Fostering for the first time?

PrincessPlaty

I am looking to start fostering cats. I already have 2 of my own (female 22 weeks and spayed male nearly 2 years).

I have my home check booked in for tomorrow.

Is there any veteran cat foster carers out there that can give me some guidance of questions that I should be looking to ask tomorrow?

x

chez22

There is a comprehensive article about this on purrs http://www.purrsinourhearts.co.uk/index.php/topic,29568.0.html

This should give you an idea of what to ask, all rescues are different with different policies and some will pay expenses for everything whereas some will expect you to pay for food etc.

Fostering can be heartbreaking but also very rewarding, good luck!

PrincessPlaty

Thanks chez i was searching purrs for ages and couldn't find that! Purrs confuses me though with the backwards threads! :rotfl:

From some googling of the rescue she is coming from they cover medical treatment but not food, litter etc. Which isn't an issue as I am inundated with food and litter anyway :rotfl:

bethie

don't do what my sister did and end up as a failed fosterer.... twice!!!

She has now sworn off fostering forever....

(She didn't even particularly like the second cat, but it bonded with her first one and she couldn't get it back into the cat carrier when it was time to go back!!!)

G-WWBB

My partner and I started fostering earlier this year, we are now on our 13th foster, although 8 of those 13 are currently upstairs tearing the place up!

We foster for the local RSPCA rehoming branch we adopted our first three moggies from (they were all hand reared by fosters).
Our first foster cat Milly we took on in March, is currently asleep on top of her scratch post... Yes, we fell at all the hurdles and broke every fostering rule when it came to giving her back!
Since then, however, we've fostered a mum and week old kitten, a moggy involved in an RTA who was on cage rest and a moggy who had her tail amputated, and we've managed to give them back when the time came (not without tears mind!).

We now have a mum and 5 kittens, and another 2 kittens from a different litter, all of which were abandoned.
We're due to give them up next week and I think this'll be the hardest as the kits have been with us since they were a week old (they're coming up to 8 weeks now) so we've watched them grow and develop in to little monsters!

I think it's worthwhile to check what they provide, travel expenses, scratching posts, bedding, you've stated food and litter is covered by you, but it still might be an idea to ask about food as some cats will be on special diets (Hills/Royal Canin/JWB) which can get very expensive. Also find out what kind of treatments the animals will have had before they come to you, fleas/worms/vaccinations, etc. Some may have spent some time in the shelters hospital before coming to you, giving fleaing/worming treatment time to kick in, or they may just come straight to you and you may need to flea and worm them yourself.

This is specific to the branch (all RSPCA rehoming branches are now separate charities to the National RSPCA and RSPCA hospitals) each branch does have different rules, but it covers the basics so I hope it helps:

http://www.manchesterandsalfordrspca.org.uk/documents/Fostercarebasics.pdf

Good luck and please let us know how you get on

PrincessPlaty

Well home check went fine however they decided the cat was too feral and has gone onto a specialist fosterer with lots of experience with feral cats in the hope that she might come round. Another went into the rescue yesterday however she is aggressive towards other cats so no good around my two.

Something is screaming to me that here is something not quite right about this rescue though.

At the home check they told me that the adoption fee they charge for the animals was only to cover the veterinary costs. However the lovely little girl only arrived with them at 4.30 yesterday afternoon and within a couple of hours was up on their facebook page with an adoption charge of £75!!! She is from what i have been told spayed and healthy!

It seems to be an extremely high adoption cost for a cat that so far wouldn't have cost them anything.

They also told me at the home check that if i decided to keep any of the animals that i would still be liable to pay the adoption cost whatever that may be as it varies from animal to animal.... yet i am liable for all costs for the animal other than vet costs.

Does this sound right to you?

I have looked in to other local rescues however the main ones that I have found state that you should have no other animals in the home to pass the home check, which seems slightly odd to me!

paddypaws101

As for the £75 adoption fee for the 'healthy, spayed ' girl.....I know at first that might seem a lot, but the more you think about it, actually it is not. There are ALWAYS costs involved with a cat going into rescue, she will probably have had a full vet check to ascertain that she is indeed healthy, she will no doubt have had a flea and worm treatment and unless her vaccination booklet was supplied then she will probably have to be given her initial set of jabs again.
The chances of her being adopted today are minimal so for each day she is in rescue she has to be fed, watered and get her litter tray filled.
Ok, some cats don't cost them a huge amount in vet fees, but there will be plenty of others who cost an absolute fortune ( I have one of those, he racked up a huge bill for the Rescue centre! ) So any adoption fee will go into the pool of funds, which in any case will never be rich enough to pay all the costs that they run up overall!
As for paying an adoption fee on any cat that you did choose to keep....right now that might seem a bit steep, but I bet once you get involved in rescue you will want to give as much as you can afford in as many different ways as you can to help support their vital work.

PrincessPlaty

Yes I understand that costs add up, but what they told me was that the adoption costs were based on the treatment that they had.

If she came in at half 4 yesterday and put on their facebook page 3 hours later. Is that really enough time for her to be checked over by a vet and then fully assessed to see that she was aggressive towards other cats?

I mean when I got my youngest my eldest was a nightmare for the first week because he was used to being on his own, but he soon settled down.

Do you not think that is a bit soon to be making that judgement of her?

chez22

The adoption fee is standard even if the cat has had minimal treatment as has already been mentioned it goes towards funding of other cats too.

I have adopted two cats from the rescue I work for (one was terminally ill) and had to pay the adoption fee both times, but I do not have to pay anything towards the cats I foster. Our fee is only £40 though which includes deflea, deworm, vet check and assessment, vaccinations, microchip and neutering if necessary - so as you can see there is a loss made. Other rescues charge considerably more.

Putting a cat up for rehoming that quickly worries me, as you say it is very difficult to accurately assess a cat in that time, we have 7 day assessment sheets to fill in and there is usually a distinct change in the cats behaviour during that time, more so with stressed or nervous cats which can be mistaken for aggression. We also are obliged to keep stray cats for 7 days in case an owner is found.

I am surprised that other rescues have stated you should have no other pets, generally people who foster cats have some of their own :rotfl:You should keep any fosters separate from your own cats anyway, ie a spare room as there are many diseases that can be passed on to your own cats and are not always obvious. Plus it stops your own cats being upset by interlopers!

PrincessPlaty

chez22 wrote: »

The adoption fee is standard even if the cat has had minimal treatment as has already been mentioned it goes towards funding of other cats too.

Which is how it should be however they told me they based their adoption price on the treatment that the cat had, had and it was all done on an individual basis. It is only seeing the cat coming in so quickly and the cost being so high that has raised alarm bells.

I have adopted two cats from the rescue I work for (one was terminally ill) and had to pay the adoption fee both times, but I do not have to pay anything towards the cats I foster. Our fee is only £40 though which includes deflea, deworm, vet check and assessment, vaccinations, microchip and neutering if necessary - so as you can see there is a loss made. Other rescues charge considerably more.

Again which is totally understandable but this cat had only been there for a matter of a couple of hours, I read on facebook that the rescue owner had been putting off taking her in because the cattery wasn't yet built. Which she then in the middle of the night posted on facebook to say that the roof of the cattery had collapsed due to the rain asking if anyone had any wood they would donate. The conversation progressed onto the builder hadn't finished the cattery yet she had put the new one into it yesterday.

Putting a cat up for rehoming that quickly worries me, as you say it is very difficult to accurately assess a cat in that time, we have 7 day assessment sheets to fill in and there is usually a distinct change in the cats behaviour during that time, more so with stressed or nervous cats which can be mistaken for aggression. We also are obliged to keep stray cats for 7 days in case an owner is found.

Again i agree which is what raised suspicion.

I am surprised that other rescues have stated you should have no other pets, generally people who foster cats have some of their own :rotfl:You should keep any fosters separate from your own cats anyway, ie a spare room as there are many diseases that can be passed on to your own cats and are not always obvious. Plus it stops your own cats being upset by interlopers!

Again i was suprised also! However it is a council run one that i found that on, and nothing suprises me with the council! :rotfl:

The other things that raised suspicion was that they stated that any foster cats can go outside after they have been here for 4 weeks and that we should treat them as if they are our own. Every other rescue i have looked at states that foster cats should be kept indoors.

I have found another local rescue (10 minutes down the road) who according to their website is in urgent need of fosterers, they pay for all veterinary treatment aswell as food and litter and are also a registered charity. I tried calling and got no answer but have dropped them an email.

Fire_Fox

Not having your own pets might be because they can't control whether your cats are neutered, vaccinated, wormed and deflead regularly. Indoor/ outdoor .... some rescues don't believe in keeping cats confined unless absolutely essential, especially if they are likely to be in foster for a while. It's just a different philosophy or approach.

I think you have misunderstood about the adoption fee or it was explained to you badly. The £75 is generally based on what the pet has had at any point in the past, not necessarily what that specific rescue has done to the cat. So any cat that is neutered, vaccinated, deflead, dewormed and health checked before adoption is always £75. It's trying to bring in some revenue to cover costs and be reasonable in comparison to getting a kitten from the free ads and doing all this yourself. It cannot be set individually because cats who had needed a lot of care would cost thousands.

£75 is not high it is standard, although some rescues are cutting their adoption fees now because hey are so overwhelmed. This and paying your own food and litter will probably be down to how much funding the council rescue receives, they may be more constrained by their annual budget than a registered charity which can do its own fundraising is.