I created a throwaway, since my identity is known to the foster organization and foster "parent" and they might be able to figure out who I am if I post on my regular account.
I live in a medium-sized city in the US. My last cat passed away from old age about a year ago, and I recently decided to adopt another. I owned my last cat for 10 years, almost my entire adult life, and I had cats growing up as well. However, I have no experience with fostering cats and no point of reference for what's considered normal or okay. I got my last cat at a shelter, and the cats I grew up with were former strays who showed up at the house and eventually decided to live with us. Never fostered any myself and never adopted a cat who'd been fostered.
I've been browsing adoptable cats on Petfinder and found a 6-year-old male I liked. According to his profile, he was placed in a foster home by a volunteer organization that works with a local no-kill shelter. Their foster volunteers pay for their own supplies and are not compensated in any way.
I contacted the organization about the cat (let's call him "Fluffy"). They seemed very serious about finding responsible owners - they contacted the vet who cared for my last cat as a reference, and they asked a lot of questions about children / other pets in the home, whether I would declaw the cat, whether my lease permitted cats, whether I had the financial ability to pay for veterinary care. My application was approved, and I went to meet Fluffy at his foster home.
The environment he was living in was not what I expected, given the screening this organization did before letting me adopt. One adult and 11 foster cats were living in the home, which was a small ranch-style house. It smelled strongly of urine and feces inside, and I saw dried up hairballs/vomit on the floor in several spots. Several of the cats appeared to be ill - not gravely, but they were sneezing and leaking mucus from their eyes and noses. Their foster parent explained that the cats had been "passing around" a flu-like illness all winter that was probably an upper respiratory infection. These cats had not been to a vet. I was concerned, because Fluffy tested FIV+ before he was placed, and this seemed like a risky situation for an immunocompromised cat. (Miraculously, Fluffy was one of the few who hadn't gotten sick yet.) The sick cats were not separated from the healthy cats.
I asked if Fluffy was used to clumping litter and if he'd used a covered litter box before. Foster parent "didn't think Fluffy had gone outside the box, but with so many cats it's hard to tell who pooped where." I asked what food Fluffy ate, and foster parent told me the brand but added "some of the cats are on a thyroid diet, and Fluffy sometimes eats from their bowls because they all have access to each other's food." This was worrying, since the y/d diet for treating hypothyroidism is only effective when a cat exclusively consumes the prescription food. There were a couple of very skinny cats around despite ample food around the house.
The foster parent and I had agreed by phone (at my request) that if I decided to adopt Fluffy, I would return to pick him up around a week later. I still needed to get food and a litter box and dig through storage boxes for toys and supplies I kept after my last cat passed, and I wanted to be sure the adoption would move forward before spending the time and money. After seeing the house, I scrapped that plan. I'd already put my old cat's carrier in the car, so I signed the papers on the spot, paid the fee, texted my boyfriend to meet me at home with litter and food, and got Fluffy the hell out of there.
I called my former vet on the drive home, and he agreed to squeeze Fluffy into his schedule that evening. His vaccinations were up to date and he didn't seem ill, but I wanted him checked out just in case. He seems to be in good health, but the vet pointed out several recent scratches and bite marks under Fluffy's fur, and Fluffy (who is white and brown) had some orange fur with a bit of blood on it stuck to one of his claws. The wounds were superficial but numerous. The bloody fur still being there made the vet suspect he'd been fighting or defending himself in the last day or so, because Fluffy was very clean and must have groomed himself regularly. I don't have other cats, so I'm not worried about Fluffy being aggressive with his peers, but I am concerned about what may have been going on in his foster home.
Is this kind of thing common in cat foster homes?
Now that Fluffy's settled, I feel like I need to do something to ensure the other 10 cats are alright. None of them appeared to be in immediate danger, but they're living in poor conditions. I think I should tell the foster organization what the house was like, but I'm not confident they'll take action given that they allowed this situation to happen in the first place. Does this also merit a report to animal control or a local humane society or anything like that?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/aoc9j6/concerned_about_a_fostering_situation_am_i/
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