- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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Donna Scott is a Lansing woman who has regularly fosters kittens for over three years. "What I'm doing helps the animals," she says. "They all get neutered and spayed. I can enjoy the kittens a lot while I have them, but then I take them back and they get good homes."
Donna Scott and some of her foster kittens
Ms. Scott is a retired food safety specialist. She started fostering kittens in her guest room, because it had a bathroom where they could be confined. She put up a baby gate so the mother cat could jump over and have more room to move about. But she soon realized the kittens could climb over the gate, a problem because carpeting and kittens who aren't altogether litter trained are a bad combination.
Kittens in the PenSo she had a kitten pen made in her basement. This luxurious space has an easily spongeable litter area, scratching post, a carpeted structure to climb on and a big window looking over lake Cayuga. With plenty of light and room to move around it provides the perfect place for young kittens to thrive, and keeps them separate from her own cats and dog.
Fostering helps keep kittens healthy, because shelter is crowded and there is less chance of their picking up a disease in a home. It also provides a quiet place for the mother to bring up her babies. When the kittens reach two pounds they're the right age for adoption.
Now that they are bigger they have the run of the basement, at least some of the time. This also gives the mother cat, who likes to sit high on a box, a break. Neighbor Eve Brown, a vet at Meadowridge Veterinary Hospital, volunteers her services if one of the foster cats gets sick. "It's nice of her, because I can call when I have some problem I don't think I can handle," says Ms. Scott. "Any time I have a problem with one of these critters, she'll come right over. So now and then I give her some wine or make a donation to something she likes."
The Tompkins County SPCA doesn't keep a lot of the kittens they get. They send the kittens to the North Shore Animal League on Long Island, where the long running spay and neuter program means they don't get as many kittens. They need more to satisfy demand. "Sending kittens there gives adult cats here a more of a chance to find a home," Ms. Scott notes.
The MomMs. Scott fosters cats through late Spring, all summer, and as late a Christmas. She says cats typically get pregnant in the Spring and Summer. "That's what we call kitten season. The SPCA is overwhelmed with kittens during the summer, so it's good to have foster homes to take them to. It gets them out of the shelter."
Some volunteers are specialists in cats with special needs. "Bob Sherwood does all kinds of fostering, not just kittens and moms," she explains. "He always makes space for cats that have socialization problems, or too scared to be in the shelter. Some of them are really freaked out when they come in, because they've been mistreated, or out on the street too long, or they're starving."
Ms. Scott also volunteers at Petsmart. The store provides space for SPCA adult cats. She brushes them, plays with them, and cleans their cages, giving a break to employees who take care of these animals. Her work also helps to socialize them. "They need to be held, and to get used to being brushed." In fact, she got her own cat from the SPCA at a Petsmart store in Brockport.
People ask her how she give cute kittens them back after caring for them. "Doing this allows me to enjoy these wonderful kittens and usually a nice mother cat, too. But I don't fill up my house with 25 cats. That's not healthy for the animals, and it's not good for you."
Ms. Scott had the current litter since they were a day old, and now it's time for them to leave. They went back to the SPCA Wednesday, and were scheduled to be taken to Long Island the next Tuesday. "The first day I take these kittens back I'm going to be sad and miss them. But I've done it a lot now, and I'm used to it. And other people could get used to it, too, if they wanted to do this."
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