Fostering Maple Syrup

I had really enjoyed being a foster mom for the Animal Welfare Association in my area over the course of the past year. I had specialized mostly in bottle feed kittens up until December of 2012. It was so rewarding watching them grow up, helping them to become the great kittens who would find great homes. Then came December of 2012 followed by 2013. It wasn’t an easy year for fostering.

There aren’t many kittens in December so I decided to take on a socialization case. Gabby was a 3 month old feral I fostered for 3 months before they told me they would have to place her on a farm. She wasn’t much of a survivor though as she was taken from her mom before she could learn to hunt and survive, so my mom decided to adopt her.

That sweet little feral was followed up with a bottle feed litter of three. I usually only have the bottle feed kittens with me for a maximum of two months. This litter was very different. There was one little girl I named Alanna who had a condition that caused her to shake all the time. Alanna had a really hard time gaining weight and it took a lot of struggle, tears, and prayers to finally get her weaned at three months old. Having seen her off to her new home and knowing how happy she was is one of the best feelings.

Then came the one this story is really about. The other four kittens during that year were lead ups to me deciding to foster little Maple Syrup. I had just had a hard struggle with my last bottle feed litter and after having failed my one socialization case when I saw a litter of four looking to be socialized I decided to take on one of them. Maple Syrup came to me at about two months old, terrified of everyone and everything, especially loud noises.

His back story: The shelter I was volunteering for, AWA, was in the process of renovating their facilities. They were building a new, larger building at the back of the property that would function as a wellness center and low cost clinic. The building was barely built at the time but there was lots of construction rubble laying around. One day when a volunteer was taking an adoption dog, Waffles, for a walk he kept insisting on making his way over to the rubble. She didn’t want to head over there at first but ended up going to see what Waffles wanted. Placed under some of the construction rubble was a box. Inside of the box were four tiny kittens, a mostly eaten pizza and a lot of filth. If they had been left out there for one more day they may not have survived. Waffles saved their lives.

They brought the kittens in, cleaned them up and provided medical care before looking for fosters to help socialize three of them. The fourth was too feral and fierce to go out to a foster home so they decided to socialize him in house. That call for fosters is where I came in to the picture. I got to socialize one of the three, Maple Syrup.

Maple Syrup was such a little cutey, just really, really scared. He spent the entire first day hiding under the bed in the foster room. In a lot of cases such as his I would spend most of my time doing work in the foster room so that he could get used to my presence. I decided to try bribing him even though that hadn’t worked with my first socialization case. It did work with little Maple Syrup. He wouldn’t come too close to me at first but he would peek out from under the bed to see where I was before sneaking out to grab a treat. The whole time I would just calmly talk to him in low tones. I eventually formed a mantra telling him, “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re loved. You’re a good boy.” Within about a week he had reached a point where he felt free to wander the room without hiding any longer. He still didn’t feel safe allowing me to touch him and if I made any movement lifting my hands, even just to brush my hair back, he would flinch away from me like I was about to hit him. It broke my heart to see him that way but I continued my mantra and staid calm for his sake.

It took another week after that before we had our first physical contact. I would rock gently in my mom’s old rocking chair watching TV or humming music. One day out of nowhere Maple Syrup jumped right up into my lap. He seemed just as surprised by it as I had been. He immediately jumped down while I told him, “Thank you for your visit.” And proceeded to repeat my mantra. Over the next couple weeks he would jump up in my lap for longer and longer periods of time until one day he laid down and took a nice long nap.

I, of course, couldn’t help myself and was supposed to be socializing Maple Syrup anyway, so one day I used one finger to just gently stroke the top of his head while he napped. He woke up and ran away but after softly repeating my mantra to him he slowly came back over. Each time he’d come up into my lap, which was multiple times per day, I would stroke him a little bit more. It didn’t even take an entire week before he would let me give him a good petting with lots of purring involved.

You would think at this point, one and half months in, Maple Syrup would have been socialized and ready to adopt out. The problem was that he didn’t seem to like other people. Whenever I would take him for his two week checkup at the shelter he would be terrified the entire time there. There was only one employee he actually seemed to like because she was gentle with him. Any time he heard a man’s voice he would end up cowering at the back of his carrier. On top of all that he had an almost constant eye infection that none of us could seem to get rid of no matter how long he was on eye drops.

This continued for another month and a half before I finally made the decision. Maple Syrup was happiest with me and so with me he should stay. The shelter didn’t fully agree with me on that. They thought he just needed more time to socialize. All of his siblings, including the truly feral one, had successfully been socialized and adopted out by that point in time. I knew Maple Syrup very well by then though and knew they didn’t know him as well. I was adopting him.

All we had to do from there was bring Maple Syrup in to be neutered and he could return to me the same day. It was lucky he could even get the surgery done. He was almost five months old, yet he hadn’t gained much weight and barely weighed two pounds. I was a little worried about the time apart, that he would feel like I was abandoning him in that noisy place. I was worried that he would be angry at me when he came back home. I was worried that he would back track in our progress and I would have to go back over all the techniques in establishing trust between us.

I had nothing to fear. It had soon become clear to the workers at the shelter that I had made the right choice in adopting little Maple Syrup. They typically insist on the animal having on a collar and tags before they leave the shelter. They had to attach his to the top of his cat carrier. He had been so upset while in the loud shelter that after his recovery and move back to his carrier he wouldn’t allow anyone near him. They decided it would be best if they didn’t try opening the cage and touching him. When I heard this I was even more worried that he thought I had abandoned him and that he would be angry with me. It didn’t help much that I had to have someone else pick him up from the shelter for me, but like I said, I had nothing to fear.

As soon as Maple Syrup came home, and he knew it was home, he immediately jumped in my lap purring and curled up for a nap. He was home with his mom and he was finally happy. After that point he seemed to realize that he wasn’t going anywhere. He only left the home once more that month to see my veterinarian, who decided that his eye infection was stress induced. She gave me eye drops and sent him home, where he flourished. He finally started gaining weight as a normal kitten should. His eye infection cleared up. He was perfectly comfortable around me and even my other adopted foster cat, Timmy.

It’s now been almost eight years later. Maple Syrup’s name is now Perrin. He is so very happy with his home that he hasn’t had an eye infection in years. He purrs all the time, has three cat beds and always feels free to express his emotions, even if it means standing on my chest at 2 am. He’s now willing to come out when I have visitors over and he adores my mom. The shelter considers him a ‘foster failure’. I refer him as my ‘foster success’.