Saturday 23 October 2010

A Bit of a Break

When I first started fostering cats, it didn't have a huge impact on my cats. I had Fudge and Georgie who were very spoilt and it did them good to share with other cats. I had mainly looked after single grown cats at first and after the initial spats, they all seemed to play very nicely together. When I adopted Oblee, I had a short break from fostering as I wanted him to settle in before introducing any more cats. The first fostering I did after that was for a litter of kittens who had lost their mum. Oblee took charge and I think the kittens thought he was their mum for much of the time.
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Oblee cleaning Bertie Kitten
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Over time though, I started getting new mums with their kittens, and this changed things considerably. New mums are much more nervous about other cats being around, and I had to start sectioning my house off to a much greater degree to prevent all out wars erupting.
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It happened so gradually that I didn't realise that my cats were starting to get shut out of my life more and more - living outside and upstairs while I was in the living room with the lodgers. When I let my cats into the living room, I had to make sure the fosters were shut in the dining room, and it became very difficult.
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Marina and the Chocolate Babies
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So now that Kipper and her kittens have gone back, and with it being the end of the kitten season, I have decided a break is a good idea. Within a few days of having the house to themselves, and being able to roam freely through it, my cats changed back to the loving cuddly cats they used to be.

Here's Georgie making himself comfortable.



Fudge settling down to watch a film with me.



And Oblee pretending to be asleep.

My house is peaceful for a change, my cats are happy and the break is doing us all a lot of good. It won't be long before the urge hits for me to start helping out again, but I'm going to try to make it to the New Year at least to give me time to get reacquainted with my own babies.

1 comment:

  1. Awww I'm glad they are feeling more like themselves again. It must be hard for you to give them the same attention when you are fostering. I'm planning on getting a kitten after Xmas from a rescue shelter and I'm worrying about how my 3 will adapt to it!

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