Beans was indeed growing while eating on his own. Beans and Daisy’s intake date remained December 27th. Our foster kittens were almost ready to leave our home.
Meanwhile, the Christmas holiday approached. My five year old daughter, Nora, suddenly considered that Santa should bring gifts for Beans and Daisy! We always hang a stocking for Livie, which ends up full of toys and tasty treats on Christmas morning (Santa is apparently an animal lover!). Nora lovingly crafted two homemade stockings (picture lots of construction paper, glue, glitter, and staples!) for the kittens. Lo and behold, the stockings were full of Fancy Feast and kitten toys on Christmas morning!
Two days after Christmas, we packed up Beans and Daisy with heavy hearts, and headed to the shelter. Reminiscent of our other returns (Shadow and Midnight and then Morgan), I felt guilty and sullen about the process. How could they possibly understand this turn of events in their lives? How could they know how much they were loved through a couple scary, difficult days and so much change?
We now knew that Daisy would be going home with a kind, feline loving volunteer, who had assured us that she would send updates. But where would sweet, cuddly Beans end up? What if the timing (a few days after Christmas) was an impediment to his chances of a quick adoption? What if the stress made him revert back to undereating and he lost some weight? Would his new owners be as clueless as I was as his new foster?
As it turned out, I needn’t have worried as much as I did. Only one day after taking Beans and Daisy into the shelter for their spay/neuter surgeries, their names were on the Facebook post announcing their adoptions! Daisy had been adopted successfully by the volunteer who would adore her and Beans was adopted by a family with a son and daughter who would play with Beans to his heart’s content.
(Side note: I don’t always know much about the people who adopt our foster babies. The shelter requires an application and adoption interview, in which they ensure the potential adopters are prepared for the responsibility of owning a pet. I only know who the person is if the adoption is prearranged and/or if the person comments in the Facebook post that their new pet is home and loving life! In the case of Beans’ adopters, they posted with a quick update, for which I was soooo grateful!)
Missed a post? Follow along with the story of these two foster kittens with the following posts:
1) The break between fosters (bringing Beans and Daisy home)
2) Something is wrong with Beans (when we learn that Beans isn’t thriving)
3) So, syringe feeding is more difficult than I imagined (trying to syringe feed Beans to recovery!)
4) A very dog-like cat (in which Daisy steals our hearts)
Check out HSHV on Facebook for the latest adoption news!