Over the years, I’ve written a lot about the importance of fostering shelter animals. There are so many wonderful reasons to give of your time in this way so that animals without homes can get a fair shot at their happy ending.
Until recently though, I haven’t been able to foster animals at home because I had elderly, special needs pets that needed our complete focus.
Now that we have an empty nest, we are finally able to open our home to shelter animals temporarily until the shelter can find permanent homes for them.
For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been caring for a litter of seven-week-old kittens who were found alone outside near a freeway offramp. Since I got them near the Halloween holiday, I decided to name them after Addams Family characters: Wednesday, Gomez and Uncle Fester.
The Addams Family is a spicy bunch. Since they were born outside, and didn’t get any human interaction for the first weeks of their life, they need a lot of socializing to make them ready for permanent homes.
So, I set about the task to win them over with my charm.
Things were going along great for the first few days. They were eating well and allowing me to hold them for brief periods of time without hissing and spitting at me.
Uncle Fester, a gorgeous black and white little guy seemed to favor me the most — coming to sit next to me when I’d sit down on the floor of the bathroom (where they’ve set up camp).
I’m not one to play favorites. But if I did, Uncle Fester would most certainly be my favorite. His gentle nature and curious eyes melted my heart. Of the three, he seemed to be the most interested in me, too.
I was in love — and about to have my heart broken.
On the fourth day, I woke up to find that Uncle Fester had passed away in the middle of the night.
When I saw him lying there, something inside me broke. So, I sat there, holding him silently for over an hour before I could turn my brain back on.
I took them all back to the shelter to…
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