Congratulations on a job well done! How are they doing now? 5 days is plenty of time to get totally attached! How long did you have them? Is that tortie a sweet one, or a fiesty? I know the orange one is a sweetie - they all are!
We fostered too - but failed with miserably with the young tuxedo male I posted pics of. He was such a godsend for our young teen during the pandemic - a hero, really. Mischevious, energetic, needy; not my favorite personality as I like more independence in a cat. But I'll defend him to the end because of what only he could provide our girl during these awful times!
All of our 8 fosters have been special needs; I much prefer the emotionally damaged cats as I have a special patience for them. But one elderly diabetic cat on 4 meds left here after 4 months - on only 1 tiny dose of insulin a day!! Turns out the $5 a can IBS food he ate twice a day led to horrific levels of diabetes, a misdiagnosis of severe IBD...and something else. He was on prednisone, a chemo drug and a couple of others. He smelled like a sewer....his body, not just his litterbox.
He was getting 10 units a day, total. The IBS food was loaded with carbs so I switched him to Fancy Fest pate (lowest carb). Luckily the bet I took him too was fantastic and open to the low carb diet. But his numbers improved so quickly - that he began to question the IBD diagnosis...and stopped the steroids and chemo meds. Turns out the gut was healing without all of the carbs! Never had IBD. He had an intestinal overgrowth of bacteria....hence the smell and potty issues. A few months later he was a happy, more sprightly 17 year old with the bloodwork of a 2 year old!
Thank you!
I've had an update and it sounds like they're doing really well. Apparently they like the telly, which I never knew as we don't have one in the foster room. Might need to get an old tablet and set it up to play kitty TV on you tube for future fosters. I usually tend to do short term (often emergency) foster though, so more concerned about keeping them safe and healthy than about the type of entertainment they need once they've settled.
The tortie (Muffin) is a total sweetie - all she really wants in life is a blanket covered lap to curl up on.
The ginger, Alfie, is actually the feisty one. Also very sweet, but will absolutely tell you where his boundaries are with a quick swat, (claws out) a growl and flashing eyes. He also gives head butts and love bites that get a little too hard. I tried cautious introductions with our resident cats, and sadly Alfie wouldn't have been ok with them, as he'd stand up to them and it would have escalated into fights, which wouldn't be fair to my other cats as their peace is pretty fragile as it is.
They were here for well over 6 months - I lost track after a while. They were pretty tiring to care for as Alfie wouldn't use a litter box! Within a couple of weeks we got some carpet protector and puppy pads which helped, but still trickier to clean up, especially when he found the little gaps...
When I think back to how they were when they arrived, it's not a boast to say that being in foster likely saved Alfie's life. He looked like a pregnant skeleton, with dull, greasy looking fur, and walked like he had given up. Even without the diagnosis, I could have deduced that he had diabetes - I could smell the sugar in his pee and poo. He was drinking more than a full bowl of water daily and was so obsessed with food, that I struggled to find anywhere to store it in the room that he couldn't get to.
Now he still has a bit of a belly, but he's filled out over his bones, walks with purpose and looks like a reasonably healthy older cat. He still loves food, but isn't obsessed with it and still drinks a lot of water but not nearly as much as before.
Muffin arrived with over-grooming patches and even got to the point that I needed to put a soft collar on her. Once she felt safe, that stopped. She has ibd and our vet put her on steroids, so now her poo is close to normal and she's otherwise pretty healthy. Yes the high dose of steroids might shorten her life span, but it has greatly improved her quality of life, so I think that's a fair trade off!
Your tuxedo sounds lovely! We foster failed a kitten with some similar personality traits last year - she was meant to be very short term but I just fell for her, and still love her to pieces. She's also helping our other, more independent kitties, learn to get along. Most of them just tolerate eachother, but will let her get into their space, and very occasionally even share a lap!