Fostering
Fostering Cats and Kittens
There are various opportunities for fostering Peter Zippi cats and kittens that account for all levels of experience. Below is a description of the various types of opportunities we have available. If you are interested, and if you live relatively close to our facility in Hermosa Beach, please fill out the form below and our foster coordinator will be in touch with you soon!
Cats recovering from surgery: You can take a cat into your home while it is recovering from major surgery. This would free up our cage space to show adoptable cats and even more importantly put the recovering cat into an environment where it would receive more love and attention than it would get at Peter Zippi. The time frame for this is probably anywhere from 2 weeks to 1.5 months.
Mothers with kittens: Getting a mom with kittens out of Peter Zippi is very beneficial for the whole group. Moms like to be quiet and safe when they have a litter to take care of and it is very beneficial to get the underage kittens out of our shelter so they are not exposed to diseases as their immune systems are not well developed. This could take anywhere from a few weeks to a month depending on the age of the kittens when we get the family. This is also a wonderful experience because you get to enjoy kittens while they are really tiny without the pressure of having to bottle feed them yourself (which is another option if you’re interested, keep reading!).
- Socialization: Sometimes we pull cats from the shelter who have had a tough time and are frightened. These cats do very well if they can get into a home where they feel safe and can learn to trust humans again. This can take anywhere from a week to a few weeks depending on the cat and is a great opportunity to really ‘rescue’ a cat that needs it!
Bottle Baby Fosters: This is not as easy as the other kinds of fosters we need and, if you don’t already know how to do this you would need to be trained prior to fostering for PZF. Some of the local LAAS Shelters offer this kind of training here and here. If the babies are very young (days old) they need to be fed round the clock every couple of hours. Once they are about 2+ -3 weeks old they can get through the night if they are fed right before the person goes to bed and as soon as they wake up in the morning. The other tough part about taking on these babies is that they sometimes do not survive. The time frame for these fosters would be from one to three weeks or up to over a month or two depending on whether they wanted to hand them to another foster after they are weaned but before they are at the weight (2 pounds) to be spayed or neutered and put up for adoption.
- Hard to adopt cats: Sometimes we have cats for a long time at Peter Zippi and they just need to get out and into a home for a bit of R&R. This also gives us information about how the cat will behave once in a real home which is valuable information that we can share with potential adopters. This is something we don’t require that often, but we do have the occasional need for this kind of fostering.
Have we got your interest now? Would you like to learn more about the fostering program or participate in it? If so, please fill out the form below and we will be in touch with you!
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