My experience with fostering a cat
Whilst the pandemic had us all stuck at home for the majority of the time, I thought it’d be a great time to do some good and foster a cat in need. I unknowingly ended up with a very traumatised baby, with a lot of special needs so whilst this is going to be a very real, very raw account, I don’t want you to feel that every foster experience will be like mine. But, if you’re prepared for the worst, things can only be better!
Quick warning:
at the end of this post there will be some graphic images of her injuries. I will warn again before they are shown, but be mindful when scrolling to the bottom of the page.
This was my first foster experience and I was just expecting a cat that needed some human time before being homed, so I was not prepared for what was coming.
The good, the bad and the ugly
The good
She is super loving and appreciative. So affectionate. She loves sitting on your lap, will purr constantly, and even holds onto your hand with her little paws wrapped around it.
It’s so rewarding to see her heal physically.
It’s so rewarding to see her heal emotionally- all she has to do is some normal cat thing like chirp at a bird and I am crying with joy.
The bad
My own cat, Kinnie, is upset.
It’s heartbreaking to see her cower if you move too quickly.
Fostering during a pandemic has been hard. Needing extra equipment (medication, recovery cones etc) and not being able to grab a cab and get it.
The ugly
It’s soul destroying when she hurts herself, as she does at any opportunity.
Knowing I’ll have to hand her over at some point. She and Kinnie don’t get along and, even if they did, she triggers my allergies so badly that I feel like I’m dying a lot of the time.
The truth about introducing two cats
I watched so many Jackson Galaxy videos on introducing cats, read advice blogs and forums, had a whole plan set out and was certain that within a week or so my foster cat, Floss, would be best of friends with my cat, Kinnie. Kinnie has shown signs of separation anxiety so I had this idea that she would be super welcoming to a new furry friend and considered this fostering a first step towards getting her a playmate.
I. Was. Wrong.
I followed all the advice- I kept Floss in her own room, away from Kinnie. I would let them swap rooms periodically to get used to each others scent. I gradually moved their food bowls closer and closer to one another at feeding time. When they’d happily eat next to each other I tried to get them to spend some time in a room together and holy shit, neither of them was up for making friends. We’re now over a month in and there has been no change. I’m having to be a bit extra careful due to the fact that Floss is physically hurt so I’m not just putting them in a room together and hoping for the best. I don’t want Kinnie to accidentally hurt her more, or for Floss to lash out more violently than she usually would, due to being in pain.
But I don’t see any good end in sight for these two and it’s clear that they will never be friends and most likely not even reluctant room mates. Floss will have to stay in her own room and I won’t entertain the idea of getting Kinnie a friend again.
They growl, they hiss, they lash out. Kinnie is mad at me, ALL the time for being such a traitor and spending time with this intruder. It’s been horrible.
The story of an abandoned, abused cat
But it’s not the end of the world. Floss is very happy in my office. She has her food and a water fountain, she has lots of beds and blankets. She has a closet to hide in and a desk to climb up onto. But dealing with her has been tough.
My understanding is that she once lived in a home. She was clearly bottle fed and must have been loved as she is insanely cuddly and the definition of a lap cat. If a human is in the room, she sees nothing but them. All she wants is to be held and she can purr for HOURS. But somewhere along the line she was abandoned and ended up in a cage at Animal Welfare for, I don’t know how long. From there she ended up in a cage at a cat shelter.
A broken hearted cat
At some point after being abandoned, something in her mind, broke. She began obsessively over grooming to the point where vast sections of skin were hairless, raw and bleeding. She arrived to me with a huge wound on each back thigh, plus smaller wounds on her front leg, back leg and stomach. They had never scabbed or begun healing as she was constantly licking them with her sandpaper tongue just making them bigger and bigger.
So of course the first thing I did was attempt to get hold of a cone so she couldn’t do this to herself any more and to give the wounds a chance to begin healing. Easier said than done during a pandemic and when you can’t drive. I tried a number of different cones but with most of them she could still reach parts of her body. I ended up settling on an inflatable collar and a surgery recovery suit which kept her away from her wounds most of the time.
Obsessive grooming in cats
Quite quickly, her wounds began to heal, which is to say they looked worse and worse every day as they scabbed up, became thick, dry, crusty and filled with puss. Occasionally she managed to get the collar off, or would find a way to contort her body so she could reach and would rip the scabs off and I’d come in to find her covered in blood, puss everywhere.
But, even with the relapses, the wound were healing. Eventually the thick, ugly scabs fell off. Initially they looked even worse as whilst large parts of the skin underneath were healed, there were still raw, bloody spots, now without a protective scab. But I was pleased to see that, so long as she didn’t get to them, they scabbed over quite quickly, this time with much thinner, lighter scabs. Each time they’d scab, then fall off, more skin under would be healed.
She still gets to them every once in a while and when it happens my heart breaks. I want to scream at her but, judging by the way she cowers any time I move my hand too fast, she has been screamed at and hurt enough in her life. It’s clear she has known love as all she wants is to be loved, but she has also known heartbreak, abandonment and abuse. I spend as much time with her as possible, holding her, petting her, brushing her, but whenever she gets the chance she still goes straight for those wounds. I am hoping it’s because they are healing and irritating or itchy and that once they are totally gone, the impulse to hurt herself will be calmed with love and toys, but it’s hard to know for sure.
Dealing with a traumatised cat
I have done a lot of reading up on how to help cats stop obsessively grooming, but so far have not had much success. Most of the advice is around distracting her, giving her a good life, but I’m sorry to say that it’s not so easy. She loves toys and cat nip but they get her so overexcited that she begins trying to rip the cones off and, once the cones are off, she heads for the scabs again.
So for the longest time, I just focused on healing her body and then I’ll tackle healing her heart again. Until then I showered her with love and slightly, day by day, I’d see her do more cat things.
The cost of fostering
The cost so far has been pretty high. I’m of course happy to do this, I have a good job, savings and I usually donate here and there to cat shelters anyway, but it’s good to just be ready and know there could be more expenses than you initially thought. As she is so special needs we’ve had to buy:
prescription food, which can be expensive
multiple cones to prevent her biting
a surgical recovery suit
multiple vet visits
medication - multiple rounds of antibiotics, medicated shampoo, steroid injections, stitches
calming diffusers
flea treatment for both cats just in cas
plus things like a second litter tray, extra litter etc.
The true cost of fostering
But more than the monetary cost has been the emotional cost.
Affect of fostering on your own cats
Kinnie is not happy at all and has even been aggressive with me. She can get a bit riled up when you play with her anyway, but now she is lashing out with little to no warning, using claws when she wouldn’t usually, less cuddles and some growling and hissing. I’m trying to both give her space, so she doesn’t hurt me, but also show her that she is still loved and important. It’s a fine line and I don’t think she understands at all, but there are still early morning cuddles before she remembers how mad she is with me.
Lack of sleep
I haven’t been sleeping well, so neither has Arvid. Floss keeps us up at night scratching for attention and Kinnie keeps us up crying for no reason other than she’s annoyed. Both of these are getting much better but the first few weeks were awful. Floss would wake us up around 3AM so I’d go and sleep in the office with her, which meant sleeping on the cold, hard, tiled floor whilst she kept me awake with licking, nipping, sitting on my face, suckling on my neck. I am a little allergic to Kinnie but I am extra allergic to Flossy so I’ve been unable to breath, sneezing and coughing.
Feeling like a failure
But more than all of this combined, I’ve been beating myself up since the day she got here. Any time she cowers when I move, any time she cries to get out of the room, any time she doesn’t seem to be drinking, any time she has the shits, any time she doesn’t seem to be pooping enough, any time she rips her own skin open and looks at me with blood around her mouth, I blame myself. I feel like I haven’t done enough, haven’t known enough, haven’t loved her enough to make her better.
Arvid is doing a great job of trying to help me understand that I am doing everything I can and a lot more than many others would do. That it’s not my fault that she was already traumatised and not my fault that she isn’t cured. Just doing what I can for her has already made her life a hundred times happier than it was before, so I’m gradually learning to celebrate the wins rather than fall to the floor in tears with every set back.
Warning: graphic images
The best way to understand the journey I am going through with Floss is to really see what I was dealing with. Below, you will find some quite graphic images of the wounds she inflicted on herself and their progress. First image is a cute one so you are prepared!
You can see that there is some fur matting around some of the wounds. This is from where she is frequently twisting round to lick them. Luckily she mostly can’t reach the sore bits, but she does manage to matt the fur. I’m looking forward to the wounds healing, taking off this recovery suit, giving her a quick wash and seeing if she is able to groom herself normally, or goes straight back to obsessiveness.
Update: Flossy has a home!
I am so happy to update this post to let you know that after 3 months, Flossy is doing AMAZINGLY well and will soon head off to her new home! Her wounds are almost entirely healed- most are healed completely, with just the two biggest left, but they are so close!
I’m confident on the medication we have her on now. The vet believes the stress of abandonment triggered an auto-immune disease that makes her itch all over, causing her to over groom. So we have been giving her a steroid injection every 4 weeks to stop the itching and hopefully end the urge to create new wounds. I have an antibiotic cream to use on the last few remaining wounds and it’s making a huge difference. I can’t wait to get some updates once she is settled and happy in her new home!
