For students who dream of owning a pet but can’t commit to the full-time responsibility, fostering a pet may be the perfect solution.
As kitten season approaches, Greenhill Humane Society is seeking more people to foster kittens. Kristi Chizacky, the foster care manager at Greenhill, explained that kitten season generally happens between the months of April and November when a higher number of kittens are born.
Fostering requires taking a litter of kittens into your home and caring for them medically and socially. Prior to kitten season, fosters are needed to care for kittens that are found as strays or are not old enough to be at the shelter yet.
“Giving them the care and love that they need is what fosters are for,” Chizacky said.
The purpose of fostering kittens is to help them recover from illnesses and to get socialized before becoming someone’s pet.
Greenhill requires all fosters to be a minimum of 21 years old, to have landlord approval of pets if renting and for all other pets in the household to be vaccinated. These stipulations tend to make it difficult for the average college-aged student to be a foster.
Randi Golub, certified veterinarian technician at Cat Nurse on Call, believes that fostering requires a certain amount of maturity and dedication. For students who wish to have a pet or to foster but can’t, Golub recommends volunteering at a local shelter or rescue organization.
“At the shelter you can just sit there in the middle of the kitten room and have kittens run all over you,” Golub said. “It basically accomplishes the same thing, but it’s a much lower commitment on the students end.”
Kittens usually stay with fosters for 2-8 weeks and can return to the shelter once they are at least eight weeks old and weigh 1-2 pounds. Chizacky said that fostering allows kittens’ personalities to develop in a safe atmosphere.
“It is a great opportunity for students who cannot have a pet for a long period of time,” Chizacky said.
Although fostering a kitten may not be feasible for the average college student. Carly Smith, a graduate student at the UO, has been fostering kittens and cats for over two years.
Smith believes that with a love for animals, a pet-friendly housing arrangement and a lot of commitment, fostering could be a life-changing experience for a student.
She has two other cats and a Great Dane, so when she fosters kittens they tend to receive a lot of attention from other animals. It is easier to foster animals when you live with other people who are willing to help out, according to Smith.
“I think it could be a really cool thing for the right student to do,” Smith said. “It’s something I found really rewarding.”