her that way. See her own story above.
Update 11/27/00: the newsletter from the shelter arrived and there is a letter from DJ's new family. He is now called Jasper and gets to go out on a leash.

March 22, 2000 - March 31, 2000

#23423 Yosie (Josie) - orange + white, adult, M, surrender, longhair (Persian).    Yosie (pronounced Yoshie and originally spelled Josie) is an adorable Persian who we first met at the Mounds adoption center. He has that overbred squished-in Persian face and partly due to that he was having trouble with eye discharge. We fostered him and put eye ointment in. We overlapped with our other two fosters, which I don't often do, but knowing Yosie I was sure he would be easy to take care of. Yosie had been surrendered due to owner allergies and we were surprised to learn that he has had 3 owners. He was such a wonderful cat with us (and so amusing) that I can't imagine anyone giving him up! He loves to flop over on the floor and has the funniest face with a little triangle mouth and eyes that are startlingly orange on the rare occasions when he opens them.
A woman who we got to meet adopted Yosie on the 31st. Unfortunately she later returned him for litterbox problems. Then Yosie was adopted by the same lady who adopted Anahita (aka Jilly) our longtime foster persian from last summer/fall/winter.

February 22, 2000 - April 22, 2000

#23258 Mr. 'Elwood' Grey - grey, adult, M, surrender, longhair.
#23259 Baby aka Jake - orange classic tabby, adult, M, surrender, shorthair.

These two are perfectly healthy (knock wood), but unfortunately they were exposed to an FIV positive cat recently. They probably were unaffected, but they have to wait 8 weeks and retest to be sure before they can be made available for adoption. So we are keeping them in strict isolation for that time. Waiting in a room with windows is a better choice than a cage for 2 full grown cats.
They are both big babies, shy yet they love attention. The orange guy is pretty small, but his grey friend is a giant! I'll have to weigh this guy and see just how big he is. Orange boy is curious but afraid of the computer and the keyboard pull out tray.
Jake was unneutered at first and boy was he stinky. When he used the litter box it smelled like we had a lion in the house! He was neutered on 2/28 and after a fairly long recovery is doing fine.
They are both much braver now and seem to have an oral fixation. They love to chew and don't really know not to bite when they are upset. We will try to teach them not to bite, but they definately need a no-kids home.

(They both tested negative for FIV on 4/22!)   
Update: July 2000 they moved these guys down to the Fitchburg Mounds adoption center. When we volunteered Jake was having a ball playing with the kittens there. 10/00 Unfortunately Jake and Elwood are still not adopted. They are now in separate cages since Elw. is so big. This is taking awhile. They are currently at the Middleton facility. 11/28/00 The boys were adopted together! This was a happy surprise since the person put a hold on Jake and two other kittens at first. She changed her mind and took both Jake and Elwood!

January 28, 2000 - February 21, 2000

#23045 Cinnamon - brown tabby, ~ 7 years, F, surrender, shorthair polydactyl.

Cinnamon is an alumnus from fitchburg mounds adoption center. She was grumpy there and maybe due to the stress she caught a cold. She is our first official polydactyl (a polydactyl has extra toes). She has two thumbs on each front paw.
She loves attention and is not suffering too much from her cold. We have been trying to appease her need for attention while she waits for an open cage. Boy does she love attention.
Update 3/13/00: Cinnamon is still waiting for a home and is very stressed at the adoption center. She is almost completely different acting there. She is very grumpy and shedding and her tail is very sensitive. In April Cinnamon was adopted by one of the volunteers at the adoption center. 10/00 I met the woman who adopted Cinnamon and she is doing wonderfully. She settled right in and is training her human well. She never again had the medical or emotional problems that showed up when she was at the adoption center.