The Fosters
In May 2014, I was living the dream (home with the cats on a Saturday night 
) when an Instagram friend in Cebu (@themaxsociety) posted a call for help. She was reposting for a Manila lady, @pawsomecats who had found four baby kittens on the side of the road. They were one week old. They had been taken to the vet for a checkup but a home was desperately needed for them.
Video courtesy @pawsomecats. I still can’t bear to watch this – who would abandon four babies like this, roadside?
I definitely did NOT want another four cats, it was out of the question. My condo building allowed only one pet, and I already had four. My condo was really big, but eight kittens grow into eight cats. But could I foster them? I was following a couple of foster kitten accounts on Instagram and it seemed wonderful! Raising baby kittens, loving them through all those early cute months and then sending them off to their wonderful forever homes. I contacted Jonna from @pawsomecats and told her that if she could find them a forever home, I would foster them through the early months. And she did! A lady agreed to take them but couldn’t care for them while they needed three-hourly feeds and manually de-pooping and de-peeing etc. Once they were on solid food and litter-box trained, she would take them. And so it was done.
The guest bathroom was prepared again, this time with heating lamps, a snug nest, a ticking clock (to mimic mamas heartbeat) and the guest bedroom prepared with soft cloths, feeding bottles and a place for me to sit and feed them every few hours for the next month or so. I stocked up on kitty formula and bottle brushes and tissues and everything Dr Google told me I would need. I prepared the first batch of formula for the babies and headed off to collect them. Jonna and I would meet for the first time, and we would meet the adopting mum as well to screen her.
I didn’t labour too much over naming these kittens. I wasn’t keeping them after all and their new mum would rename them. I chose names of Philippine islands as there are over 7,000 to choose from! The little black baby boy became Kabo, the tuxedo boy became Munroe (the island is Monroe), the little black tortie girl was Leyte (rhymes with Lady) and the golden tortie girl was Lulu, which I read incorrectly as the island is actually Luli.
Photo’s courtesy of the amazing vets at The Pet Project in San Juan, Manila.
The babies squeaked all the way home! I got them into their nest, nice and warm in the guest bathroom and prepared for the first feed…..
Hot water, cold water, feeding bottles and rice-filled socks that had been microwaved – heating pads for when you live in a country that doesn’t need heating pads!
Freshly made formula
The guest bathroom with the nest, lamps for extra warmth, and an iPhone set up as a video surveillance system. I could monitor the fosters outside of the bathroom on my iPad or PC.
